Please join us for a Bird Walk this Sunday, April 20, at 7 am — we’ll meet at the Reception Building at OTS/Las Cruces/ Wilson Botanical Garden.
The weather is and has been amazingly beautiful for several weeks and we can’t believe our luck. Birds are in breeding plumage — some are feeding young — and butterflies are skittering along from one flower to the next in all their glory! In fact, bring your butterfly book, why not?
The Walk is free, open to the public and we have binoculars to lend.
Hope to see you there.
And no, despite this image we are not going to peer into birds’ nests, just watch them coming and going…….
On our last Bird Walk (Sunday, January 12) we were surprised and delighted to have seen a White-winged Tanager. These beautiful birds stay high in the canopy and are easy to miss, but this one was lower than usual and gave us a thrill.
Photo by Charlie Gomez
This Sunday (January 26), we will have another Bird Walk at the Wilson Botanical Garden/OTS Las Cruces Biological Research Station, at 7:00 am. As usual, we’ll meet at the Reception building and have binoculars to lend. Who knows what wonder awaits — this is why we go!
Dinner to Support the Arts
From natural beauty and art to created beauty and art, please make a reservation for a fundraising dinner at Cascata del Bosco on Saturday, January 25 to support the forthcoming Arts Fest Coto Brus 2025. Go to the website: http://www.artsfestcotobrus.com or use WhatsApp +1 (970) 759-9262 to reserve your dinner choice. In addition, music to dine by will be provided by Roger Madison — a wonderful evening is in store
And here is the White-winger Tanager again, from a different angle (because we just can’t get enough of this bird…..):
We look forward to a New Year with its accompanying opportunities, challenges, frights and gifts.
Thank you for your interest in the San Vito Bird Club and your support over the years. Our new motto is: Let’s Survive 2025!
Yesterday, we had a wonderful Bird Walk at the Las Cruces Biological Research Station’s Wilson Botanical Garden. Highlights included two Swallow-tailed Kites, South American migrants who return each year to nest; a brilliant Baltimore Oriole; a young, male Summer Tanager in transition plumage — from yellow to orange to red — and a Wedge-tailed Woodcreeper! (Considering we started in a damp, thick fog, things went our way in the end.)
Additionally, two outstanding members — Anna Bilberry and Terry Farling — brought baked goods to share at the Coffee Hour. Yum yum and thank you!
Please join us whenever and however you can.
P.S. We’ll update you shortly on our efforts to support travel for María Sandi and Alisson Vargas to Bird Banding Training in the Dominican Republic — life-changing for them and uplifting for us. We proudly work on this project with the Finca Cántaros Environmental Association.
Please join us this Sunday, November 3 at 7 am in the Wilson Botanical Garden at the Tropical Studies Las Cruces Biological Station.
We meet at the Reception Building and have binoculars to share.
On our last Bird Walk, we saw two of these beautiful birds and one of them was carrying nesting material. Let’s go look for a glimpse of one, sitting on the nest!
After walking for about an hour, we will have coffee and social time in the dining room. These Nature Walks are free and open to the public. Please bring your friends, neighbors and families.
Please join us for a Nature/Bird Walk this weekend at the beautiful Wilson Botanical Garden (also known as ‘Las Cruces’). We will meet at 7:00 am at the Reception Center and, as always, we’ll have binoculars to lend and a guide to lead.
The walk usually takes about an hour; after that we have a sociable Coffee Hour in the dining room. If you feel expansive, bring a few colones to leave for the kitchen ladies who have to wash our cups and saucers.
Common Tody-Flycatcher, photographer unknown.
It’s a fun way to spend the morning! We look forward to seeing you there!
Just a reminder, as promised, to join us tomorrow, Sunday, June 16 at 7:00 am at the Reception Building at OTS/Las Cruces/Wilson Botanical Garden.
If it is raining, we will wait a bit and if it looks promising, we’ll venture out. Birds pop out too, after the rain, to look for food — enhancing our chances of seeing them.
All San Vito Bird Club Bird Walks are free and open to the public. As usual, we will have binoculars to lend. The Walk is followed by a coffee social hour in the dining room.
Following in Co-President Greg Homer’s footsteps, we had three opportunities for members to show off their bird expertise at the recent Annual Meeting and I think we were all pleasantly surprised. All members were invited to participate in the Cornell eBird annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). The GBBC was one of the first online projects to collect information on wild birds and was also instrumental in the creation of eBird back in 2002. Our local winner was Anna Bilberry with 68 species!
Anna and her adorable dog, photo by Lydia Vogt
At the meeting, attendees participated in two challenging bird games: the Bird Call Contest required sharp hearing and quick recall as the vocalizations of 14 local birds were played, and answes had to be written down.
The second game of Bird Trivia required mostly general bird knowledge (members were warned before the meeting to bone-up on eBird facts), and ten questions separated the casual contestants from the eager.
In both of these games our members did very well, and Anna was again at the top, with Nancy Warshawer only a point behind! But one fairly new member exceeded the score of everyone — Rodney Briggs, of the Finca Cantaros Environmental Association (and Lilly’s dad). He has obviously spent the last two years doing more than planting trees.
Missing only one bird call (the tough Rufous-breasted Wren), he had a total on both games of 21 points.
Rodney Briggs, photo by Alison Olivieri
Congratulations to all the members who gave it a try — and especially to Anna and Rodney!
San Vito Bird Club 
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