The perceived scarcity of raptors (non-owl raptors) when birding Costa Rica is a recurring topic of conversation between birders whom I guide and myself. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the following questions and observations: “We haven’t seen many raptors other than Black and Turkey Vultures”. “We have seen motmots, lots [...]
Continue reading about Where are the raptors when birding Costa Rica?
In the wet lowlands, it’s always humid and the rain can arrive as a steady misting sprinkle or as (most often) as a sudden downpour with billions of huge drops that pound the zinc roofs with sodden fury. It’s so wet that if you don’t make an effort to dry out the clothes in your [...]
Continue reading about Cloud forest birding in Costa Rica: birds in the mist
The Yellow-billed Cotinga is an endangered species that only occurs on the Pacific slope of Costa Rica and western Panama. Although range maps in field guides show it occurring from the Rio Tarcoles (at and near Carara National Park) south to Panama, don’t expect to run into this cotinga at most sites along the coast [...]
Continue reading about Birding at Cerro Lodge, Costa Rica- a good site for Yellow-billed Cotinga
It may be revered in Guatemala and grace cloud forests from southern Mexico to Panama, but the easiest place to see Resplendent Quetzal has got to be Costa Rica. You can definitely watch them at highland sites in Chiapas, Mexico but there aren’t too many places that are readily accessible where the birds are common. [...]
Continue reading about Costa Rica is a great place to see Resplendent Quetzal
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
Lodging near Carara has always been limited, appropriate accommodation for most birders particularly so. Birding tours to Costa Rica and independent birders birding in Costa Rica have often stayed at Villa Lapas or Punta Leona; two fairly expensive choices for lodging with good birding on the grounds. The Hotel Carara in the heart of seaside [...]
Before coming to Costa Rica for a birding trip, birders usually wonder what their chances are for seeing certain birds that are particularly rare, colorful, or just look extremely cool. Something particularly rare might be a Bare-necked Umbrellabird, male manakins and Bay-headed Tanagers fit nicely into the colorful category, and Ocellated Antbird comes to mind [...]
Continue reading about Seeing Curassows, Guans, and Chachalacas when birding Costa Rica
It was thirty years in the making, but the new road to the coast is finally open in Costa Rica! If the world ends in 2012 as the Mayans predicted, then at least we have two years to zoom back and forth between the crowded Central Valley and the open space of the hot central [...]
Continue reading about The new road to Caldera in Costa Rica is finally open
After hectic times in December and January that included bus trips to Panama for a wedding in the middle of nowhere, getting passports for Miranda, and flying to snowy Niagara Falls (with Miranda suffering from the stomach flu on the way home as a bonus), we FINALLY moved into our new house. It’s near Alajuela [...]
Continue reading about New house = new yard list of Costa Rican birds
