Costa Rica – A Friends Birding Adventure
By Jon Morrison
We just returned from the first Friends of the Bosque birding trip to Costa Rica. Thirteen people from California, Arkansas, Texas and New Mexico made up the group. We had no ideal what to expect and needless to say we were all blown away at the beauty and diversity we found. Costa Rica is a small country, the size of West Virginia, but it has more bird species recorded (877) than are found in Sibley’s Guide to Birds that includes all of North America, north of Mexico, excluding Greenland (810). How can such a small country have so many? It’s all about geography and habitat. Costa Rica is wedged between the North American and South American continents and even though it has lost more than 80% of its rain forest, it still has large areas of tropical rainforest, cloud rainforest, mangrove swamps and everything in between.
When we arrived in Costa Rica at our hotel, the Hotel Bougainvillea, as Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz, “Toto , I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore”. There were Blue-crowned Mot-Mots, Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, Blue-gray tanagers, Pacific Screech owls for starter, plus a few of our friends, Northern Orioles, Black and Turkey Vultures, Inca Doves and more. Our guide Mario Cordova and intrepid driver Luis pick us up and we were all on the adventure of a life time.
After breakfast, we left for Costa de Pajaros and stopped in Orotina to look for birds in the city park. I don’t know about you, but when I go to a city park, I see House Sparrow, grackles and pigeons and in the spring a few warblers. In Orotina, we saw Turquoise Browed Mot-Mots, Rose throated Becards, Black and White Owls and a Two-toed tree Sloth thrown in for good measure. Our first two night out were at La Ensenada Lodge a 865 acre private wildlife refuge on the Gulf of Nicoya. We were greeted by Grooved Billed Ani (they were everywhere), White Throated Magpie Jays, Spot Breasted and Streaked Back Orioles, Rose Throated Becards, Turquoise Browed Mot-Mots, Orange Chinned and Orange Fronted Parakeets, Black throated Trogons and more. Every were you looked seemed to undercover a new bird. The accommodations were very nice and the food at the restaurant, served buffet style was excellent. We also got to experience Costa Rica’s national liquor, Guaro, made from which is made from sugar cane. One of our group said it tasted like Everclear. Breakfast brought Gallo Pinto, rice and black beans, which in many households in Costa Rica is eaten at all three meals during the day. We were also exposed to Salsa Lizano, created in 1920 and now the National salsa of Costa Rica, it is put into just about everything.
The next morning we took a boat trip toward Palo Verde National Park in the Rio Tempisque lowlands an area that includes deciduous, riparian and evergreen forest, mangrove swamps and fresh and saltwater marshes. A few of the nearly 50 species of birds we saw on the three hour boat trip were, Yellow Headed Caracara, Mangrove Black Hawk, Mangrove Warbler sub specie of the Yellow Warbler) and the Panama Flycatcher. There were at least fifteen different species of shorebirds. In the afternoon, we took a tractor tour of the refuge and saw a Zone Tailed Hawk, Plumbeous Kite, Lesser Night Hawk, Wood Stocks, Northern Jacana, Bare throated Tiger Heron, Laughing Falcon and Hook Billed Kite. This is just a taste of what we saw that afternoon. The birding at the lodge was incredible. You should have been there.
Onto Arenal Observatory Lodge. Arenal is an active volcano and the lodge is 1.7 miles from the cone. All night you would hear what seemed to be thunder, but it was Arenal throwing out molten boulders the size of small houses crashing down the size of the cone. The birding again was incredible. Created Guans, Cinnamon-tailed Hummingbirds, Black Crested Croquettes (a hummingbird having with a bad hair day) and Long Billed Hermits. In the morning the trees were just full of different types of birds, making it hard for everyone to see them all. We found more than forty species in less than a day. You should have been there.
Next stop was Selva Verde Lodge in the tropical rainforest. There were more types of tanagers (Blue Gray, Palm, Passerini’s and summer to mention a few) and hummingbirds than I thought possible, Chestnut-billed and Keel-billed Toucans and Montezuma Oropendolas. Parrots, Bananaquits, several types of wood creepers and Euphonia’s. We also saw several types Poison Dart Frogs, River Otters, Caimans, and Proboscis Bats. You should have been there.
Then on to our quest for the bird most associated with Costa Rica, the Resplendent Quetzal. We traveled to the cloud forest and stopped at Mirador de Quetzal for lunch. We hiked about a mile which included a steep hill and found our quarry. Pictures do not do this bird justice. The bird was sacred to the ancient Maya and Aztec people and royalty and priests wore its feathers during ceremonies. Seeing the bird you realize why. You should have been there.
Our final stay was at Savegre Lodge in the Cloud Rain Forest. It was 46° in the morning and only warmed up into the mid to upper 50°s during the day. We were 10 degrees from the equator and cold! Ah, but the birding was incredible! Quetzals, Costa Rican Pygmy Owls, Black-thighed Grosbeaks, Yellow-thighed Finch plus many species of hummingbirds were to be found at the lodge. You should have been there.
We went to many more places and saw more than 300 species of birds in seven days of birding. We also had a digital photography workshop, a cooking class and horse back ride for those interested. Next year, we are going back for fourteen days, visiting the south Pacific area and then back to the Cloud Forests. The trip is a fund raiser (and tax deduction) for the Friends of the Bosque and a non-profit that the group chooses from Costa Rica. The trip will be in mid March. As soon as it is finalized, it will be put on the Friends website and be in the next Bosque Watch. The trip will be limited to sixteen. For pictures from the trip check out Jerry Oldenettel’s site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jroldenettel.