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
A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate to finally get the chance to bird Laguna del Lagarto during three days of guiding. I emphasize “finally” because I had wondered how the birding was up there near the Nicaraguan border ever since my first trip to Costa Rica in the early 90s. It was so [...]
Continue reading about Exciting Birding in Northern Costa Rica at Laguna del Lagarto Lodge
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 [...]
In Costa Rica, sometimes highland species take these “vacations” to lower elevations. This regular and well documented behavior of the local avifauna is most commonly exhibited by the frugivores. Sometimes White-crowned Manakins are all over the place at Quebrada Gonzalez, a quetzal or two makes it into the foothills, and Three-wattled Bellbirds give their bonking [...]
Continue reading about Birding Costa Rica soon? Watch for highland species in the lowlands.
The biggest news in 2010 for birding in Costa Rica was arguably the sightings of Harpy Eagle carrying nesting material in Tortuguero National Park. If those monstrous raptors did succeed in building one of their many-stick homes, either the nest was never found or the information was kept more secret than U.S. government embassy cables. [...]
Continue reading about Highlights from birding and guiding Costa Rica in 2010
Some readers may have noticed a general paucity and possible recycling of bird photos on this blog. The reason that posts may have been a bit more wordy than “imagey” for the past two months is because my other digiscoping cameras weren’t cooperating very much for bird photos. Well, most birds didn’t either but although [...]
Poas Volcano (or “Volcan Poas” as it is locally known) is one of those dark green mountains easily visible from everywhere in the Central valley except for Cartago where the larger Irazu Volcano blocks it from view. Because of its proximity to San Jose, ease of access, and the fact that you can walk right up to [...]
Continue reading about Birding potential around the Poas Volcano area of Costa Rica
With the dry and high season for tourism and birding in Costa Rica rapidly approaching (or already here with the incredibly beautiful weather we are having these days), I figured that a post on “preparing for your trip” was in order. Another deciding factor for doing this post as opposed to uploading images of and writing [...]
Continue reading about What to bring on a birding trip to Costa Rica
Kiri Lodge. I don’t know about other people, but when I hear the word “lodge” I get these images and visions of a spacious cabin built of massive logs- something like Paul Bunyon’s mansion that could only have been constructed with old growth trees he himself cut down along with the profits he reaped from [...]
Continue reading about Where to see Red-headed Barbets when birding Costa Rica: Kiri Lodge
As always, I would love to do an official Big Year in Costa Rica. Slowly track my way up and down the hot, hilly terrain of the Osa while scanning the canopy and listening for distress calls of monkeys that would lead me to a Harpy Eagle. Maybe find a Red-throated Caracara or two (if [...]
Continue reading about 536 species so far for 2010 with two months to go
