It’s the Monday after Global Big Day. I write this as the Grayish Saltators call and a breeze threatens to bring rains and almost find it hard to believe that we birded from midnight until dawn and on through to the next night, from one side of the mountains to the other. From the hot […]
Looking for Catbirds in the Caribbean Lo...
Like most birders from the eastern USA, I became familiar with the Gray Catbird shortly after receiving my first binoculars. They were 7 x 32 Jason-Empires from Sears and had a fast focus lever. Although I can’t recall the moment, I must have used that focusing lever to get a close look at many a […]
The Most Endangered “Least Concern” Bird
Just as with every place on the planet, this Mother Earth, Costa Rica has its own list of bird species endangered with extinction. On that list, we find such birds as the Yellow-naped Parrot (threatened by a nasty combination of habitat loss and capture for the pet bird trade), Yellow-billed Cotinga (habitat loss for that […]
Getting Ready for Another Big Day of Bir...
Each year, I look forward to an autonomously motivated event where myself and trusted birding companions try to see as many bird species as possible in one, 24 hour date. That is, we do a Big Day, and it is preceded by far too many hours of planning and sorting out probabilities, Such scheming is […]
Where and Why to Look for Wing-banded An...
Some birds are common, some are tough to see, and others are downright rare as mangos in the arctic. As if a tropical fruit next to a Gyrfalcon wasn’t improbable enough for you, we also have these bird species that are enigmas. These are situations like the 21st century Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Pink-headed Duck sightings, and […]
Big Day Drowned by Rain but Rare Birds A...
A lot of factors come into play for a Big Day and one of the biggest is precipitation. If it’s a little bit of rain, that’s probably alright and might work in your favor in keeping the birds calling all day long. The same goes for showers. What you don’t want is a fat morning […]
A Monklet Says Hello in Costa Rica
Not all birds are created equal for the birder. In the birdosphere, that means that some species are a heck of a lot more difficult to see than others, or just look nicer. Others might be the one and only rep for a family, and/or be avian oddities (the ones with no close relatives tend […]
Where to see Motmots when Birding Costa ...
There a bunch of super cool birds to see once you head south of the border. Since you are reading this blog, you are probably well aware of that statement but if you have yet to raise the bins below the Tropic of Cancer, let’s just say that yes, you are in for a heckuva […]
Recent Birding Highlights from Lands in ...
Over the past week, I have been pretty busy with guiding around Carara, Lands in Love, and Braulio Carrillo. Birding overall, has been kind of slow because of the unusually dry weather on the Caribbean slope (yeah, it may be the dry season but that lack of rain is supposed to be reserved for the […]
La Gamba- My New Favorite Birding Site i...
It’s no secret that Costa Rica has a healthy abundance of great birding just about everywhere one goes but but some places stand out for the avian attractions they offer. One such place is the general vicinity of La Gamba, a small village in southwestern Costa Rica. I have had some nice birding there on […]