Antbirds just might win the prize for being the most popular family of birds with the least amount of colors. It seems like just about anyone who birds in the neotropics ends up feeling a certain degree of fondness for antbirds. Even before I came to Costa Rica for the first time, I was fascinated [...]
One of the innumerable cool things about watching birds compared to say, mammals, is that many tend to be colorful, decorative, and downright ornate. Not that there aren’t ornate mammals too but let’s face it, the general color scheme for mammal species happens to be brown. Some bird species have even managed to get “ornate” [...]
Cano Negro is a small village, a place to fish for monster Tarpon (yes, they are monsters), and an access point for one of the two major wetland sites in Costa Rica (the other one being Palo Verde). Since it’s a five hour drive from the Central Valley, I don’t make it up that way [...]
Continue reading about Birding Costa Rica at Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge
The Manzanillo-Puerto Viejo area doesn’t make it onto the birding radar of most first time birders to Costa Rica. It’s too much of detour to take, especially when you can see many of the same birds around the Sarapiqui area. Nevertheless, Manzanillo and many parts of southeastern Costa Rica are more forested than most of [...]
Most recent weekends and brought me to the birdy Carara area. Although the heat in that humid/dry lowland transition habitat can be a challenge (at least for me), it’s an incredible area for birding. Despite a temporary closure of most of the main HQ trail to make it more handicap accessible, birding in the national [...]
Continue reading about February Birding Highlights from the Carara Area
Falcons rank pretty high up there on the “cool bird” scale. They get automatic “cool” points (aka “epic”, “sweet”, “boss”, or even “swell” depending on your formative years) for being raptors, fly super fast, and many sport an avian moustache. I mean, can you get any cooler than that? Well, as with many things avian, [...]
The end of the first month of 2013 is nigh and I feel good about this year’s bird list. I am up to 389 species identified, have several that I missed in 2012, and have visited very few places. The birding has been good and even though I majorly dipped on Costa Rica’s first Clay-colored [...]
Continue reading about Some Costa Rica Birding Highlights from the Latter Half of January, 2013
I apologize to the folks who keep checking this blog for a new post. Guiding, writing, and finishing an app. for birding in Costa Rica have occupied most of my time and explain my virtual absence. As you can probably imagine, the birding in Costa Rica has been wonderful and I might be close to [...]
Continue reading about A Few Highlights from Recent 2013 Birding in Costa Rica
According to the calendar followed by myself and many folks in the world, the end of yet another year is nigh. Those December days can be exciting ones for a birder. Christmas counts abound, the tension to squeeze a few more species out of the remaining days of 2012 becomes paramount for people doing a [...]
Continue reading about My Best Bird from a Year of Birding in Costa Rica during 2012
Christmas counts are happening in Costa Rica but scheduling conflicts and a trip to Niagara Falls are keeping me out of the count loop this year. I might make it to the Aerial Tram count but am sadly missing everything else. One count I would have loved to have participated in is the ever exciting [...]
Continue reading about Exciting Results from Veragua Christmas Count 2012
