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Month: May 2026

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Costa Rica birding news planning for a birding trip to Costa Rica Where to see birds in Costa Rica

Costa Rica Birding Outlook, June, 2026

May is nigh finished. In Costa Rica, it doesn’t feel like it. We don’t mark the end of the 5th month, the transition from spring to summer, with Olive-sided Flycatchers and other “late” migrants. Although there might still be a few migrant species around, most fled north back in April. Instead of measuring May’s final days with migrants, birders in Costa Rica know when June is at hand by the heavy rains.

Normally, the rains begin in April and are an everyday, afternoon occurrence in much of May. By the end of the month, daily afternoon downpours are a given.

Not this year. In 2026, the predictable heavy rains are starting late or, maybe not starting at all and it has everything to do with the El Nino.

El Nino Weather Begins

There’s been a lot of talk about an El Nino occurring this year, maybe even a super El Nino, one stronger and longer than past events. Although we don’t know yet if that will happen, we are definitely in the initial grips of one now.

That explains the present lack of rains, at least on the Pacific slope and, the opposite on the Caribbean slope. Lately, although we have had some rains on the Pacific, they have mostly fallen in the south. The Central Valley and Guanacaste have had much less rain than normal while parts of the Caribbean have experienced flooding.

What does this mean for the birds? Since quite a few birds seemed to breed early, hopefully, the lack of rains won’t affect the 2026 breeding season too much. However, birds attempting to breed now, at least the ones on the Pacific slope, might not do so well.

If you plan on visiting Costa Rica in the coming months, expect hotter temperatures, drier conditions on the Pacific slope, and very wet weather on the Caribbean slope (which often translates to occasional landslides and localized flooding).

Good Fruit Crops on the Caribbean Slope

On a brighter birding note, there seems to be a lot of trees in fruit on the Caribbean slope, at least in the middle elevations. Although that might result in fewer birds visiting fruit feeders in some areas, this is great news and how it should be. More available fruit in middle elevations means more food for Bare-necked Umbrellabird, Lovely Cotinga, guans, tanagers, and other frugivores.

Indeed, I suspect it’s why I saw an umbrellabird and may have glimpsed a Lovely Cotinga near the Varablanca area last month. On recent visits, I’ve still seen lots of trees in fruit including the small “avocados” favored by quetzals, cotingas, and guans. I’m itching to check that area again soon to look for those birds and check for quail-doves feeding down below.

Quetzals in the Poas Area

With the good fruit crop, it’s no surprise that quetzals seem to be becoming easier to see on and near Poas. Last week, I saw several trees in fruit and had good looks at a pair, a female, and heard one or two additional males!

Quetzals probably won’t be too tough to find near Varablanca either.

Cinchona Still Slow, Corso has Improved

On a recent visit to Cinchona, I didn’t see any real change in hummingbird activity. Green-crowned Brilliants were common but I only had one sabrewing. At least an uncommon White-bellied Mountain-Gem was present.

The White-bellied Mountain-Gem is a beautiful, local hummingbird species.

The fruit feeder was also fairly slow, I suspect because there is so much fruit available in nearby forests and, perhaps because various birds are still nesting. Even so, it’s still worth visiting, at least for a short visit. To see more birds, you might also want to check out the Soda Poas (backs up to good forest), and other roadside sites in that general area.

As for Corso (now known as the Rualdo Cafe), several Porterweed bushes were in flower and were attracting several hummingbirds. There were several Volcanos (of the Poas-Barva subspecies), and a couple Scintillants, Violetears, and Purple-throated Mountain-Gems.

Fingers crossed that they do not trim the bushes again! If you stop there, please patronize the cafe. However, if they cut the bushes again, I would suggest mentioning that you would have visited but, since they destroyed hummingbird habitat, you’ll be taking your business elsewhere. I hope it doesn’t come to that but, if so, I’ll be making sure to tell them just that.

Good Marshbirds in Guanacaste, Wildfires in Palo Verde

In another part of the country, lately, the marshbirding has been pretty good. Rice fields in Guanacaste have played host to Spotted Rail, Paint-billed Crake, and Pinnated Bittern among other, more easily seen species.

This is actually expected, the challenge can be finding rice fields with appropriate water levels that have not been harvested. It might be worth driving around and checking roads near Canas and Liberia. If you are really lucky, you might even connect with a field being harvested! If so, focus in on the rice in front of the harvester, there’s a good chance you’ll see several flushed rails. including Paint-billed Crake.

Unfortunately, in Guanacaste, the hot, dry weather has also resulted in some wild fires, including a large one in Palo Verde National Park. With diminished rains forecasted compounded by hotter weather, sadly, we’ll probably be in for more fires up north. If traveling in that area, be aware of your surroundings!

That’s all that comes to mind right now but I could always say a lot more about the great birding in Costa Rica. It’s like any place you visit for birding; go birding in good habitat and you’ll see a lot! To learn about birding sites in Costa Rica along with information on finding and identifying birds in Costa Rica, you might like my ebook, “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica“.

I hope to see you here!

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Birding Costa Rica Global Big Day

Global Big Day, May 9, 2026, Costa Rica

I didn’t do much birding this weekend. Yes, there was the automatic birding that happens when Crimson-fronted Parakeets exclaim their presence from urban ledges, Clay-colored Thrushes sing outside, and Brown Jays call from a neighboring farm but, I did not specifically venture outside and look for birds. As eBird would say, my birding the past two days has been completely “incidental”.

I’ll tell you what though; I made up for it last weekend (Saturday in particular) and while guiding in the Poas area a few days later. On the 13th, we had 100 plus species while birding cloud and middle elevation forests near Poas Volcano. There were silky-flycatchers, Resplendent Quetzal, Flame-throated Warblers, a glimpsed Nightingale-Wren, eye-catching Swallow-tailed-Kites, and a whole lot more but, even that wealth of birds didn’t compare to the birding bonanza that took place on the 9th of May.

birding Costa Rica

That auspicious day was Global Big Day and, as befits such a bird-focused date, the birding was fierce, nonstop, trying, tiring, and simply glorious. I saw a lot but what makes Global Big Day especially fantastic is knowing that other birders from around the world are likewise focusing on birds; watching and listening and counting and noting and birdbathing in the magnificence of our feathered world.

On May 9th, 2026, those other birders celebrating the avian side of life included 81,000 plus people and although I only ran into a handful, I love knowing that all these other folks are also out there in Nebraska and Oaxaca and Japan and Tanzania and so many other places digging birds too. See some of their stories at the Global Big Day results page, and check out country and world totals at the main Global Big Day page. You’ll notice that, this year, us Global Big Dayers collectively identified more than 8,000 species! Here’s some of what happened in Costa Rica:

Good participation in Costa Rica

Although I only saw a few other birders, according to the Costa Rica results page, more than 1,000 birders were submitting lists on May 9th! That’s fantastic because, as with everywhere, the more birders the better. We also submitted a lot of checklists (more than 3,400), and had some major team results on the international stage.

In looking at the results, it looks like we had birders covering most corners of the country, including one or more pelagic trips off the Pacific Coast. Thanks to those boats, somewhat elusive birds like Christmas Shearwater and Tahiti Petrel made it onto the Costa Rica GBD list.

703 Species

Together, we identified more than 700 species, an excellent total given that a high proportion of migrants have already flown north. Some were still around, principally shorebirds, but overall, most birds on the GBD list are residents.

These included all regularly occurring hummingbird species, all tinamous, most woodcreepers, most cotingas, and so on. Of note were 37 species of diurnal raptors! That’s a good reminder that even though raptors in Costa Rica are generally uncommon, we have an impressive number of species and if you cover enough ground, you’ll end up seeing quite a few. The only regular one missing was the Pearl Kite.

Pearl Kites are uncommon, shrikeish, mini raptors.

Missing birds

Most of the resident species not recorded read like a typical wish list for folks who have birded Costa Rica on several occasions or, the rarities that tend not to be seen on a birding trip. These included challenging species like Masked Duck, Tawny-faced Quail, Violaceous Quail-Dove, Olive-backed Quail-Dove, White-tailed Nightjar, Buff-collared Nightjar, Ocellated Poorwill, Spot-fronted and White-chinned Swifts, Rufous Nightjar, Lanceolated Monklet, Great Jacamar, Slaty-backed Forest-Falcon, Spot-crowned Antvireo, Scaled and Black-crowned Antpittas, Black-banded and Strong-billed Woodcreepers, Lovely Cotinga, Gray-headed Piprites, and Botteri’s Sparrow.

These species are tough but still regular in the right places. On past GBDs, we’ve recorded all of them by having birders looking for them in key spots. This time, I think we just didn’t have that going on.

That especially rings true for species like Spotted Rail, Mangrove Rail, Brown Booby, Pearl Kite, Middle American and “Puntarenas” Screech-Owls. All of these are fairly expected when birding certain areas or sites (although I do wonder if the two species of screech-owls aren’t vocalizing these days).

The highest total for Costa Rica

It was a long day but I was pleased to get the highest non-team species total for Costa Rica (and one of the top ten totals on the global stage). 283 species in one day also shows how darn birdy Costa Rica is especially considering that we started at midnight (although 2 a.m. was still pretty early), detoured into the Central Valley, and had some breezy and hot conditions that limiting bird song.

As is often the case, some odd birds failed to show in places where I typically record them but, I also had lots of highlights. The rare and unexpected bird experiences included Least Bittern calling once from a brushy wetland near Orotina, hearing Harris’s Hawk call just before dawn, hearing a couple of late lingering Indigo Buntings, and having a few Uniform Crakes call to each other at the end of the day, just before the rains poured down.

Carara also worked out despite being hot and home to way too many cicadas. Back in the more humid part of the forest, the areas with the biggest trees and farthest from the road, I was treated to tough and iffy birds like Piping Long-tailed Woodcreeper, Green Shrike-Vireo, Black-striped Woodcreeper, Baird’s Trogon, and Scaly-throated Leaftosser.

This eye-smacking bird has become iffy at Carara.

My raptor day was pretty low but lots of other birds showed, especially at and near Carara, and in the Poas area. What’s kind of crazy is that I’m sure I would have identified even more if I had not detoured into the Central Valley and, if conditions were slightly better for bird activity. Not to mention, very few wintering birds were still present, if so, I probably would have broken 300.

It’s also worth mentioning that all these birds also happened while driving an electric vehicle and even stopping to charge it mid-morning (where we picked up Rock Pigeon ta da!). Regarding that, I’ll be writing more in detail about electric vehicles in Costa Rica as well as the Global Big Day experience in other places. In the meantime, I’ll just mention that my GBD, and the Costa Rica GBD totals in general remind again how incredibly birdy Costa Rica is.

To learn more about the Costa Rica birding sites mentioned above, you’ll find lots of information at this blog as well as in my 900 plus page ebook, “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica“. I hope to see you here!

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

The Swifts are Back in Town

In Costa Rica, the dark clouds of the wet season have descended upon us. Every afternoon, around one or two, they gather and swoop in to unleash their million count buckets and if the winds happened to bring in a bit of extra moisture from the Caribbean, the sky loaders work double, triple time to keep the rains a coming.

It’s only May, the rain bringers are just getting started; barely kicking the gears to get that sky river rolling. Some afternoons, the rains deluge and flood streets, even create local tornadoes. We saw one such heavy energy system the other day, happily, from a safe and dry distance. It was a massive lead block, a thing of dense gray water seemingly turned solid and alien that grossly interrupted the usual bucolic scenery of towns, scattered palm trees, and green quilted hills. In the news later that day, we watched footage from the center of that aquatic creature, an ocean in action that ripped off roofing and forced trees to bend the knee. From our perspective, it was a lead void that obscured the skies over the town of Grecia and the southwest flank of Poas Volcano. From the inside, I figured I had learned what a fish sees when it looks through the water of its tank.

Fortunately, so far, that seemed to be the worst of the early wet season weather. No doubt, as the season moves forward, we’ll see more of the sky becoming oceanic, especially with a super el Nino forming. What will it bring? Probably nothing good, severity on top of extreme is never a boon, at least not unless you are a mountain hoping to shed tonnages of soil and trees. Not unless you are a stream dreaming of becoming a rushing, unstoppable river.

In the meantime, although we have seen a few afternoons of rain steady from the afternoon on well into the night, there have also been sunny mornings, fresh foliaged trees graced with singing vireos (a la Yellow-Green), Clay-colored Thrushes bring beakfulls of food to hidden young, curious, loudly calling Brown Jays, heavy set Red-billed Pigeons power flapping through the humid air, and other neighborhood urban birds.

Those would be species like Blue-gray Tanagers, an occasional Blue Grosbeak warble-singing with hope at the edge of determined second growth, a motmot hooting from the shade, and others.

Here at the tail end of migration, as the warblers in NYC sing proud to announce their festive northern arrival, we still have some migrants. These are the classic “late ones”, the birds hesitant to leave their Amazonian haunts. Yesterday morning, around 5:40 a.m., I saw some of those later migrants; a flock of Eastern Kingbirds winging it north and briefly stopping to feed from a fruiting fig, pewees air bouncing from perches, and a stealthy Willow/Alder Flycatcher keeping to low vegetation at the edge of a small, urban stream.

My greatest hope is seeing a migrating cuckoo, the more likely one being a Yellow-billed. But they are tricky here in Costa Rica, with those long, svelte wings, most probably zip right over the entire country in one night. The ones that stop hide all too well and they don’t sing but I know they are here, hopefully I’ll get lucky before they are gone. I’ve been listening for them at night too but haven’t heard any. In fact, although I have heard various other species call from night skies above the Central Valley, I have yet to hear the guttural calls of migrating cuckoos.

I might not be seeing cuckoos but I’m grateful to see an abundance of swifts. It’s like this every wet season. After clear and breezy dry season skies nearly bereft of swifts, all of a sudden, we’ve got the air birds dotting the cloudy skies, calling from high above, and even zipping low over local roofs. They’ve come back to town and are still ever difficult to see well but at least they are here.

Where were they in the dry season? In all likelihood, the swifts were out foraging over rainforests or, maybe just too high overhead to see. In the dry season, birding eyes can always find the low flying Chaeturas (the good old “cigars with wings”) and the falconish, big White-collared Swifts but, to see the less common swifts, you usually need to bird more humid regions.

Not so right now and, amazingly, the uncommon swifts will forage right over busy streets and congested roads. That’s how it was this afternoon. While waiting in line for a late afternoon traffic light to change, dozens of scythe-winged, dark birds zipped over houses and busy streets. If anyone person bothered to look up and notice them, they could easily be envious. While we sat nearly trapped in vehicles waiting to move a few feet, the aerialists moved unhindered and fast, flying where they pleased and far, as if the town wasn’t there, as if to show off their natural freedom.

Without binoculars, I couldn’t say for sure which species were flying overhead but suspect they were mostly Chestnut-collared Swifts along with a few other species. When I got back home, birds were still flying over houses as well as high in the sky. Thanks to magnified views, I espied several White-collared Swifts along with a handful of Black Swifts, several Chestnut-collareds and, the stars of the wet season, Spot-fronted Swifts.

A few swift photos from some years ago…

There may have been White-chinned as well but I couldn’t see enough details to say for sure, nor did they reveal their identity with vocalizations. Happily, the Spot-fronteds did, mostly as they chased each other on air-chopping, bat-like wings. I suspect it’s some form of courtship, supposing they know that now is the time to nest, now is the time of insect abundance, at least on the Pacific side of the mountains.

We’ve been witness to that abundance ourselves, noticed clouds of gnats, millions of tiny bugs swarming over the streets. Swift and flycatcher food, could that also be why the flycatchers migrate late? More en-route sustenance?

The low pressure and clouds drive the air plankton down and the swifts follow suit. And you can actually see them, note pale scaling on the belly and eventually catch the fine details on their heads and, even so, their fast ways ensure that they aren’t the easiest of birds to watch. But now is the time to try and focus in on swifts in Costa Rica, at least in the Central Valley, because now is when the swifts are back in town.

To learn about swift identification in Costa Rica, check out the freshly updated Costa Rica Birds- field guide app, my ebook, “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica” and this excellent article written by my friend and Ornis birding guide, Dani Lopez-Velasco, “Neotropical swifts: some noteworthy Peruvian records—and additional aerial enigmas“.