What birding day trips are possible from San Jose, Costa Rica? Is it worth birding in the city itself? How far can you go in a day and, most importantly, which birds can you see?
Before we start answering those questions, there’s a few important things to know about staying in “San Jose, Costa Rica”. If you didn’t know, San Jose is the capital of Costa Rica. It’s also the general name given to the Central Valley, an urbanized area that also includes several other cities and towns. However, since housing has connected most of those places, it looks like one big urban conglomeration.
Although each place still has its own designation, its own municipality, visitors refer to the Central Valley as “San Jose”. In Costa Rica, we still say Heredia, Alajuela, and so on but everyone also knows the Central Valley as the Greater Metropolitan Area of San Jose. With that in mind, when you fly to SJO, Costa Rica, even though the destination says, “San Jose”, you are really landing in Alajuela.
You can also assume you are staying in San Jose when your hotel is actually at the edge of Alajuela (such as birdy Villa San Ignacio and Hotel Robledal), or even in Santa Ana.
Regarding day trips, it’s important to understand these distinctions because where you stay in the San Jose area has an influence on birding day trip logistics. The following tips deal with that and other factors that come in to play.
Some Places are Easier to Visit than Others, What About Birding in San Jose?
There’s a bunch of birding sites within reach of San Jose and even in the city limits. However, if you are already going to be birding in other parts of Costa Rica, don’t bother doing much birding in San Jose. You can see nearly all of those birds elsewhere along with lots more species.
The one exception might be the Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrow. Yes, there are good sites for it outside of San Jose but if you won’t be visiting the Orosi Valley area, you’ll need to find it in the Central Valley. There are several spots for this fancy towhee but you still have to know where to go and the bird is uncommon and tricky.
As far as birding trips from San Jose, the easiest places to visit sort of depend on where you are staying. Got a room at the classic Hotel Bougainvillea or in San Jose itself? Based on logistics, good day trips are Quebrada Gonzalez, Nectar and Pollen, and Centro Manu (those are some exciting places!).
Escazu or Santa Ana are good for day trips to the University of Peace area, sites near Orotina, and the Pacific lowlands, and the Poas area is ideal when staying near the airport or in Heredia.
How to Avoid Traffic
The number one challenge for day trips from the San Jose area is traffic. It truly is awful and can put a serious dent in your birding time. To make sure you are birding instead of wasting time on roads, you absolutely must leave the hotel by 5:30 at the latest. Earlier is even better, say by 4:30 or 5:00.
Seriously, if you head out after 5:30 or at 6, you might want to wait and bird the following morning. The worst morning traffic happens between 6 and 8; the best time for birding. You should really be at your birding site by 6.
The other worst time for traffic is between 4 and 6. 3:30 and 6:30 or even 7 aren’t so fun either but those two hours in the late afternoon are the worst. They might not eat into your birding day but it can be a real pain returning to your hotel.
There are two main ways to avoid that awful afternoon traffic. One is by limiting day trips to a morning of birding. You head out early, get in a good morning of birding, have lunch, and return to the hotel by 2 or so.
The other option is doing an extra-long day of birding. Really, with that traffic, it’s worth staying out until night, looking for owls, and then getting back to the hotel by 8.
How Far Should You Go?
Costa Rica’s pretty small. When staying in the San Jose area, an impressive variety of habitats are within reach. The closest best spots are typically 45 minutes to an hour away with some places being an hour and half by car.
You can go further but leaving the hotel by 3:30 or 4 isn’t too fun, especially when it takes even longer to get back. Luckily, you can reach most major habitats in an hour and a half. The closest, easily accessible cloud forest is in the Poas area. Cloud forests near Coronado are also fairly close but are at the end of a rough road. Cloud forests near San Ramon are slightly further away and can also have bellbirds from March to August!
The nearest foothill rainforests are at and near Quebrada Gonzalez and the Virgen del Socorro area. Go a bit further and you can also bird the fantastic San Luis Canopy and Manuel Brenes road.
For high elevation forests, the road to Poas Volcano is good. Volcan Barva has even better habitat and is close but, sadly, is only accessible by a very rough road. If you travel a bit further, you can go to the Irazu Volcano area and try for Volcano Junco and Timberline Wren among other high elevation birds.
Unfortunately, the Talamancas are a bit far for a day trip from San Jose (at least for me). Sure, it can be done but you’ll be in for a fair amount of driving (unless you are coming from Cartago).
Dry forest birding is also close with several species even possible at sites like Villa San Ignacio and other places near Alajuela. It might only take 45 minutes to reach dry and open habitats around Orotina.
For South Pacific rainforest and coastal habitats, it takes an hour and a half to drive to Tarcoles and the Carara area. Go a bit further and you can also go birding at Mata de Limon and scan for seabirds from Puntarenas.
Day Trips to see Quetzals
What about quetzals? Can you see them on a day trip from San Jose? Absolutely! In Costa Rica, Resplendent Quetzals inhabit cloud forest and high elevation rainforest in all sorts of places. Find that habitat and quetzals should be somewhere in the area.
For their quetzal fix, a lot of folks visit Paraiso Quetzal and the Dota Valley. Those are great sites and you can do them as a day trip from San Jose but it will also take more than two hours to get there.
The closest quetzals are in the Poas and Barva Volcano areas. They move around and can be tricky but if you know how to look for quetzals, you can usually find them (at least I do). Incredibly, those birds are just 45 minutes or an hour’s drive from San Jose!
Quetzals are also possible near San Ramon. That usually takes an hour and 45 minutes and they aren’t as easy.
How Many Birds on Birding Day Trips from San Jose?
It’s all about time and location but most day trips from San Jose can turn up a good number of birds. If only doing a bit of birding in and near urban areas, you might get 40 or 50 species at most. It’ll mostly be common species with highlights like Lesson’s Motmot, White-eared Ground-Sparrow, and hopefully Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrow.
A day in foothill rainforest typically results in 60 to 80 species or more. However, you might not see those birds in other spots. They include various tanagers and deep forest birds including chances at uncommon and rare birds like hawk-eagles, antbirds, and other species.
Go birding in the Poas area and you can see a high number of species. The combination of high elevation and middle elevation habitats often turns up a 100 species. On my best days, I’ve shown birders 130 and even 140 species in a day. In addition to fair chances at the quetzal, a day of birding also usually includes Sooty Thrush, Yellow-thighed Brushfinch, many other regional endemics, several hummingbirds, and many other species.
Head down to the Pacific coast and you’ll also see a wide variety of species including Scarlet Macaw, parrots, maybe Double-striped Thick-Knee, raptors, trogons, and more. During a morning, I often see more than 120 species and a full day can result in 160 or more.
For the best birding day trip from San Jose, think about how you want to bird, what birds you want to see, and how long you want to stay out. Some spots are better for photography, others better for rare forest birds, and different areas of course have different bird species.
Really, there’s so many options, you could stay at a hotel in the San Jose area, do several day trips from there, and see more than 300 species!
To learn more about where to go birding in Costa Rica and support this blog, check out my 900 plus page ebook, “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica“. I hope to see you here!
