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Month: January 2025

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bird finding in Costa Rica Birding Costa Rica

Birding Ciudad Neily- Suggestions and Recommendations

Ciudad Neily wasn’t always on the regular birding circuit. Heck, even these days, this southern Costa Rican town is still very much off the usual beaten track. Although some birding tours in Costa Rica pay a visit, the majority of visiting birders spend time much closer to San Jose.

Neily being around 6 hours by car, that makes sense, especially if you only have 10 days to work with. Ciudad Neily is a detour, even for folks headed to the Osa but, if you can make it, that side trip is well worth your birding time!

Ciudad Neily is one of the best overlooked birding hotspots in Costa Rica. That’s quite the statement but I stand by it; the surrounding area has lots of birding potential, especially if you also visit the San Vito area (easy to do when staying in Ciudad Neily).

Recently, we enjoyed a few hours of morning birding near Neily. Based on that fine 90 plus species stint and past visits, here are some recommendations.

Scan forested hillsides

When I arrive in Ciudad Neily, I can’t help but feel impressed by the amount of rainforest just outside of town. Much of that forest cloaks hills and most is probably also inaccessible.

However, you can and should scan those forested hillsides, especially in the morning and from as many vantage points as possible. You might find a Turquoise Cotinga (small numbers are present), White-necked Puffbird, toucans, aracaris, and other species.

They can also be good for raptors. During a brief afternoon check from the middle of town, I noticed a Swallow-tailed Kite and Zone-tailed Hawk coursing over a ridge. More scanning should turn up a good suite of rainforest raptors, maybe even a hawk-eagle or two.

Check out some side roads in the area

Most of the woods grow on steep slopes and are tough to access but some roads penetrate enough for good roadside birding. The easiest way to find the best birding roads is checking eBird and satellite maps and go exploring.

The road that goes to San Vito can also be good but it’s fairly busy and has few places to pull off to the side. Instead, you might want to try a back road to San Vito (probably in terrible shape high up), or other secondary roads through forest.

Birding such side roads has turned up interesting and intriguing species like “Puntarenas Screech-Owl”, Sepia-capped Flycatcher, Bare-crowned Antbird, and Rosy Thrush-Tanager!

Best birding accommodation- Fortuna Verde

There are several lodging options in and near Ciudad Neily but the best spot for birders is Fortuna Verde. The owners of this small, friendly place provide excellent service and have some forest just out back.

Many species are possible, some of the “best” I have seen include Veraguan Mango, Crested Oropendola, Brown-throated Parakeet, and Spectacled Owl.

A good second option- Centro Turistico

If Fortuna Verde is full, the Centro Turistico is a good second choice. This spot has air-conditioned rooms for a good, low price, and an on-site restaurant. Best of all, it’s adjacent to a nice area of forest!

I haven’t birded that forest but sur would love to. I bet it has a fair variety of forest species and could also turn up a surprise or two.

The “hospital road”

If you get tired of looking at forest birds, visit this road for open country species. It passes through open fields and brushy habitats that can have Fork-tailed Flycatchers, various seedeaters, Red-breasted Meadowlark, and several other species.

Check any flowering trees and hedges for Sapphire-throated Hummingbird and Veraguan Mango, and scan distant trees, bushes, and skies for Savannah Hawk (we were happy to see a juvenile). While watching for that raptor, you might see other ones too including Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture, Pearl Kite, Roadside Hawk, and Gray-lined Hawk.

Wet rice fields and ditches are seasonal but if you find one, you can try for crakes, especially the one with the Painted bill.

Coto 47- Las Pangas

This is the other main open habitat area near Ciudad Neily (although there’s lots more areas to explore). In the wet season the road there might be impassable but by January, it should be dry enough for any vehicle.

January is also when local birders trek to this exciting spot. We make the drive to scan through thousands of ducks to see if we can find Northern Pintail or other decidedly uncommon duck species for Costa Rica. There’s always the chance of finding some other interesting waterbird too, including rare shorebirds.

The only downside is that the birds are usually quite distant and unless you walk on a dike road (likely private), a fair number will be a bit too frustratingly far away to identify. But don’t let that stop you from scanning! You never know what you might find.

The roadside second growth is also good for a variety of birds, including local species like hummingbirds, Red-rumped Woodpecker, and Rusty-margined Flycatcher among others.

Excellent night birding

As with most lowland sites with humid forest, Ciudad Neily has great night birding. Tropical Screech-Owls live in second growth and forest edge while the undescribed “Puntarenas Screech-Owl” occurs in denser, more humid forest.

"Choco" Screech-Owl

American Barn Owls course over open fields (such as along the hospital road), and Striped Owls also occur. In forested areas, Spectacled, Mottled, and Black-and-white Owls are present. Crested Owl occurs too although more likely in the most heavily forested parts.

Oh yeah, and there’s also the other night birds, the nightjars and potoos. Go spotlighting on roads through and near oil palm plantations and you have a good chance of finding Common Potoo, and might also find wintering Chuck-will’s-Widow. With luck, maybe you’ll also find Rufous Nightjar in brushy habitats? Common Pauraques will also fly up from roads and you might see Short-tailed Nighthawk fly over forested spots at dusk.

Pizza Time

As a final suggestion, I’ll just mention that if you happen to be driving through Uvita, it’s worth planning to be there for lunch or dinner. I do that so I can stop at Pizza Time and enjoy fantastic NYC style pizza! I also usually pick up some bagels and other things too.

Pizzerias are common in Costa Rica but what can I say? When you grow up with a certain type and quality of pizza, you don’t want to settle for less. It’s why I usually make my own pizza. However, when it comes to Pizza Time pizza, I don’t hesitate; it’s the real deal. If you could go for a taste of New York, make sure to stop at Piza Time. The service is great too!

Ciudad Neily makes for an excellent birding base. In addition to the places mentioned above, you could also do day trips to Rincon de Osa and the La Gamba-Golfito area. With the overall mix of open, edge, forest, and local birds, a week of birding around Ciudad Neily and San Vito could easily turn up 300 species. I hope you go birding there and I hope to see you here in Costa Rica!

To learn more about the birding sites mentioned above and hundreds of other birding sites in Costa Rica, check out “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica”. Every purchase supports this blog!

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bird finding in Costa Rica Birding Costa Rica

Birding Sites in Costa Rica- Maximum Species in Minimum Time

Good birding sites in Costa Rica are too numerous to count. Anywhere with habitat will have birds, often, more birds than expected, even in the semi-urban locales of the heavily populated Central Valley. Even there, even among coffee field flanked by treed hedgerows, remnant riparian zones, and patches of hang-on woodlands, the motmots, migrants, and fancy tail Long-tailed Manakins party in massive, aged figs.

Short-tailed Hawks kite above, Gray Hawks call and flap-glide through neighborhoods, and you may hear the laugh of a Lineated Woodpecker through heavy traffic. As with all countries, Costa Rica is of course much birdier in wilder areas with more habitat and less people. Those places are always best but some certain areas still stand out, especially in terms of the numbers of species possible in a limited amount of time.

If you’re looking for major birding bang for your birding time, you can’t go wrong with these birding areas. You’ll see a lot in a day but you’ll want to stay longer, at least to feel like you’ve adequately birded the various habitats. That’s one of the main things these maxibird sites have in common and a grand reason to include them on a birding trip to Costa Rica. Indeed, we see them featured on many a tour itinerary.

The Carara Ecotone

By definition, any ecotone should have a good number of bird species. More habitats equal more birds and when you mash a bunch together, it can be bird pandemonium in the best sense. We got that fine situation going on in the Carara ecotone.

birding Costa Rica

I think that really is the best way to put it because, around Carara, we have south Pacific rainforest, tropical dry forest, wetlands, an estuary, and mangroves. Throw in open habitats and second growth and it’s no surprise that more than 500 species have been recorded from the general area.

A morning of birding can easily break 100 species and a long day can reach 160. However, instead of overdoing it, you’ll maximize species totals if you stay 3 to 4 nights so you can spend birding time in each habitat.

Sarapiqui Lowlands

The Sarapiqui lowlands include the La Selva area, La Quinta de Sarapiqui, and any number of other eco lodges in the area. A nice and birdy combination of lowlands rainforest, wetlands, rivers, and second growth result in a fantastic array of species, a few highlights being Great Green Macaw, Snowy Cotinga, Semiplumbeous Hawk, and Pied Puffbird.

Sarapiqui also acts as a good base for visiting Cope’s place, Centro Manu, and foothill birding at Nectar and Pollen as well as Virgen del Socorro. A day’s birding in the right places can easily have more than 150 species. I have had 170 with roadside birding!

The La Gamba Area

La Gamba is this village at the edge of Piedras Blancas National Park, a protected area that includes rainforests connected to the Osa Peninsula. They’ve got the same suite of species and because they are also just a bit closer than the Osa, many birding groups stay at Esquinas Lodge near La Gamba instead of driving all the way into the peninsula (which is also excellent birding).

The Black-cheeked Ant-Tanager only occurs in and around the Osa peninsula.

Like other max. species sites, La Gamba has this ecotone going on that generates constant avian action. You’ll need at least a few days to soak up open and second growth habitats, and forest action with local Black-cheeked Ant-Tanagers, Baird’s Trogons, mixed flocks, raptors, and more.

A bit further afield, you’ll find a variety of local species in wetlands, open habitats, mangroves, and other forest around Ciudad Neily and Rincon de la Osa.

Monteverde

Monteverde has become such a major destination, non-birding visitors have long outnumbered the true birders. I only mention that so you don’t become surprised at the number of buses and people you see in the area.

Even so, it still has wonderful birding and chances at large numbers of species. No, not as many as lowland areas but it comes close! As with any excellent birding site, Monteverde makes it happen with habitat. There’s a good amount of forest around town, at many of the hotels, and of course in the excellent reserves.

Bird dry habitat on the way there as well as the mature forests at Curi-Cancha, and other reserves and you’ll see a heck of a lot in an area replete with good restaurants and other tourism infrastructure.

Arenal

Like Monteverde, the Arenal area has become a major destination. It’s hard to believe that the first time I visited Fortuna, I exited a bus onto a dirt road pocked with large puddles and paid close to nothing to stay in some small, anonymous place.

Since then, the place has drastically changed but so have the birding opportunities. Numerous reserves, birding roads, open areas and some wetlands provide excellent opportunities to see literally hundreds of lowland and foothill rainforest species. Add on a trip up to Cano Negro from Arenal and you’ll leave the area with a huge number of species including a good selection of uncommon and local birds.

Ruta 126- Costa Rica’s “Via Endemica”

This birding area might not be as well known as the ones mentioned above but it can still turn up a similar number of species. Once again, it’s all about the extent and variety of habitats and on and near Ruta 126, you’ll pass through a bunch.

You have to know where to stop but there are chances at some dry forest and Central Valley birds, high elevation species on Poas Volcano, middle elevation species a bit lower down, and foothill birds below that. Although I typically show people birds from the higher and middle elevations, on longer days, I’ve found more than 150 species. Work the sites on and near this road over several days and you might see 300 species.

I don’t call it Via Endemica for nothing either; it’s good for everything from Fiery-throated Hummingbird to Sooty-faced Finch and Copper-headed Emerald (among many others), and, best of all, it’s one of the closest birding sites to the Central Valley.

These are some principal maximum species sites that come to mind but they aren’t the only ones in Costa Rica. Several other birding areas could also make it onto this list and then there are sites particularly suited for various target birds (see my Costa Rica bird finding ebook to learn about those and hundreds of other birding sites in Costa Rica). Suffice to say, go birding in Costa Rica and it’s gonna be good. Go birding at the places mentioned above and be forewarned, you might feel happily overwhelmed!

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bird finding in Costa Rica Birding Costa Rica birds to watch for in Costa Rica

Starting 2025 with Quality Birds in Costa Rica

This is 2025. This is the latest of the “new years” and you can bet that 1,000s of birders are already working on their year lists. Or just keeping track of the birds they identify, or traveling to see birds, or simply watching and enjoying birds. Pausing to focus on a cardinal’s red plumage punctuating a snowy landscape. Hearing the echoes of crow calls as a cold breeze sneaks through quiet and suspended winter woods.

In Costa Rica, I have been catching the voices of chattering parakeets flying from morning roosts, interrupted by the shouts of Great Kiskadees, and seen a few hundred other birds. Yes, a week into 2025 and already more than 300 species and if you do enough birding in Costa Rica, that’s more than normal. Bird enough for a week in the right places and 300 plus birds are expected.

birding Costa Rica

Thanks to guiding in some of the right places, I’ve also been fortunate to begin this year with several quality birds. All birds are good to see but, whether because of scarcity or anti-social behavior, some are more challenging or unexpected than others; such are the “quality birds”. Those are the pearls, emeralds, and aquamarines of our ongoing feathered treasure hunt and when you keep a year list, they are also the double and triple bonus birds. These are the some of the more polished avian gems I’ve seen during this first week of 2025. There won’t be many pictures but I’ll try and tell you what it was like to experience them.

Black-eared Wood-Quail

Misty, breezy mornings aren’t the best for birding but they’ll give you thought-provoking ambiance. I was doing my best to whistle in birds and eke them out of mossy cold front surroundings on the dead end road to Sensoria. Yeah, it might sound like a scene from a dystopian tale (especially with signs warning us of imminent volcanic danger) but no, literally, that’s what we were doing.

Such a road exists on the northern, forested flank of Rincon de la Vieja Volcano and, if you catch it right, you’ll have fantastic birding. “Right” being calm and dry weather, and us birding in waves of terrestrial clouds, the birding was rather challenging. However, we still saw and heard birds, uncommon ones too, birds like Black-eared Wood-Quail.

They never came close enough to see but it was rewarding to hear their voices rock and roll in our wonderfully forested surroundings. This is the rarest wood-quail in Costa Rica, one only seen in the more remote and intact rainforests of the Caribbean slope, especially foothill sites on the northern volcanoes.

Ornate Hawk-Eagle

An Ornate Hawk-Eagle from another year near Virgen del Socorro.

I saw this bird just yesterday, I can still see the heavy raptor flap its way along a ridge line above Cinchona. Yeah, the famous birding cafe with feeders and photographers and smiling people is home to a pair of Ornate Hawk-Eagles. They might not pay a visit, might prefer to freak out their fellow forest denizens away from people but you can bet they check it out, at least on occasion.

With so many Black Guans coming to the feeders these days, maybe one of the hawk-eagles will make a play for one? They do eat them you know, those and even macaws and small monkeys. I suppose that’s unsurprising for a hefty, monster goshawk, that’s sort of what an Ornate Hawk-Eagle is.

I saw that choice bird thanks to Niall Keogh. While birding in “Old Cinchona”, he spotted it soaring at a distance, a non vulture using the same thermals as a Black Vulture. If you are ever in Ireland and wouldn’t mind some guided birding, Niall will show you more than you think was possible.

Lesser Ground-Cuckoo

The easiest ground-cuckoo is common in Costa Rica but it’s always a quality bird. How not with those Egyptian flavored eyes?

Lesser Ground Cuckoo creeping away.

On January 1st, we had one while birding the Ceiba-Orotina road, more or less by accident. Stripe-headed Sparrows were high-pitch chipping from some brush. Common birds, easy to see but still nice to look at. Must have been why I automatically raised my bins.

I glimpsed a sparrow tail but found myself focusing in on the painted face of a ground-cuckoo! Happily, the bird stayed long enough for all of us to see it.

Bare-necked Umbrellabird

Whoah! Yes, that early in the year. Go to the right place for it, hang out long enough, and you might see one. At least that was my chance strategy. Unless you find the right fruiting tree in the right place, that really is about all you can do; I’m glad that birding gambit paid off!

Niall and had already been trudging through the mud-root trail at Centro Manu for a couple hours. We had heard and seen some manakins and a few other birds but not a whole lot else. I knew umbrellabird had to be in there but despite the bird’s silence and crow dimensions, it’s still a crapshoot. All you can do is stop every few steps, scan the forest and repeat, keep on and hope you notice something fly or a dark bird obscured by green that doesn’t end up being a toucan or an oropendola.

I had stopped and noticed palm nuts on the ground, food that can attract rodents and, in turn, snakes. I scanned the ground, wondering if I might discern a hidden serpent when I was interrupted by a large black shape flying past us at close range.

“Umbrellabird! There it is!”

Thankfully, this odd bird of birds perched nearby and stayed there, only 20 feet above the ground. It didn’t seem to be afraid of us as we watched it at leisure, watched the adult make Bare-necked Umbrellabird slowly turn its head back and forth, using its big obsidian eyes to peer into the forest.

We marveled in the rare moment and how much it resembled a goliath manakin topped with a pompadour, how its neck was touched with shining iridescence. A truly unreal bird, a reminder that our world, this natural place, is replete with living treasure.

The umbrellabird swooped to another perch to do the same forest scanning moves and then another, eventually moving out of sight although not before we saw it catch and eat a huge insect, one as big as a frog. I was reminded of Accipiters and owls that do the same act, moving from one perch to another, always stopping to carefully watch for prey.

We saw one umbrellabird but there’s more at Centro Manu. The local guide there, Kenneth, has also recently seen a female and immature (and Crested Owl and other birds). You might want to visit.

Snowy Cotinga

After the umbrellabird, we enjoyed lunch at Centro Manu and ventured onwards. Opting to look for lowland birds around La Selva, we enjoyed views of Chestnut-colored Woodpecker and some other key birds but no Snowy Cotinga.

Chestnut-colored Woodpcker is a quality, must-see bird too!

I figured we would check a spot near Chilamate where I have often seen the surreal things. That figuring paid off, that and maybe the luck of the cotinga because, amazingly, a male was waiting for us. As I pulled into the road, I noticed a bird perched on top of a bare tree. It looked small, it couldn’t be but, I had to of course check it.

It turns out it wasn’t as small as I had assumed. The perched thingee was a full white bird with the slightest hint of gray on its head, a short tail, funny shaped head and beady black eye. That’s what a male snowy Cotinga looks like, we hadn’t even stepped out of the car!

We had also arrived just in time, two minutes later it swooped off and away to hidden branches.

All motmots

Grainy Tody Motmot, near dark conditions.

Six motmot species reside in Costa Rica, not all of them are easy to see. As luck would have it, I was in the right places to see all six of them. Turquoise-browed was an easy, Rollerish and lapis, mosaic-pieced bird on wires near Orotina (more than one).

Broad-billed and Rufous were rainforest beauties in expected places. As per usual, the Rufous grandfather-clocked its tail back and forth, pausing before switching it back to the other side.

The tough ones were at Rincon de la Vieja, on that same mossy road where wood-quail rollicked and Nightingale Wrens enticed. Thankfully, the Tody Motmot responded to my whistling and perched within easy sight. It’s not like other motmots; more like a green puppet with a fancy face. Then again, all motmots got puppet attributes but the Tody would still be most at home on a children’s show.

The other tough one was the Keel-billed Motmot, another green beauty just up the road from where we took in the Tody.

Then there’s the final motmot, the 6th and easy, common one. No less beautiful, we saw a Lesson’s Motmot in an expected place and situation; perched on a concrete post next to shaded coffee.

Rufous-breasted Antthrush

If birders in Costa Rica see an antthrush, it’s usually the Black-faced variety. That’s still a great bird to see, still a forest-crakish creature that whistles far below crowns of massive trees. However, Costa Rica also has two other antthrushes, two other species less frequently seen, one of which is probably also endemic to Costa Rica and Panama (a classic, intriguing “future split”).

That would be the Black-headed Antthrush, a bird fairly easy to hear in several foothill spots and, not too tough to see at Pocosol and some other sites. The other antthrush is the Rufous-breasted, the toughest and least common of the three in Costa Rica. You’ll hear it at Tapanti and a few other spots but laying eyes on it is another story.

Cotinga luck being with us, we found ourselves in that other story on the track above Cinchona. It’s a slippery road, unless you are very fit and into hiking and fending off confused friendly dogs that become unfriendly, I can’t recommend it. But, the forests up there do have some good birds (see above for Ornate hawk-Eagle), tough antthrush included.

We heard at least three and one sounded close enough to give it a try. However, I knew it would still be a challenge as we still needed a view into the dense forest understory, a spot where we could see the ground to watch the bird walk into view (such is the antthrush way).

Fantastically, after a good deal of speaking with the bird in its whistle language, it gave us a break and popped into sight! It was just a moment but that span was enough to claim views of polished jasper, of a bird that brings me back to the Andes; a Rufous-breasted Antthrush.

Blue-and-Gold Tanager

It’s gorgeous, it’s a tanager, and it’s not easy to see. Well, these days, it is! Go to the San Luis Adventure Center and one might fly into your face. Not quite but close.

With such unruly cool and wet weather for so long, cloud forest birds are having trouble finding their favorite fruits. They’re moving to lower elevations and doing whatever it takes to survive. One of those actions is eagerly feasting on bananas or plantains or other stuff at the San Luis Canopy.

When the guy walked in with the fruit, tanager madness took place. There were maybe 30 Silver-throateds, a few Emeralds, and other birds that literally flew at us and perched within arm’s length. Two of those other birds were chunkier and bigger than the other tanagers and plumaged in yellow and dark, blackish-blue.

Yes, Blue-and-Gold Tanagers, uncommon Bangsia genus tanagers of fantastic mossy forest, just the type of habitat at the San Luis Canopy.

During this first week of birding, I also had other nice birds, lots, including Long-billed Dowitcher (it’s uncommon in Costa Rica!), two massive muppet Great Potoos, beautiful Bay-headed and Crimson-collared Tanagers and more. There’s always lots more birds waiting to be seen in Costa Rica.

To learn more about the sites mentioned in this post and how to see these and hundreds of other birds, support this blog by purchasing my Costa Rica bird finding guide, “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica“. I hope you see these birds, I hope to see you here in Birdlandia.