So far in the first two months of 2016, with birding trips to Costa Rica, Florida, and Texas, I have photographed more than 60 distinct species of birds and I’ve seen more than 100 distinct species, many of them birds I’d never heard of, let alone seen. With so many trips so close together, I’m still reviewing photos from all of my trips and I keep finding gems I overlooked. This bird, in particular, the bay-headed tanager, has gem colored feathers, even when they’re wet.
The bay-headed tanager is a small, brightly colored bird that was drawn to the bromeliad pools at Luna Lodge in Costa Rica. Of course, the flash with Better Beamer helped to enhance these gemlike bright colors. In the first shot, the bird is waiting to jump in for a bath. I particularly like the shadow the bird casts through the thick bromeliad leaf from the sunlight overhead. I cropped the shot to 8X10. In the last two shots, the bird’s feathers are wet from bathing and look a bit different from the dry feathers in the first shot, but are still quite distinctive. I also changed the image area in the last two shots to high speed crop (DX mode) to bring the bird a bit closer so it filled the frame.
What a gorgeous bird!!!!