What is the cost of housing like down there?

Good Birding
Gallus

Tinamous are also pretty tough. Little is common and widespread in second growth of the humid lowlands but rarely seen because they are shy and love dense, second growth. Easiest places to see them are at feeders at Bosque del Rio Tigre or Rancho Naturalista. Less expensive ways are by locating a calling bird and just being extremely patient. Another way to see them is to watch drainage areas behind restaurants. The leftover rice and wet ground with inverts might attract Little Tinamous as well as other birds and animals.

In my opinion, the easiest place to see Great Tinamou is at Carara. If you spend a day on the loop trail past the bridge over the forest stream, you are almost guaranteed to see one or more sans playback in the forest. For more tinamou info, see my post on it (search for tinamous).

I hear you on the raptor front here in Costa Rica. Most are forest based with low density populations and few soar. Some do, however, and sites where you can look out over good forest often yield 2-3 non-vulture raptor species between 9 and 11 am during sunny weather. The parking lot at Quebrada Gonzalez in these times and conditions typically turns up King Vulture, at least one hawk-eagle species, Short-tailed Hawk and quite often Barred and White Hawks. I used to also see Great Black Hawks soaring with some regularity but haven’t seen them in so long that I suspect they have decreased in CR.

Yeah, I like the bathrooms at Cerro Lodge too! Have seen a neat little tree frog that likes it for habitat. Glad to hear you got Black and white Owl there- seems to be a very regular site for that species. Pacific Screech is there too but when the Black and whites are out hunting they tend to stay quiet and out of site because the Black and whites probably eat them opportunistically- last time I was there at night, a Black and white came in to tape of Pacific Screech and it looked hungry!

200 lifers in a week! How exciting for them! Last time I did that was when I went to Thailand- what a birding dream that was.

That’s what’s so nice about Costa Rica- one can make it an annual trip because it’s so much closer than most people realize. And it’s so diverse, that one is usually going to see new birds on every trip. I kept saying the same thing about moving here until I finally did.

Cerro Lodge was great birding, wish they had some feeders around to bring some bird in closer. The bathrooms are the most awesome thing though, such a cool idea. We had a Black & White Owl while there which was one of the top bird of the trip. Scarlet Macaws were nice but I’d seen them before in Ecuador.

My 2 birding friends had never birded outside of Florida since getting into birding, I think they had like 200 lifers, I got only 94 this time, I had 99 in February which was my first trip to CR. They are already talking about going back again.

I am hoping I can make it an annual trip since it is fairly cheap to go for a week and the birding is great. Mexico might be the only place with lots of birds that I can fly to cheaper but no where near as beautiful. i keep saying I am going to move there someday.

I would be happy to guide you on your next trip. On my first trip to Costa Rica, like many birders, I was so looking forward to seeing all of these interesting looking antbirds and antpittas. At the end of three weeks though, I also had a huge whole in my antbird list (I only had three species -Black-hooded Antshrike, Russet Antshrike, and Dot-winged Antwren) and left the country feeling absolutely intrigued about neotropical birds and the differences between birding in the tropics and in temperate zones. Since that first trip in 1992, I eventually learned how to see antbirds, tinamous, quail-doves, curassows, forest falcons, and other neotropical groups of birds but it took a while and I actually still learn more about the complex habitats where they are found every time I go birding.

Foothill birds: Quebrada Gonzalez in Braulio Carrillo National Park. This is the closest, high-quality rainforest near San Jose. It takes 50 minutes to get there by car along the main highway to Limon, look for the ranger station on the right hand side of the road a few ks after the bridge over the Rio Sucio. You can walk the trail inside the forest for $10 per person or just bird from the parking lot for free. The forest birding can be slow and difficult but lots of rarities are possible and mixed flocks can be amazing. From the parking lot, one has to contend with traffic noise but it can be good for raptors and lots of stuff coming to the edge of the forest. It’s especially worthwhile to scope the canopy from here- a Tiny Hawk was hanging out on a nearby ridge some months ago. A major downside is that the highway has been closed on and off lately because of landslides.

Highland species: The Poas area is probably your best bet because of proximity.

Pacific Slope moist forest: The University of Peace is an hour or so by car and has nice trails with a good mix of dry forest and moist forest species. Check my post on that for more info.

Those are the best places that come to mind for a good few hours of birding near the Central Valley.

good birding and let me know what you see or if you need a guide!
Pat