Tag Archives: Birds
Nature: The Hummingbird Effect In Costa Rica (PBS)
Costa Rica’s motto is Pura Vida – Pure Life – and this deceptively small country is bursting with some of the most spectacular wildlife and pristine ecosystems in the world. All this diversity thrives, in part, thanks to one surprising little creature: hummingbirds.
Venture across Costa Rica’s wild and rugged landscapes, from volcanic peaks to coastal jungle to misty cloud forests, and discover the nation’s dazzling diversity of hummingbirds. There are more than 50 species of hummingbirds here, and they play an outsize role in maintaining some of the richest and wildest environments on Earth.
The Hummingbird Effect premiered on April 12, 2023.
Costa Rica Views: The Tiny ‘Volcano Hummingbird’
The volcano hummingbird (Selasphorus flammula ) is a very small hummingbird, native to the Talamancan montane forests of Costa Rica and western Panama.
This tiny endemic bird inhabits open brushy areas, paramo, and edges of elfin forest at altitudes from 1850 m to the highest peaks. It is only 7.5 cm long. The male weighs 2.5 g and the female 2.8 g. The black bill is short and straight.
The adult male volcano hummingbird has bronze-green upperparts and rufous-edged black outer tail feathers. The throat is grey-purple in the Talamanca range, red in the Poas-Barva mountains and pink-purple in the Irazú-Turrialba area, the rest of the underparts being white. The female is similar, but her throat is white with dusky spots. Young birds resemble the female but have buff fringes to the upperpart plumage.
The female volcano hummingbird is entirely responsible for nest building and incubation. She lays two white eggs in her tiny plant-down cup nest 1–5 m high in a scrub or on a root below a south or east facing bank. Incubation takes 15–19 days, and fledging another 20–26.
Nature In The City: The ‘Herons Of Amsterdam’
The grey heron (Ardea cinerea ) is a long-legged wading bird of the heron family, Ardeidae, native throughout temperate Europe and Asia and also parts of Africa. It is resident in much of its range, but some populations from the more northern parts migrate southwards in autumn. A bird of wetland areas, it can be seen around lakes, rivers, ponds, marshes and on the sea coast. It feeds mostly on aquatic creatures which it catches after standing stationary beside or in the water or stalking its prey through the shallows.
Nature: Hummingbirds In Argentina And Brazil (BBC)
In the Atlantic Rainforest of Argentina and Brazil, hummingbirds gather around flowers in a spectacular dance.
Previews: BBC Wildlife Magazine – January 2023
BBC Wildlife Magazine – January 2023 issue:
- Celebrating 60 years of BBC Wildlife with a round-up of 60 favourite wildlife hotspots
- Elephant-friendly farming
- Stunning Siberian jay photos
- One man’s mission to save seagrass in Ibiza
- Gillian Burke on watching seals from a safe distance
- Mike Dilger on the challenge of seeing wild boar this winter
- Mark Carwardine on the future of the Amazon
Winners: The 2022 Nature Photographer Of The Year
Nature Photographer of the Year is a Nature Photography contest that celebrates the beauty of nature photography.
A group of polar bears exploring an abandoned Soviet village in the Arctic has won Nature Photographer of the Year 2022.
Sascha Fonseca won the Mammals category with a fabulous photo of the endangered snow leopard.
Nature In Ohio: Turkeys In Swan Creek Metropark
Ohio’s largest gamebird can be viewed almost everywhere, nowadays – woodlands, prairies and even areas of suburbia. Seen and heard in just about in every Metropark and sometimes frequenting the Windows on Wildlife at Wildwood and Swan Creek Preserve in the city, a wild turkey could soon be visiting a backyard feeding station near you.
Nature: Darling Wildlife Refuge On Sanibel Island
“Sunday Morning” takes us to Florida’s Sanibel Island, in calmer times, at the J.N. “Ding” Darling Wildlife Refuge. Videographer: Charles Schultz.
J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, on the subtropical barrier island of Sanibel, is part of the largest undeveloped mangrove ecosystem in the United States. President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order creating the Sanibel National Wildlife Refuge in 1945 for the purpose of and in 1967 was renamed in honor of Jay Norwood Darling. It is world famous for spectacular migratory bird populations.
Wildlife Photography: Jocelyn Anderson & “The Beautiful World Of Birds”
Boomers Daily 