Orange and black caught my eye outside the door of our lodge.

It’s January. Baltimore, do you know where your orioles are?

Medium- to long-distance migrant. Baltimore Orioles spend summer and winter in entirely different ranges. From early April to late May, flocks arrive in eastern and central North America to breed from Louisiana through central Canada. They start to leave as early as July for wintering grounds in Florida, the Caribbean, Central America, and the northern tip of South America.

New bird! It’s called a Scarlet-rumped Tanager, for obvious reasons.

We walked the grounds of our lodge after a 3-and-half hour drive from Tamarindo on the coast up into the mountains. It was lush and beautiful. Then we had a delicious dinner, soaked in the thermal hot spring pools, and went to our lovely rooms.

This hummingbird knew I was there watching it. I had help on Facebook’s “What’s This Bird” identifying it as a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird.

The name makes sense.

The Rufous-tailed Hummingbird is a medium-sized hummingbird. It has a distinctly rufous-colored tail, from which its named is derived, and a bright pink bill. Like other hummingbirds, it feeds on nectar and small insects. It can be highly territorial over feeding areas. The Rufous-tailed Hummingbird is perhaps the most common species of hummingbird at forest edge and in gardens and cultivated areas from southern Mexico south to northwestern South America.

Preening.

Beautiful little bird.

Fan palm fruiting.

Tropical Kingbird rests on a rooftop.

An extremely common and widespread bird of the American tropics, the Tropical Kingbird barely reaches the United States in south Texas and southern Arizona.

More birds tomorrow, I’m sure!