What the heck is an Oropendola?!  A very large bird … raven sized that you might see in Costa Rica. In addition, my thanks to Janet, a faithful reader of this site who contacted me to point out I had my Oropendolas mixed up in my Bird Colony in the Sky post!  Given our 2nd winter storm in three days up here in northern Minnesota, its seemed a good time to correct my posts from “a warmer world”!

Here are the two types of Oropendolas

The real Chestnut-Headed Oropendola

My mis ID’d Montezuma Oropendola (now correct)

One thing that is fun about visiting Costa Rica is there are SO MANY bird species. It’s amazing I don’t make more mistakes. For instance … here are a lot of green birds, that look very similar. Their sizes are not too different, and the birds tend to use the same habitat. I actually saw all three of these parrots/parakeets within 100 yards of each other in the same Dry Creek Bed Habitat (read prior post about the habitat)

Orange-Chinned Parakeet

Orange-Fronted Parakeet

White-Fronted Amazon Parrot

One final aside, did you know you may actually find monk parakeets … flocks of escapees living as far north year round in the Chicago area? Uff Dah! Perhaps someday I will photograph a parakeet and Snowy Owl at the same time here on the Arctic Riviera? I think not.