The Central Valley of Costa Rica has this wonderful weather, nice mountain scenery, and rich volcanic soils. These factors have made such a good impression on so many for so long that 2 million people now call the Valle Central home. Unfortunately, this hasn’t left much space for the wetlands and moist forests that used [...]
Before going on a birding trip to some far off wonderful place where nearly everything is a lifer, we gaze at our field guides and it’s like a flashback to the Decembers of our childhoods. The bird book is like the front window of a toy store, a catalog showing bicycles, binoculars (I started birding [...]
Continue reading about Birds to know when birding Costa Rica: the Violet-crowned Woodnymph
While I was standing at a bus stop last week and wishing that I could spontaneously fabricate wormholes suitable for quick and easy transport up into the much more birdy mountains, the “seet” call of a migrant warbler caught my attention Like a secret whisper in the darkness, it was saying, “Here I am. Once [...]
Continue reading about Migrants are on their way back to Costa Rica
One of the main reasons birding is more popular than endeavors such as bat watching, beetle spotting, or looking for mollusks is that it’s so much easier to do. Most bird species are diurnal, they are pretty easy to see (except for the ultra sneaky rails), and they come in all sorts of shapes, colors, [...]
I haven’t had the chance to go birding for the past two or three weeks. As of late, work, family duties, and lack of transportation (a common anti-birding trifecta) have combined their forces to stop any serious birding in its tracks before I even think of retrieving my binoculars. That’s alright though because I will [...]
During much of the year in Costa Rica, the song of the Striped Cuckoo is a common part of the auditory scenery. I hear them near my house singing from scrubby fields around the coffee plantations. I hear them call from the tangled second growth of deforested areas in the humid lowlands of the Caribbean [...]
Continue reading about Striped Cuckoos are common in Costa Rica but where’s the Pheasant?
Up north in the temperate zone, black birds are a common part of the avian landscape. In North America, American Crows and Common Grackles are some of the most frequently seen bird species in many areas. Birders in Europe can hardly miss seeing Rooks, Carrion Crows, Jackdaws, and Blackbirds (a thrush). In Costa Rica, there [...]
Continue reading about Four Common Black Birds of Costa Rica
The Hotels Catalina and Blanca Rosa are visible from my house. I don’t mean the hotel buildings; they are unobtrusive, one story structures in any case. I mean the shade coffee plantations and a wooded hillside that provide a sanctuary for birds in a landscape where sun coffee, farm fields, and houses are the theme. [...]
Continue reading about Morning birding near the Hotel Catalina, Costa Rica
People on birding trips to Costa Rica usually don’t have the seedeaters and seed finches at the top of their target lists. Now if they looked like some of those fantastic, brightly colored, and beautifully patterned finches that provoke “oohs and aahs” among birders in Africa and Australia, the story would be different. BUT, since [...]
Continue reading about Identifying Variable and Thick-billed Seed-Finches in Costa Rica
For birders from the north, the Grey-necked Wood-Rail is an anomaly. It doesn’t skulk all day in marshes, nor does it demand that you stumble around in the dark of the night to see it. None of that wandering around and playing tapes, making clumsy imitations, or donating blood to the local mosquito population in [...]
Continue reading about Tales of Birding Costa Rica: My first Grey-necked Wood-Rail
