It’s getting cold out there! Not so much in Costa Rica even if some local folks beg to differ. It’s the end of November, creeping into early December and I recall times of preliminary cold, days of playing football with friends in brisk, pre-winter weather, watching the flakes come down accompanied by Thanksgiving parades and football on the TV and slow roasted turkey in the oven.
Outside, on the nature side of the coin, these “winter is coming days” meant chickadee and sharp Downy Woodpecker calls in the hibernating woods, crow caws and Blue Jay jeers in the neighborhood, and gulls. Storms of gulls thriving on the rushing waters of the deep Niagara River.
You watch gull flocks on the Niagara and you might feel mesmerized. Dress for the weather or you’ll feel frozen and numb too but there’ll be more than enough gulls to ponder. At least that’s how it was in the hairspray 80s and flannel 90s. Thousands of gulls to watch; a blizzard of Bonaparte’s and flurries of Ring-billeds and Herrings with a scattering of “white-winged gulls”, hulking Great Black-backs and fair chances at other, less common species.
Gulls and ducks and maybe the first Snowy Owl of the year and others birds in Niagara but no Blue-gray Tanagers, no Clay-coloreds mewling, kiskadees shrieking, nor Gray Hawks whistling. Those are some of the birds I hear in my Costa Rican neighborhood in late November, December too and although northern winds can bring cool conditions, the air is more “fresh” than “freezing finger stealing cold”.
As always, it’s pretty warm in Costa Rica, and the birding is great! Although high season starts sometime next month or January, by the number of birding tours happening, I think several companies and birders have realized that November’s a great time to be birding in Costa Rica too. Here’s a bit of birding news to whet your avian loving appetite.
Aplomado Falcon- still around, not always accessible
Earlier this month (or maybe in October), a sweet Aplomado Falcon was found at a site south of Jaco. Although we get a few of these smart looking raptors every year, they tend to be one day wonders. I bet most of those few birds just wander around until they find some open fields to their liking, ones that are mostly inaccessible.
This bird, on the other hand, decided to set up hunting house in a fairly accessible spot. It’s been hanging out in open fields on the road that extends past a housing/horse farm development called, “Mistico”. A lot of local birders have seen the falcon but, the bird’s not always visible, seems to be largely absent for much of the day, and may spend much of its time on private property beyond the viewing horizon.
If you want to try for it anyways, your best chances are visiting the site in the early morning or late afternoon. Various local birders have had more success by venturing beyond a locked gate but I can’t recommend that. This eBird spot marks the site, the falcon seems to mostly hang out in the open fields past the metal gates.
Even if you don’t see it, you’ll still see lots of other cool birds. On a recent visit, we had Laughing Falcon, a pair of Pearl Kites, and Red-breasted Meadowlark among other species.
Sandhill Crane- might still be around, might be gone
Today marks a bit more than a week since the first day of Costa Rica’s first documented Sandhill Crane. Has this species visited in the past? Did people from local cultures encounter them at some point over the past several thousand years? Since Costa Rica was heavily forested and cranes prefer open areas, I bet any encounters would have been pretty darn infrequent.
At the same time, since we’re talking a time frame of thousands of years and cultures absolutely connected with their natural surroundings, it seems that some people probably did encounter lost Sandhill Cranes. They may have eaten them or, at least tried to catch them. In any case, since we don’t have any evidence of that happening, we can at least document this sighting as the first definite record for the country.
Maryllen and I went to see the bird on Friday and I’m sure glad we did! It hasn’t been seen in the same farm field since and could very well have left Costa Rica for good. I hope it gets refound but I wouldn’t be surprised if it migrated or succumbed to unfamiliar conditions. While we watched it, I saw it shed various feathers (perhaps a sign of not doing so well?) and it was vocalizing quite a bit. The crane seemed restless, being such a social, dancing bird, I bet it felt lonely. It will be interesting to see if it turns up in another area.
Watch for other vagrant birds
A Sandhill Crane came to Costa Rica, what else is out there? Will we get our first Gadwall? Maybe a White-throated Sparrow, Short-eared Owl, or other local megas? Only one way to find out, please document any odd birds you happen to come across.
Hopefully, there’ll be enough local birding going on to find the rare, lost ones. I suppose they could be anywhere but places I’m eager to check include coastal sites, wetlands, and lakes for shorebirds and other aquatic species, open wet fields, and even open paramo sites for pipits or other super rare stuff.
Dry Season Ends (supposedly)
According to the weather forecasting people, November 18th marked the end of the wet season. Although it sprinkled a but today, it seems that they were right. Lately, we have had typical dry season weather of sunny days and breezy conditions. That might be nice weather but it’s actually not so nice for birding.
No worries because there will still be lots of birds to see in the morning and especially in other parts of the country that aren’t so dry. That’s right, as expected, we can expect rain in the mountains, on the Caribbean slope, and still get afternoon rains from Tarcoles to Panama.
Road conditions and driving
Now that the rainy season has mostly dried up, we can see where pot holes have formed. So far, it hasn’t been too bad but then again, I haven’t driven in the areas that saw the heaviest rains. However, I can say that the Bijagual road next to Carara has been more or less fixed, and that the Cerro Lodge road is a bit rutted and rough but still passable by two wheel drive vehicles.
The road from San Ramon to Puntarenas has also been fixed and roadwork is also happening on the road to the Boca Tapada area. Work is still happening on the Tarcoles bridge but it’s not too bad (although could be bad on weekends).
As far as driving goes, when we drove from Jaco to the Central Valley on Friday, I was reminded that you really have to be careful about picking your driving times. For example, when coming back from the Pacific, I will never, ever drive back between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. You have to leave before 2 (and better before noon) or, wait until at least 6 at night. Heck it’s probably worth staying there to look for night birds and then driving back around 7:30 or 8. If not, you will probably spend hours in a barely moving parking lot traffic situation.
As for driving to the Pacific lowlands, you should really leave before 5 a.m.
Lots of great birding in beautiful places
As per usual, there’s lots of great birding in beautiful places. In Costa Rica, that’s par for the course; come here for birding and you can’t go wrong! Tanagers in foothill rainforests, macaws in the lowlands, toucan species in most places, there’s always a lot to see at the numerous birding sites in Costa Rica. I can’t wait to get back out birding soon, I hope you go birding soon too.
