Birds Watching

Roosters crow in the distance while it’s still dark. Each day we rise early in the morning, just before daylight to watch the sun rise over the far-off mountains. The weather has changed dramatically in the past several days. No more torrential downpours. Our mosquito bites are few and far between. The air seems clearer and the clouds that drift in on us in the late afternoons bring only cool breezes and no more rain. As the day breaks the sun shoots long colorful streaks as back-lights behind the clouds that rest on the mountains. The Talamanca range is tinted pale pink, then soft tangerine then the streaks of orange as the sun rises higher. When the sun finally blazes over the rugged horizon the far-away mountains return to their normal shades of dark blue.

Pecos and I bring our chairs to the front porch and sip coffee. Our camera and wildlife book is ever ready. Pecos comments that never, ever in his former wild-living New York days did he ever consider being interested in birds - let alone becoming an active bird-watcher. He seems slightly embarrassed but says it is cool.

Birds had been pecking at the huge bunch of bananas hanging from our front porch. We covered the bunch with a bag. Pecos took a few bananas, peeled them down and placed them on a high horizontal post in front of the porch. Rainbows of birds sweep in to peck at the fruit and dance and jump along the post as they wait their turns. We’ve identified yellow-streaked warblers, purple hummingbirds, orange Baltimore orioles and tanagers in every popsicle color imaginable. These birds let us come close and Pecos hatches a plan to eventually feed the tanagers from his hand. A huge white heron sits like an ornament at the very top of a rounded tree on the pasture hillside nearby and observes our antics. A pitch-black squirrel with a huge bushy tail peers at us from a branch. Chicken-like brown guans run on the ground at the edge of the forest. We look at the birds and are studied in return. 