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
Montezuma always makes me think of Mexico but there is another one much closer to home (at least for me). This is the seaside village of Montezuma located on the southern part of the Nicoya peninsula. If any birders make it there, it’s usually by accident or with a non-birding tour group set on checking [...]
Continue reading about A Brief Guide to Birding around Montezuma, Costa Rica
Most birders visit Carara National Park in Costa Rica during the dry months of January, February, and March. Those sunny months represent Costa Rica’s high season for birding (and tourism) simply because much of the country is significantly drier at this time of the year. Coincidently, the birding also tends to be more productive so [...]
Continue reading about Birding Carara National Park, Costa Rica on October 3rd
Chomes, Costa Rica is this end of the road village on the Gulf of Nicoya. There is a sign for it on the Pan-American highway, but your average tourist just zooms on by as if the place never existed. I don’t know what the guide books say about Chomes but if the place is even [...]
This past weekend, I got in a bit of birding around Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste. When we left the house on Friday, I had visions of augmenting my year list with everything from waders to Thicket Tinamou and Elegant Trogon. I desperately need these and other “Guanacaste” birds if I’m going to break the 600 mark [...]
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This past Saturday, I spent most of the morning in the rainforests of Carara National Park. I usually visit this birdy protected area for guiding, but on Saturday, I cruised down the new highway to the hot coastal plain not to help birders see Turquoise-browed Motmots, Great Tinamous, Slate-headed Tody-Flycatchers, and Spot-crowned Euphonias, but to [...]
As you drive around the winding mountain roads of Costa Rica on your way to Monteverde, La Fortuna, or Sarapiqui, you won’t help but the notice signs that state “canopy here!” “longest canopy!”, and even “fly like superman on our canopy!” Some of these odd advertisements happen to be the size of billboards and also [...]
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During recent guiding in the Carara area, Scarlet Macaws were hanging out at the beach near the village known as Tarcoles. These unbelievable looking birds do this now and then to feast on seeds of the “Beach Almond” (Terminalia catappa). A common sight on beaches in Costa Rica, this tree species isn’t really an almond [...]
Carara National Park is one of the better sites in Costa Rica for seeing ground birds of the forest interior. These are the terrestrial bird species that opt for shade over sun, that relish quiet, careful walks through the leafy texture of the forest floor, that haunt the dark understory with ventriloquial voices. You wont get warbler neck [...]
Continue reading about Carara National Park is good for ground birds
In the latter months of 2010, we opted for traveling to Niagara Falls, NY for Thanksgiving in lieu of Christmas. We may have missed out on watching “A Christmas Story” with the family and couldn’t go to my Aunt Florence’s and Uncle Kevin’s on Christmas Eve but the fact that we also missed out on [...]
