Whether guiding or not, I try to get out birding at least once a week. It provides a much needed escape from the greater San Jose area of Costa Rica (an over-urbanized place with skinny, twisting streets frequented by a plethora of bad drivers). It also gets me up into natural habitats where I can [...]
Continue reading about Birding in Costa Rica on the Providencia Road
Last weekend came and went like a flash. Not this past weekend but the weekend before. Although I did see a bunch of high-flying Chestnut-collared Swifts foraging above the house with a light phase Short-tailed Hawk taking to the thermals beneath them, that was a muuuuch more relaxed experience than the last Saturday of March [...]
Continue reading about A Rundown of a Big Day in Costa Rica (or Getting and Missing Birds part Dos)
I had been looking forward to guiding this past Saturday. My client wanted to see as many birds as possible and a combined trip to Virgen del Socorro and Poas Volcano seemed like the perfect choice for a birdy day. I figured we would see quite a few birds and some good ones at that [...]
Continue reading about How to see 11 Raptors and 16 Hummingbird species when Birding Costa Rica
Poas Volcano is somewhat overlooked as a birding destination. Birders in search of highland specialties head off to the more extensive forests on Cerro de la Muerte and have a grand old time with the R. Quetzal, Collared Redstarts, Zeledonias, and other birds that got an evolutionary foothold in the rising Talamancas. Nevertheless, you can [...]
Continue reading about Check out the Good Birds on Poas when Birding Costa Rica
This past weekend, I co-guided the Birding Club of Costa Rica trip to a site that never fails in dealing out a wild card of high quality species. Birding at Heliconias Lodge is akin to shopping at an international antique bazaar where treasure awaits for those who know how to find it. Walk carefully and [...]
Continue reading about A Few Gems from Birding in Costa Rica at Heliconias Lodge
Antbirds rule but a lot of them are just terribly difficult to see. Take Immaculate Antbird for example. Go to Tapanti, Virgen del Socorro, or any other forested, middle-elevation site and you will probably hear them each and every morning. Although it’s always nice to hear those tail-wagging, blue-orbitaled skulkers, it’s also a bittersweet sound [...]
Continue reading about Where to See Honeycreepers and Dacnises when Birding Costa Rica
Thick-Knee. What an odd name for a bird. I mean there aren’t any “Big-Ankles”, “Fat-toes”, or even a “Skinny-Wing” in the bird world. While there is a stint that is “Long-toed” it doesn’t cease to be a stint. The “thick-knee”, on the other hand, wasn’t even named after other members of the Burhinidae but since [...]
Continue reading about The Golden-eyed Double-striped Thick-Knee
Costa Rica has more than one Rio Frio. Even though “Rio Frio” means “cold river”, oddly enough, I have only visited sites known by this descriptive name in the Caribbean lowlands. This region’s tropical humid climate ensures that none of the rivers are particularly cold so I feel perplexed every time I end up being [...]
Continue reading about A Brief bit of Birding in Costa Rica around Rio Frio
Bamboo, that massive grass, is a common component of eastern Asian forests. When I was in Thailand in 2007, the huge clumps of bamboo that made up much of the understory in the forests around Doi Chiang Dao gave them an otherworldy, prehistoric appearance. Green Magpies, Lesser Yellownapes, drongos, and a bunch of other super [...]
Continue reading about Seeding Bamboo on the Road to Volcan Barva
While birders in the northeastern USA were watching some exciting species thanks to Hurricane Irene, I had an average morning of birding in the agricultural landscape near my house in Santa Barbara, Costa Rica. I so wanted to join other birders looking for migrant Cerulean Warblers on the Caribbean slope but in being temporarily car-less [...]
Continue reading about An Average Morning of Birding in Costa Rica’s Central Valley
