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Category: Costa Rica bird finding guide

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Easy, Highland Birding in Costa Rica at Varablanca

Costa Rica is a dream for any aficionado of topography. Before you ask yourself if there really are people who dig topography, let me assure that there indeed are. Most of us like a mountain scene or two (partly why those Ricola commercials are so memorable), and when I lived in the flatlands of Illinois, I met more than one person who was surprisingly enthused about any change in topography. “Topography!” they would exclaim as we drove over a bit of escarpment. I don’t bemoan that excitement in the slightest for I too am an aficionado of abrupt changes in elevation!

In Costa Rica, you are better off being a fan of a crumpled, up-lifted landscape because that describes most of the country. That’s ok. That’s a good thing. That’s also partly why we have so many birds that occur nowhere else but Costa Rica and Panama. It’s also why we have a bunch of birds that normally live in the Andes. AND, it also makes it easy to leave the urban zone behind and head up into the mountains to one of the closest, best spots for birding near San Jose.

A trail at Poas Volcano Lodge.

Varablanca is just 40 minutes to an hour from the San Jose area and it’s an easy place to see a good variety of highland birds. Most birders don’t go there because they save their mountain birding for Cerro de la Muerte (aka Savegre, the Dota Valley, Quetzal Paradise). While there is more habitat up that way, Cerro de la Muerte is also 2 and a half to 3 hours from San Jose. The proximity of Varablanca makes it an easy, honest option for a first night in country, and I know of at least one local birding tour company that does stay in Varablanca for the first night of most tours.

Lately, I have been spending more time up that way guiding and watching birds at the Poas Volcano Lodge. Here are some recent highlights and observations from Varablanca, Cinchona, and Poas:

  • If it’s raining, go to Cinchona: It might be raining there too, but I have escaped the water on more than one occasion by heading to a lower elevation. The other plus side for Cinchona is still being able to watch birds come to the feeders even if it happens to be raining.
    Note the sign.

    There be barbets and a toucanet on that feeder.
  • Black-cheeked Warblers: This species can turn up in any riparian zones or roadside forest with bamboo in the understory.

    Black-cheeked Warbler.
  • Black-thighed Grosbeak: Although it often moves to lower elevations in rainy weather, it seems to be fairly common at Poas Volcano Lodge and in the general area.
  • Long-tailed Silky-Flycatcher: The general area always seems good for this cool endemic. It sounds like a cricket and usually hangs out in the crowns of tall trees. The Black and yellow is also fairly common around Poas.
  • Don’t discount quetzals and guans: The R. Quetzal is far from common around Poas but it is there. Hang out long enough at the Volcan Restaurant (please support their buisiness and donate generously for the feeders), and there is a fair chance that one will show. Find a fruiting avocado and you might also see one or two. Black Guan is more regular, especially in the forest along the road to Poas.
  • Prong-billed Barbet: This species is pretty common in this area. It can show up in any spot with forest but if you want really close looks, check out the feeders at Cinchona and Poas Volcano Lodge.

    Prong-billed Barbet.
  • Red-tailed Hawk: Yes, readers from the USA and Canada will be saying, “So what?”. To that, I ask if you think this looks like a Red-tailed from home? It doesn’t sound like one either. I wonder how far genetically removed it is from birds up north? Maybe a little, maybe enough for a split. Varablanca and Poas are good areas to study this highland endemic subspecies.

    Maybe we should call this an Orange-bellied Hawk.
  • Ruddy Treerunner: Speaking of highland endemics, this and most of the others live in the area as well.
    Ruddy Treerunner.
    The Spangle-cheeked Tanager is another endemic.

    And so is the Large-footed Finch.

When booking your hotel for that first and last night in Costa Rica, remember that birdy Varablanca is just 45 minutes to an hour from the airport.

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How to See Spot-bellied Bobwhite in Costa Rica

We birders like to describe the way we go about watching birds. If we just look at the birds in the backyard and flip through the field guide once in a while, we might say that we are pretty darn casual about birding. If we go on field trips with a local birding group and try to see and identify certain target birds, we are a bit more serious about it. Those of us who look forward to birding at every opportunity, spend way too many hours studying bird songs on Xeno-Canto, and travel to other countries to see new birds instead of relaxing on the beach are probably a bit more than serious about the passion of birding. So those distinctions are great and known among the birding community but what do they have to do with seeing “wild chickens”?

First of all, no matter how you define yourself as a birder, we have to get something straight- the only real, wild chicken is the Red Junglefowl. It does indeed look like a reddish chicken but huskies also look kind of like wolves, and when it comes down to it, the chicken is a domesticated junglefowl. Well, no matter how you want to define a chicken, keep in mind that we don’t refer to wolves as “dogs” and if Aurochs were still around, we wouldn’t be calling those massive hooved beasts “Bessie”.  So, I wonder why, if we don’t keep grouse, tragopans, or bobwhites as pets, do some birders still write them off as “chickens”? This is really just an excuse to ignore those shy ground birds because they can be a royal pain to actually see. However, they still quality as birds and since every bird counts, here is some info on seeing Spot-bellied (Crested) Bobwhite in Costa Rica:

  • Don’t look in the forest: Forested habitats in Costa Rica are inhabited by chicken-like birds but they aren’t bobwhites. Those are the wood-quails and in keeping with grouse, can be a real pain. If you want to see wood-quails, look for them in places like the cloud forests in the Monteverde areas, forests in the Talamancas (like San Gerardo de Dota), and the Osa Peninsula. The bobwhites live in weedy, brushy fields.
  • Coffee fields in the Central Valley: Go birding at the edge of a coffee cultivation and you might see some bobwhites. Pick an area of coffee with few people and no dogs, scan the edge of the trail or road as far ahead as you can see, and they might appear in your field of view. They probably occur up to around 1,400 meters.

    A road at the edge of a coffee cultivation- there are bobwhites in this picture.
  • Scan the edges of roads in the dry northwest: By “dry northwest”, I mean anywhere on the Pacific slope from just north of Cerro Lodge on up to Nicaragua and up to 1,200 meters or so. Keep checking as far ahead as you can see to surprise the bobwhites before they see you and run for cover.
    Use the car as cover and they might come close.

    Bobwhites creeping forward.
  • Early morning, late afternoon: As with almost every diurnal bird, this is the best time to see bobwhites. It’s when they call more often and scurry around in search of food.
    A female bobwhite walks close by.

    Followed by a male.
  • Calling birds: This works if the bird is calling from an exposed spot but if not, don’t expect it to show. They aren’t very responsive to playback of their whistled “bob-white” call either.
  • A few good sites: Spot-bellied Bobwhite can turn up just about anywhere in the Central Valley and in the Pacific northwest wherever weedy fields are present. That said, some of the better areas might be Ensenada, Chomes, the Guacimo Road, the road to Palo Verde, and Santa Rosa National Park. In the Central Valley, check any roads that go through coffee cultivations and open, weedy fields.

    Like other wild chicken-like birds, they are adept at being sneaky. Take a careful look in the coffee fields.

To learn more about finding birds and the birding at these and nearly every site in Costa Rica, get How to See, Identify, and Find Birds in Costa Rica.

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Preparing for a Birding Trip to Costa Rica? Get “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica”!

When we take birding trips, there are two main books that us birders buy. We all know that those two essentials are (1) a field guide, and (2) a bird-finding book. While some of us forego the bird finding books because we are on a tour or want to save on packing space, most of us usually buy one before the trip. A good bird-finding guide helps with planning, lets us know what to expect, where to go, and ups the excitement level for the trip.

Costa Rica has had its fair share of bird finding guides, including a good one that came out less than ten years ago. However, most bird-finding guides are limited to a certain amount of space because it just isn’t cost-effective to publish a bird-finding tome rather than a heavily edited book with fewer pages. This leaves out many a lesser known yet valuable site as well as a cornucopia of other useful information for planning a birding trip. One solution to the extra pages/publishing conundrum is the E-book; the platform I chose for  “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica“.

More a Costa Rican birding companion than a site guide, this book has been many years in the making. I toyed with the idea of writing something that would present information on finding as well as identifying birds in Costa Rica ever since my second trip there in 1994. As I birded my way around several parts of Costa Rica, such questions came to mind as: If antbirds were supposed to be common, where were they? How do you find motmots, puffbirds, tinamous, and other neotropical birds? Where were all of the raptors? And what about identification of woodcreepers?

This book aims to answers these and many other questions about birding in Costa Rica to help birders of all levels prepare for trips to this country as well as other areas in the neotropical region. It’s also a site guide and although I haven’t included every site in the country, this book is, by far, the most comprehensive birding site guide for Costa Rica. I had hoped to make it available by the end of 2014 but, as it turns out, it just took much longer than expected. However, I am happy to say that this first edition is finally done and available for use on PCs, tablets, and smartphones (once an Adobe Reader app. is downloaded onto the device). Buy this e-book for $24.99 if you would like to see and identify more birds in Costa Rica, and if you would like to support this blog.

A few screen shots from the book:

Information from the second section of the book:

Tips for Identification:

An excerpt from the site guide section:

To order this e-book,

please contact Pat O’Donnell at information@birdingcraft.com.