Birds

This morning we headed out early at sun up to try to find Birds of Paradise in the forest.

Let's start with the fact that we are not birders. No practice spotting and not particularly great binoculars.  The Merlin app indicates it is hearing birds calling but says it can't id them in this location. My brother was birding in Costa Rica recently and had the same problem. Their guide suggested that the birds there might be speaking a different dialect with an accent! 

Add to that the fact that our guide speaks softly with questionable teeth, says vaguely "see that brown tree" looking into a forest of trees (does brown tree mean dead tree in the vernacular?) and - it took me a while to realize - gestures to the right when saying look left. Oh and the birds we did see were backlight by the rising sun. (Photos are not mine)

That said, we saw a female ribbon-tailed astrapia hoping around in a tree.

And a King-of-Saxony Bird of Paradise on the top "brown branch" of a very large green tree that was, I don't know, 3 maybe 10 miles away! But he sat there forever so I could find him and watch his silhouette long enough to see his long head feathers flipping around. Yeah!

We have Bunches of wood swallows on this property.

And two so far unidentified larger quail shaped birds.. Brown speckled bodies with orange on their heads. My Internet is awful and I simply have not been able to research what they might be. And my nearly poetic description is not ringing any bells with Stephen.