Up With the Sun

Each Day a Treasure                           13 October 2013

Dawn, Crex Meadows State Wildlife Area, Sandhill Cranes in flight...

Time passes.  We are mere passengers and witnesses to its passing.   Sometimes it rips by relentlessly and ruthlessly with no hope for stopping it.  Runaway Train.  Sometimes it flows slowly, mercifully, allowing the moments to sink in, allowing us great repose.  We become authors of our lives, writing our stories but revising as time dictates.  Time passes in so many ways as life moves along in lurches.  This morning, in the rising sun, my own time stood still.

Sunrise Sandhill Crane flights, North end of the Refuge

We are humans, gifted with thought and creativity, gifted in crafting our futures.  The human memory is a powerful force, helping us to predict, with at least some certainty, the future.  It is in our predictive powers that we meld our past, present and future, authoring the deeper details of our lives.  We are very capable of making avenues toward "repeats."  As we gather more and more memory in life, we become capable of revisiting annual events, chasing the seasons, improving upon what we have done before.  

Trumpeter Swans and Sanhill Cranes

Trumpeter Swans

Sandhill Cranes, family group in flight.  Wisconsin Sandhill Cranes have made a tremendous recovery and are becoming a common sight.  Adults teach the young the migratory routes, and family groups are close-knit. Like people, families of Sandhill Cranes pass on a rich culture of learning. 

We become capable of imagining a better opportunity, hypothesizing about the missing details.  For those of us living as closely to nature as we can in this day and age, our predictive powers bring us to the same haunts year after year, chasing the same natural phenology, making opportunities and arriving at temporal intersections that we have come to understand.  We hunt the patterns, and, as we learn from our mistakes, we adjust and improve.   Our greatest power comes in the form of synthesis as we learn to incorporate smaller pieces of new knowledge into our older sets of knowledge, thriving in surprising and new scenarios.

American Bittern, protective "freeze" pose 

American Bittern hunting...

In this way, I celebrate my aging mind and body.  With more memories, I feel wiser.  Simply said, I know how to find things now, how to create my opportunities.  Everything in life is an experience. Every day is a treasure to be invested and to be used again as a memory.  Every day is a treasure that builds possibilities for the future.  Every day, lived in the moment, is a treasure.

White-breasted Nuthatch and Autumn colors

Yellow-rumped Warbler, Autumn female preening

Eastern Tiger Salamander

These memories were made on October 13, 2013 at Crex Meadows State Wildlife Area.  All images were made with a refurbished Canon 7D (now in my possession for nearly a year and surviving much), and a Canon 300mm f4 L IS lens.   The bittern was completely unexpected and provided an unusual opportunity! As I chased the new season with my past experiences, I learned many new things!

Time Flies Like a Hummingbird! Pura Vida! Costa Rica Part IV

Let the Images Speak                                    15 July 2013

Savegre Reserve, cloud forest and river

Magnificent Hummingbird, Savegre Reserve

Savegre Reserve, thoughtful moment on the river

Cloud Forest, Savegre Reserve

Endemic Yellow-winged Vireos, Savegre Reserve

Stripe-tailed Hummingbird, Savegre Reserve

Scintillant Hummingbird, Savegre Reserve

Green Violet-Ear hummingbirds contesting a perch

Magnificent Hummingbird, Savegre Reserve

Violet Saberwing hummingbird, middle elevation cloud forests

Green-crowned Brilliant hummingbird, middle elevation cloud forests

Green Violet-ear, Savegre Reserve

Resplendent Quetzal, Savegre Reserve

Green-crowned Brilliant

Green-crowned Brilliant, detail

Green Violet-ear, Savegre Reserve

Slaty Flowerpiercer

Magnificent Hummingbird, Savegre Reserve

Magnificent Hummingbird and lichens, Savegre Reserve

Rufous-collared Sparrow and Green-crowned Brilliant

Boat-billed Heron, early morning, Pacific Coast, Hacienda Baru

Sunrise with a strangler fig, Pacific Coast, Hacienda Baru

All images were photographed on the same day, July 15, 2013.  We awoke at Hacienda Baru and turned in for the evening at Savegre Reserve, Spa and Hotel.   Many of the bird images were made as I saw and experienced the species for my first time!  Pura Vida!  

Pura Vida Costa Rica, Part III: Savegre Mountain Hotel, Preserve and Spa

Cloud Forest Birding Paradise                                                                       16 July 2013 

Magnificent Hummingbird, Savegre Reserve

As I kid, I had always dreamed of birding in tropical Central American cloud forests.  These forests hold the riches in iridescent birds, and I had often heard of tremendous mountain abundance and diversity of tanagers and hummingbirds.  Despite all I had heard and read, I hadn’t been expecting so very much abundance and diversity.  I was bowled over when we reached the expansive forest preserves of Savegre.   These forests exceeded my wildest dreams of avian richness. 

 

Sooty-capped Bush-Tanager

Slaty Flowerpiercer

Flame-throated Warbler

Tufted Flycatcher

Elegant Euphonia

Band-tailed Pigeon

The Chacon family has invested a tremendous amount into creating a vast and sustainable eco-lodge, preserving large stands of contiguous cloud forest, and Marino Chacon is as expert in his ornithology as he is passionate about sharing the beauty of birds.   A word of advice to you—If you go to Costa Rica, spend a few days at the Savegre Mountain Hotel and Preserve, and be sure to request the company of Marino. 

Resplendent Quetzal, female with Avacado

Resplendent Quetzal, male

Emerald Toucanet

There is something strangely familiar to me in tropical forests.  Though I have spent so little of my life there, a part of me always feels immediately at home when surrounded by the bromilliads, mosses, and lianas.  

An epiphytic flower

Acorn Woodpecker

This is where most of Wisconsin’s bird life spends more than half of each year.   When I am in this part of the world, I am able to check the background stories on familiar Wisconsin species as I study their long-lost ancestors.   Subtle behaviors of familiar birds are suddenly revealed in great depth as I watch so many of their tropical kin in action--warblers, tanagers, finches, and hummingbirds.  

Collared Redstart, the “Amigo de Hombre” or “Friend of Man”

Hummingbirds are tenacious, often aggressive members of our summertime temperate bird communities.  In Wisconsin, we have just one species—the Ruby-throated Hummingbird.  Ruby-throats show up on my bird surveys, almost always with a series of scolding notes.  I always assumed detection of this species was lucky happenstance, but a trip to Costa Rica reveals otherwise.  Hummingbirds make a living showing up to scold danger first, ahead of the tropical crowd.  On so many hikes, hummingbirds of many species went out of their way to fly in and give a good scolding.  I now realize that a hummingbird in Wisconsin will always show up to defend an investment.  The data that rolls in isn’t luck but a product of hummingbird nature.  This kind of subtle insight into the lives of Wisconsin’s tropical birds is amplified with so many more tropical examples of a phylogenic group.  I am sure you have experienced this when meeting a sibling of a friend for the first time, that moment where you see a behavior, an expression of genetic continuity, and you say, “Ah HA!  Now I get it! I understand you now.”

Magnificent Hummingbird

White-throated Mountain Gem, female

Green Violet-Ear

Recently, jaguars have been found in the forests of the Savegre preserve.  Resplendent Quetzals are common, and many Costa Rican mountain endemics are seen daily.   Clouds push unexpectedly into the valley, filling the forests and valleys with mist and life-giving rain.  Comfortable lodging, cool mountain air, and the constant and soothing sound of rushing water, of pure mountain rivers, make this birding paradise feel like home.  Marino Chacon quickly found his way into our hearts.  If home is where the heart is, I guess we have another home! All images were made using a refurbished Canon 7D and a Canon 300mm f4L IS lens.   

A Costa Rican hemiptera species