Costa Rica really is a birding paradise. At least five distinct bioregions and/or major habitat types are found within 2-3 hours drive of San Jose; all with fairly different sets of birds. It’s a good thing they are close to San Jose too because unfortunately, there’s not a huge number of species around here! Around here means where I live; Tibas. Tibas is like much of the central valley- urbanized, asphalted and missing the exuberant vegetation that used to be here. Lack of green space in the central valley is a topic I hope to cover on another day though because this post is the first of several about the common birds of Costa Rica.
The bird species in Tibas represent many of the first birds I saw in Costa Rica back in 1992 and will probably be some of the first species you see as well. Essentially garden and backyard birds of the central valley, they have adapted to living within a human dominated landscape. Although surely a far cry from the variety and types of species that inhabited the marshes and moist forest of pre-settlement times, there’s still some nice birds around. The common sparrow here is Rufous-collared Sparrow.
My first bird book was the Audubon guide to birds; Eastern Region. The fact that photos were used made amazing things such as Cerulean Warbler, Cedar Waxwing and Rails more credible. I first learned about Blue-Grey Tanagers on the glossy plates of that book; learned that in the U.S. they only occurred as an exotic escape in Florida. Here in Costa Rica, these natives are one of the most common bird species.
Possibly occupying a niche similar to that of Northern Cardinals, Greyish Saltators sing every morning from backyards throughout San Jose.
Doves are especially common. Although Rock Pigeons occur, White-winged and Inca Doves are the most common species.
Red-billed Pigeons can also be seen.
One of the coolest common species is Crimson-fronted Parakeet. Noisy flocks roost in the palms near our place and are often seen in flight within the city.
One of the most abundant birds is Great-tailed Grackle. They make a tremendous amount of noise in town plazas where they go to roost.
Conspicuous Flycatchers are always around such as
Great Kiskadee
Social Flycatcher
and Tropical Kingbird. If there is a neotropical trash bird, the TK is it.
Clay-colored Robin (the national bird of Costa Rica) is very common.
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird is pretty much the de-facto Hummingbird of urban areas.
Some of the other bird species common in urban areas of the central valley for which I still lack images are: Black and Turkey Vultures- always up there soaring around.
Tropical Screech Owl- hope to get shots of the pair that roosts at the nearby Bougainvilla Hotel.
White-colloared and Vaux’s Swifts
Hoffman’s Woodpecker- very common
Yellow-belied Elaenia
Blue and white Swallow- one of the most birds in San Jose
Brown Jay- seems to have declined with urbanized growth.
House Wren
Wintering birds such as Yellow Warbler, Baltimore Oriole and Tennessee Warbler
and Bronzed Cowbird.
10 replies on “Costa Rica common birds #1: city birds”
I know Blue-gray Tanagers are common but I love them. They’re definitely in my top 10!
I wish I had seen this before visiting Costa Rica….. Brilliant!!
You know a wonderful country.. I will have to go back one day!
David
Can you tell me if the Great Tailed Grackle is a nest robber and is causing decline in numbers of many types of other birds.
@Mark- That’s a good question. While grackles probably do eat eggs and nestlings of other birds if the opportunity presents itself, I’m not sure if they do that enough to cause declines in other bird species. It doesn’t seem so.
No irrelevant details. As the great Jack Webb used to say, “Just the facts Mam.”
CHRIST I’M GLAD I FOUND THIS SITE!
New immigrate from the US. Settled in Sarchi and find myself stopping from time to time, looking around and noticing how happy I am to be here. Between all my feeders ten to fifteen different birds show up every morning.
Thanks for making a contribution to all of us.
@Bruce- Thanks for your kind words and happy to hear you have moved to Costa Rica! If you are interested, check out our local birding club- the Birding Club of Costa Rica.
https://birdingclubcr.org/
There’s a common bird here I can’t identify. I’m pretty sure it’s a swift or a swallow. They remind me very much of purple martins but I can’t get a long enough look at them to be positive. They don’t seem to light at all and like martins they seem to feed on the wing and there are plenty of them. They swarm at sun up and sun down. Any ideas about what
they are?
Thanks in advance!
@Bruce- Could be any number of species although the most likely candidates are Blue and White Swallow and Gray-breasted Martin. Yeah, it’s hard to get good looks at them!
Pat! Helen and I (Greg) just finished some birding around Adventure Inn, near Cariari. Heading back to California for a few months; be back in San Vito in January. Stop by.
@Greg- Have fun! Hope to see you both in San Vito.