PeterHG's Big Year-4th time

[PeterHG]

The snow is covering the meadows here at the moment (though certainly not in Austrian quantities), so I decided to try for some geese to be added to the total. By far the most common one is the Greylag Goose breeding pairs of up to 100.000 and a wintering population, five times as much.

 

39. Greylag Goose. Arkemheen. 24 January.

 

 

The fact that the birds are light from below by the reflection of the snow always gives flight shots a special atmosphere, I think.

 

[PeterHG]

40. Canada Goose. Arkemheen, 24 January. A very successful introduced species, which can be seen throughout the country.

 

[PeterHG]

41. Greater White-fronted Goose. Arkemheen, 24 January. Our most numerous winter visitor, descending on our grasslands from northern Russia.

 

 

[PeterHG]

And a few other ones I came across, already in the count.

 

Common Buzzard. Well, almost a Rough-legged one, but not quite....;)

 

 

Grey Heron. 

 

Common Kestrel

 

And Smew, both males and females

 

All in all a satisfying little trip. Probably the last one for now as we will be flying to Costa Rica next Sunday. I don't expect too much snow over there.....

 

[xelas]

No snow in Costa Rica, Peter, but up in the Cordillera nighttime temperatures can easily drop down toward zero Celsius.

[Zim Girl]

Have a great time in Costa Rica @PeterHG

[TonyQ]

Have a great time in Costa Rica- I look forward to many fine additions to your Big Year

[Galana]

Have a great trip to Costa Rica. Come back safe with a bumper crop of photos for us who stay at home.

[Peter Connan]

Have a wonderful trip to South America!

[xelas]

21 minutes ago, Peter Connan said:

Have a wonderful trip to South America!

 

Central America, Peter! I will show you on map, in 3 weeks time , with a bar of Gorenjka chocolate . BTW what is holding you back with BY?! No birds are around in South Africa??

[Kitsafari]

What a brilliant shot of the owl.

 

have a great trip to costa rica!

[michael-ibk]

I'm sure you will have a great time in Costa Rica Peter, I'm looking forward to your additions from there. Enjoy! 

[PeterHG]

Thanks @xelas, @Zim Girl, @TonyQ, @Galana, @Peter Connan, @Kitsafari! We are really looking forward to our trip.

In the meantime my external photo HD with some 55000 photos  has crashed, probably due to a short power cut. I had only bought the HD a month ago. Fortunately I do have a complete backup online, so I'm now in the process of restoring the files to a new HD. A reminder to myself and to all my ST fellow-photographers: make a backup!

[PeterHG]

Thanks, @michael-ibk! 

[Kitsafari]

What a scary moment when the HD crashed @PeterHG ! You had the foresight to keep a backup ! 

[Peter Connan]

Indeed. Later today I will be getting back the contents of two crashed drives...

[Peter Connan]

14 hours ago, xelas said:

 

Central America, Peter! I will show you on map, in 3 weeks time , with a bar of Gorenjka chocolate . BTW what is holding you back with BY?! No birds are around in South Africa??

I know this is not true, but from here even Mexico feels like South America...

 

I am collecting, but this will be a lazy year for me...

[lmSA84]

Have a great time in Costa Rica - great start to the year!

[Dave Williams]

Quality additions Peter. Hope you have a great trip to C.R.

[PeterHG]

Well, time to start adding some Costa Rica additions. We returned last Monday, after a very relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable trip. Weather good to excellent for most days, beautiful locations and some 275 species of birds (not all photographed of course). I'll post them chronologically, by location. Otherwise I would have to wait till I've worked my way through thousands of shots and that will be a long process. Especially since shoulder problems prevent me from spending too much time with the computer.

Our first location was the Selva Verde Lodge in Sarapiqui.

42 and 43: Snowy Egret and Little Blue Egret. Sarapiqui, January. Both seen regularly in various locations. The Snowy Egret may be confused with the juveline Little Blue heron, but the legs with yellow feet definitely point to Snowy.

 

[PeterHG]

44. Baltimore Oriole. Sarapiqui, January. A very common migrant and seen in most of the locations we went to. A lifer for me, though.

[PeterHG]

45. Passerini's Tanager. Sarapiqui, January. Spectacular-looking black and red bird. Later, on the Pacific side, we met its counterpart: the Cherrie's Tanager

 

 

Edited March 2, 2019 by PeterHG

[PeterHG]

46. Summer Tanager. Sarapiqui, January. Another striking bird, a fairly common migrant. The female is yellow, I'll try and show her further on. This was taken near the feeders, close to the restaurant. A good spot to observe a variety of species, though photography was sometime tricky as the feeders were in a shaded part of the forest. This one required iso 4000, but sometimes I'd have to go op to 64000. A well-known phenomenon for all those who have gone birding in the rainforests of Costa Rica or any other country. In spite of the smaller sensor, the Olympus didn't do badly at all, though

 

[Galana]

I hope I am not interrupting the uploads but it has been an hour.

Just to say how much I like the start of the current offerings and  the promise of more to come..

[PeterHG]

47. Blue-and-grey Tanager. Sarapiqui, January. Another bird that was seen on almost all locations.