Birds of Panama/Costa Rica

This day (12/21/2011) began with a Zodiac tour around a couple of small islands.  I signed up for the early tour which was touted as having good early morning light for photography but I found that in most cases there wasn't adequate light for trying to take photos of birds from a Zodiac bobbing around n the ocean.  I had considered taking both the early and later tours but by the time the early tour was done I had had enough of the sun and humidity and opted to have breakfast on the ship and cool down.

I'll begin with what I believe is a Brown booby, but I'm not ruling out that it could be a juvenile Blue-footed booby... both were in the area and the two species were intermingled and I'm not sure that all of the Blue-footed boobys (boobies?) had blue feet. 

 Next up, a Yellow-crowned Night heron...

 

This is a Bare-throated Tiger heron, one of the most beautiful birds we saw on the trip.  It gets its name from the patch of skin on its neck that is bare of feathers.  I was lamenting that I couldn't get better photos of it but I needn't have worried.  You'll see one or more spectacular photos of this bird in a future post.  This one managed to snag what appears to be a crab... 

  

This is a photo of a Bare-throated Tiger heron in flight...