Fall Migration is On in Costa Rica

Autumn, it’s happening up north where the changes in Niagara bring salmon jumping in the river, leaves just beginning to turn gold and red, and wood-warblers chipping in the oaks. September birding for me in the north was flocks of infamous fall warblers calling and flitting in the trees of Goat Island. The migration back then could be intense, on one fall out morning I recall birds in every bush and tree. Vireos come with the wood-warblers and other migrants that fly far to the south, one bunch of species to the Caribbean, another bunch to Middle America and on into the Amazon.

In Costa Rica, we get that latter bunch of birds. This is why species like the deep beauty Black-throated Blue and the tail flicking Prairie Warbler are local megas. I would love to find one or two of those or a Palm Warbler would also be nice but us birders in Costa Rica can’t complain. How so with so much to see? Birds are everywhere but it’s a bonus to watch Golden-winged Warblers and even catch Ceruleans in migration. Both are regular in Costa Rica, the seriously uncommon Golden-winged even more so than the Cerulean.

Ceruleans come through first and some are in country as I write. I hope we can see at least one before they fly further south, to do so will require birding time in the middle elevations and foothills on the other side of the mountains. I hope we get a chance to do that. With extreme luck we could even get one in front of the homestead, after all, some also pass through the Central Valley. So far, we have had other birds, the very first migrants showing in the hedge out front.

A female American Redstart has been foraging and chipping from a fig, it was nice to become reacquainted with the call and note that it is drier than the sweet chip of a Yellow. Speaking of that very common bird, we also had our first Yellow Warbler last week. A couple of quiet Red-eyed Vireos have been sharing the hedgerow with the redstart and other migrants have come in the form of a name saying Eastern Wood-Pewee and a chipping Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (our most common Empid.).

Even if the hedgerow birds hadn’t been present, we would still know it’s fall by the Cliff Swallows up above. The first groups have been foraging up there with the resident Blue-and-white Swallows and swifts , there are many more in the lowlands. Soon, there could well be hundreds of swallows passing overhead as the bulk of their population moves south.

I hope we can venture further afield to find more birds of the fall but there’s still plenty to see right out front. The more we watch, the more likely we will find a rare Black-billed Cuckoo or other choice year bird and the more we check the coast, the more shorebirds we will see (lots of those are passing through in full force right now!). At this time of the year, the birds are out there, maybe even next door (!), you just gotta keep watching no matter where you may find yourself.