"Spooning" Spoonbills: One of the Planet's Most Colorful Courtships

Cick on the individual pictures for a better look.


Houston Audubon Society Rookery
High Island, Texas
Upper Texas Coast (East)

Roseate Spoonbils, Snowy Egrets, Cormorants, and more all occupy these small islands during mating season. Alligators and turtles line the shores, the alligators hoping for to feed on a lovesick bird.

"Spooning Spoonbills" One of the Planet's Most Colorful Courtships

The Rookery is steadily recovering from Hurricane Ike! Yes!

Houston Audobon, High Island Rookery, Upper Texas Coast

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Just another (amazing) hummingbird

We look for inexpensive things to do while traveling, and we find wildlife watching to be priceless. Being former High School teachers, we also love books.

A major challenge for us on our recent return to Costa Rica was trying to use the field guide and identify hummingbirds. They are small, fast, tricky.

One way to get a chance for IDing them is to take digital pictures. Even then, there are so many and the sunlight affects there feather colors so much, remains a big challenge for us.

Click on the individual picture for a much better view, and please, if you know what kind it is, please let us know! :)






We look for inexpensive things to do while traveling, and we find wildlife watching to be priceless. Being former High School teachers, we also love books.

A major challenge for us on our recent return to Costa Rica was trying to identify hummingbirds. They are small, fast, tricky.

One way to get a chance for IDing them is to take digital pictures. Even then, there are so many and the sunlight affects there feather colors so much, remains a big challenge for us.

Barbets, Costa Rican Cousins of Birds of Africa

Femail has orange on head, male has scarlet

Tiniest Bird in Costa Rica

Tiny bird has big name: Selasphorus scintilla .
Because of the difficulties of entering Chirripo National Park, we chose instead to go this year to Cloudbridge Preserve. What an awesome place, with many waterfalls and beautiful plants, and hummingbirds!
What a gift life is!

Wow, look at the nice orange spot on his chest.


Hummingbird nest at Cloudbridge Preserve

Puerto Jiminez and the Golfo Dulce

Golfo Dulce, 'the Sweet Gulf' Once again we stayed at Cabinas Jiminez for the first few nights, and though the beautiful property cost more than we usually budget, the free kayaks and bikes and quick access to the water more than made up for it! Later we moved to a room that cost half that.

For more stories and pictures of Costa Rica, visit our pages at http://www.traveljournals.net/travelers/rmalone/journals/3615