COSTA RICA: Resplendent Quetzal

Resplendent Quetzal Costa Rica

I believe the sounds of M.’s cooking quiet anxiety and even attract Resplendent Quetzals to her patio.  From her simple home perched on the edge of the wild Rio Savegre Valley she offers ‘Comida Tipica, a bright smile and patience to our group. We wait. We’ve already been here once today, enjoying a rainbow of bird color presented by other species. The quetzal’s chief competitor to date is the day-glow Flame-colored Tanager. Now at day’s end we return. We are tired, and hungry. We smell beans and rice cooking, chicken sautéing and being spiced. Where IS this bird? M. has greeted us as we drive in with a sigh, saying “he was here from 1:00pm to just about five minutes ago….” Its ten minutes to five, good light has gone. We wait. Only Nancy, a veteran watcher, honed to patience waiting to view Yellowstone’s sometimes elusive wolves, stays optimistic. Jackpot! HE flies in, a male ready for breeding, sporting long decorative plumes atop his tail. We witness at first the elegant view of his back, feathers well in order as he lands in a tree down slope. Then with startling agility he leaps – onto a perch just shy of M’s wild avocado tree. My camera captures a rather disheveled creature, wanting only one more morsel of rich succulent fruit before roosting. Like a movie-star caught back stage, we share an intimate glimpse into the real quetzal in which function trumps elegance. It is an intimate moment and once witnessed, we leave feeling comfortable and knowing this icon of Central America’s cloud forest must eat, just like the rest of us. Want to read on? Here is last year’s Trip Report. This year’s report – coming soon! http://www.naturalistjourneys.com/pdfs/07FinalreportCR_pix.pdf

Resplendent Quetzal Costa Rica

Yellowstone Trumpeter Swans

Trumpeter Swans w/cygnet - HOPE

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Subzero temperatures broke as we descended off the Yellowstone Plateau, heading to the Bozeman airport after a great week of watching wolves in Lamar Valley. At a spring-fed pond near Livingston I was thrilled to spot four pair of Trumpeter Swans, one with a lone large, but tell-tale gray cygnet. We pulled over to watch them from a safe distance as they seemed a bit wary. The adults with the cygnet were vocal and I smiled as I heard their name-sake calls ring out in the clear cold air. Their calls seemed to lift towards the lofty peaks of the Absaroka Mountains that frame the east side of Paradise Valley. This wild haunting sound lifted my spirits as well. With so much cold weather, we had seen few swans this week. In winter, Yellowstone typically has three times as many Trumpeter Swans on its waters than in it holds in summer. At this time, birds that breed in Western Canada join the small core of Rocky Mountain Trumpeters that reside here year-round. Members of these two populations intermingle in places like this open water pond, nestled along side the largely-frozen Yellowstone River. I could not be sure if these cygnets had made the long migration with others of Western Canadian origin or if they might be some of the few survivors of challenging conditions that led to record-low reproduction in the Tri-State region surrounding Yellowstone this past summer. Recent reports from friend Ruth Shea, Director-At-Large of The Trumpeter Swan Society, have me concerned about the future of this signature bird of Yellowstone. Just a few days ago Ruth discussed this past year’s dismal statistics. Swan surveys in September of 2008 revealed the entire U.S. segment of the Rocky Mountain population has declined to less than 500 Trumpeters. Of these, 385 adults and 49 cygnets were tallied in Greater Yellowstone, by all measures still the core of this population. I could hope that these were progeny of the pair that typically inhabits this pond. I made a mental note to check with Ruth, or check this area’s status on the Trumpeter Swan’s Society’s website (www.trumpeterswansociety.org). For the moment I just took in the beauty of elegant swans– a few with young — against mountains, blue sky and all things wild. Yellowstone’s Trumpeters can use our help. Why not join the Trumpeter Swan Society and give them a lift today!

Trumpeter Swan w/ cygnet – HOPE!

Yellowstone Wolves

Gray Wolf near Undine Falls Yellowstone NP

Unit 50 was my radio call today, active atop South Butte on Yellowstone’s Northern Range. We’d climbed (slogged?) up a steep slope to watch eight members of the newly formed Blacktail pack sleep. Full bellied, one or two graced us with some action, getting up to turn around and bed again. Hot soup called in Mammoth, a half hour or so away after our slip-sliding descent. Close to 3:00 PM and heading home we spied a group of elk, close to the road, bunched up and alert, facing… a wolf – a robust gray trotting along. Amazingly it paralleled our course along the road for close to a mile, threading in and out of dark-barked Douglas Fir and yellow aging grass. It was young with sharp clean teeth, its movements seemed effortless. We caught some quick grab shots out the window with hopes the team of wolf watchers might shed light on its identity. Canyon Pack, a vagrant interloper? January begins the mating cycle and wolves are on the prowl. How happy we were to witness, so closely, this fine individual!