Aug
7
After several visits to Costa Rica since 1992, I finally moved here. I am recently married to a Tica I have known since 1994. Any day now, we will have our first daughter! Although It will be her decision, I will try my best to raise a kung-fu practicing birder like myself.
This is me in my Mother in Laws backyard. Not too many bird species here but incredible orchids and other plants.
Tags: About the author
August 7th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
HEY PATRICK!!!
love the website!!!!!!!!!
congratulations, and keep us updated for the new arrival (so awesome)
abrazos i cuidate
aleyda
August 7th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Pat,
This is great! Congrats! I wanted to send you and Tica a wedding gift but it got away from me. Lucas is almost 3 now and he runs us ragged but he is a good boy. Life is grand. Glad to hear you are doing well.
Best wishes on your new arrival. Parenthood is a whole different world.
Much Love,
Julie, Ray and Lucas
August 24th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Patrick,
It is great that you followed your heart and moved to Costa Rica, I did the same in Brazil. It is wonderful to be able to do things we enjoy in our lives.
Wes
September 7th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Patrick,
Congratulations to both you and your new wife!! Children are a blessing. I can’t wait to meet your new family.
Love,
Jen
September 29th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Hi Pat,
Many congratulations on your move to Costa Rica. We plan to head there in January for our first visit. We are considering relocating to Central America. We’ve been to Belize, and CR is next on the list to visit.
Would love to email with you about life in CR.
Best Regards,
Andrea
September 30th, 2008 at 3:12 am
AKA Costaricafinca from the bird forum. I had looked at your site before but didn’t leave a comment.
Nice photos and glad you are enjoying your life here.
January 28th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Patrick, Found your site while doing some early planning for a bird trip to CR in February 2010 with my three brothers. Great site with terrific information! Thanks for the info regarding the effects of earthquake as well. The photos and site information is great.
June 21st, 2009 at 7:31 am
Hello Patrick,
Just reviewing your blog, amazing pictures… Thank you very much for your kind contributions to our project!
Cheers, Ondrej
http://www.costaricahotels.com
October 6th, 2009 at 3:46 am
Amazing Blog Pat
Thanks
October 16th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Dear Pat,
My name is Paul Pickering and I live on the lower slopes of the Turrialba Volcano. After returning from a two-month trip to Europe I checked into your website to see what has been happening with birds in Costa Rica, and I find myself amazed once again at the wealth of information you offer. I hope you know that there must be many people like me who really appreciate what you are doing.
I keep promising myself to spend more time birding and less in my garden here near Santa Cruz de Turrialba, but it’s difficult because I’m really only just making a start in my wonderful Costa Rican life. I am so far really familiar only with the birds in my immediate area, and I try to keep a daily list with notes whenever I have doubts. I am particularly grateful for your tips on access to good birding sites and reasonable accomodations because I simply cannot afford to stay overnight in hotels with any regularity. Sleeping in the truck is my best option, but unfortunately it’s not a four-wheel drive vehicle. I also keep promising myself to send in blogs whenever I make any sightings, but it rarely seems that I have anything important to contribute. I marvel also at your ability to identify birds by their calls and wonder if there is a reliable source of recordings for Costa Rican birds.
Best wishes from
Paul Pickering
October 21st, 2009 at 8:35 am
Hi Paul,
At least the garden is a good place to start. If you have enough habitat or are near good forest, interesting stuff could show up at any time, especially during migration (right now!). I hear you on the importance of having information about affordable hotels or other options for lodging- costs in Costa Rica have risen quite a bit since my first trip here in 1992.
It’s good you are keeping track of your sightings- having data about common birds is always important because we don’t know what’s in store for those species- some may become more common and others may become rare. For example, although I don’t have data to show support for this hypothesis, I feel like some “common” bird and butterfly species have declined around Tibas during the past 10 years. This would make sense since during this time period, backyards, gardens, and remnant coffee farms have been steadily converted into apartment buildings or other non-birdy concrete structures.
For songs of Costa Rican birds,the Costa Rican bird song sampler is nice even though it has songs of only 184 species: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Shop/agCostaRica.html
Other products with recordings (including my own) may be available sometime soon and you can always study at xeno-canto http://www.xeno-canto.org
August 2nd, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Nice place !
August 4th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Pat,
Kudos to you on this great website, I echo other’s comments it is a real service to many of us. Nice you were able to follow your passion in your life. Hope to meet up perhaps when we are down this winter/summer. Mike Judd
August 4th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
It’s nice to hear that you and others are enjoying it and getting useful information for birding in Costa Rica. Yes, I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to make birding in the neotropics a part of my life. I kind of wish I could just live in the rainforest but my wife isn’t too keen on that idea. Yes, hopefully we will get the chance to meet up when you guys come down to Costa Rica.
October 20th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Hey Pat,
Thanx so much for stopping by my blog and leaving a comment. Good luck finding that Unspotted Saw-whet Owl in Costa Rica – nothing more fun than an owl quest. Actually, I managed to see Unspotted Saw-whet Owl in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico but no photo so maybe I’ll join you in Costa Rica to look for them one day!
Nice blog – wil come back and look around!
Christian
October 25th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Hi Christian,
Thanks for stopping by. I need to put your blog on my birding blogroll so more people can read about your amazing owling adventures. Thats pretty good to get the Unspotted Saw-whet in Chiapas. I have heard of a few others seeing it there. I fully plan on finding locations for the bird in CR and will keep you updated.
Pat
December 29th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Hi,
Dec 28, 2010: I just came back from CR with a photograph of a bird that I’m having a hard time identifying. It wasn’t a birding trip – I was staying with my girlfriend at a recuperation villa after her surgery and I just luckily saw this bird. The villa is located near Ciudad Colon, which is about 10? miles west of San Jose.
I was able to get a very good photo with just a Panasonic Lumix – it has a zeiss lens. So even with an absolutely complete and clear photo I don’t know what it is! My best guess is an immature bare-crowned antbird, which would be awesome because that would be a lifer for me – it’s just a guess though because nothing I have describes an immature form.
Quick description: about 6″, generally brown wings, head, and tail. Underparts much lighter, chin and throat lighter still. Tail long, some sort of black/white pattern on back, head vaguely streaked with darker brown, bare orbital area yellow in front of eye, blue in back, lower mandible yellow.
January 1st, 2011 at 12:14 pm
@Rick- Sounds like your bird was a Lesser Ground Cuckoo, maybe of the same inquiry posted at Bird Forum? Like some of the antbirds and other tropical, understory species, they have a patch of blue near the eye.
August 27th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
Hi Pat,
My name is Ariel and a resident here in Costa Rica. I would like to know if you offer guiding tour services in the Tapanti area and how much it costs for a full day of tour.
Kindly send me a private PM.
Thanks in advance!
Ariel
October 5th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
Pat,
I’ve been enjoying your site for a couple of years. I’m making my 6th trip to C.R. in a couple of weeks. Your stories have been enjoyable to read and very informative as well. Keep up the great work.
Tom Pavlik
White Lake, Michigan
October 7th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
@Tom- Thaanks, glad you like the blog!
January 7th, 2013 at 1:37 pm
Hi Pat!
Brilliant website! I visited CR in march/April 2012 on a 3 week Birdquest trip;578 species including some belters.Fell in love with the place.Keep up the great work, I know I’ll be back some day!
Cheers
Paul
January 16th, 2013 at 3:56 pm
@Paul- Glad to hear that you had a good trip. The Birdquest tours usually do quite well in Costa Rica. Matt Denton has done a great job of leading them and this year, an excellent Spanish birder named Dani will help lead the group. He’s a great guy and excellent birder, I hope to meet up with him for a day of birding.
January 30th, 2013 at 1:54 pm
Great birding site of Costa Rica. Going to Costa Rica in March 2013 and real excited about it. Tried to come up with a bird list but kind of gave up..til I ran accross your site. We will be in the central valley around Grecia. I would be oh so gratful if you could give me any pointers or birds to watch out for.
Thanks oh so much!!
February 7th, 2013 at 5:59 pm
As a writer for Fodor’s Travel Guides, I’m trying to update our guidebook to Costa Rica. However, there is no answer at either of your ph#s. Can you let me know if you still offer bird watching tours? Thanks!
Marlise
February 8th, 2013 at 11:07 am
@Yes, I offer custom birding tours, mostly day trips.