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Birding Costa Rica birding lodges central valley common birds

The Zamora Estate Hotel-an Oasis for Birds in the Central Valley of Costa Rica

The Central Valley of Costa Rica has this wonderful weather, nice mountain scenery, and rich volcanic soils. These factors have made such a good impression on so many for so long that 2 million people now call the Valle Central home. Unfortunately, this hasn’t left much space for the wetlands and moist forests that used to be found in this inter-volcanic depression (I doubt that’s a real term but it sounds about right). Sadly, the conversion to concrete of the few remaining patches of green space is still happening as the people population continues to slowly grow.

A lot of common birds have become decidedly uncommon in the greater San Jose area as even the Poro, Mango, and Avocado trees growing in backyards are cut down to make room for yet more apartments. While Crimson-fronted Parakeets have become adapted to nesting on buildings, most other birds of the Central Valley haven’t been so lucky. The lack of habitat for birds means that most people on birding trips to Costa Rica leave the over-urbanized Central Valley for other, more birdy places as soon as possible. After 6 or more hours in a plane, however, who wants to spend another two or three hours on winding mountain roads in a car, van, or bus? You need to take a break but how many places in the Central Valley are actually good for birding?

There are some choices for fairly birdy accommodation as you leave the San Jose area and ascend the slopes of the mountains on either side of the valley, but the best oasis that I have found for birding is at the Zamora Estate Hotel. I want you to note that I did not say the “Hotel Bougainvillea”. The Bougainvillea is frequently used by tours and because of this, many birders traveling on their own also opt to stay there. They hear about the nice gardens and it sounds like a reliable, quality choice for accommodation so they stay there instead of looking into other possibilities. While it is true that the Bougainvillea has gorgeous gardens, excellent service, and nice rooms, it’s not really that close to the airport and the birding is just as good in most Central Valley hotels graced with a garden. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t stay there, just that if you want to stay at a similarly priced place that is far better for birds and closer to the airport, the Zamora Estate Hotel is a better choice.

The Zamora Estate is so good for birding because it is located on a sizable farm that has protected wetlands, woodlands, and fields for several generations. Located right in the heart of Santa Ana, it truly is a green oasis for everything from herons and egrets to Red-billed Pigeons and raptors. Accommodation comes in the form of private bungalows and excellent service provided by the Zamora family. Birding comes in the form of a few trails that pass through forest, a vineyard, and wetlands. Over 130 species have been recorded on their property including such goodies as Crested Bobwhite, Spectacled, Pacific Screech, and Ferruginous Pygmy Owls, Boat-billed Heron, Gray-necked Wood-Rail, Crimson-fronted and Orange-chinned Parakeets, Gartered (Violaceous) Trogon, Blue-diademed (crowned) Motmot, and Blue Grosbeak.

You can also eat breakfast on a balcony that overlooks one of their ponds and see such birds as

birding Costa Rica

Least Grebe- kind of local in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica birding

Ringed Kingfisher.

Boat-billed Herons- the Zamora Estate has to be one of the easiest places in the country to see this odd species.

Costa Rica birding

Social Flycatchers- a common edge species in much of Costa Rica.

Costa Rica birding

Hoffmann’s Woodpecker- the common woodpecker of the Central valley.

Costa Rica birding

Northern Jacana- always fun to watch this one!

Costa Rica birding

and Gray-necked Wood-Rails- on a recent birding club meeting, we were entertained by a pair of these scurrying back and forth.

The balcony was so good for photography that I could have stayed there all day taking pictures of birds and whatever else showed up like this caiman:

Costa Rica birding

The Zamora Estate isn’t a cheap place to stay but is more than adequately priced for what is offered. The owners should also be highly lauded for preserving some of the last wetlands in the Central Valley. I wouldn’t be surprised if more bird species are added to their list as more birders discover this place.

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big year Birding Costa Rica Introduction

A Big Day in Costa Rica

This past Saturday, I attempted my first Big Day in Costa Rica. “Big Days” should always be capitalized by the way. I mean we aren’t talking about some casual walk in the park while you smell the roses and waltz through the tulips. No, a Big Day is more like a frantic race through time and space with your head out the window to pick up the call note of a Bobolink or Squirrel Cuckoo or whatever. It is a 24 hour marathon of concentrated birding; an attempt at identifying as many species as possible within whatever size area you can manage by foot, car, boat, biplane or rickshaw. This usually means Nascar street driving your Toyota from woodlot to National Park to seashore to mountaintop to maximize birding time and increase your chances of getting more bird species.

Costa Rica is an exciting place to do a Big Day; the country is jam packed with bird species (over 800 recorded), has many accessible protected areas, is small enough to feasibly visit several distinct bioregions in one day and has twisting, narrow streets that are very conducive to Nascar street driving. The fact that so many bird species are possible, though, ends up being a bit frustrating because there is no way to get all of them. For example with the route we did, over the course of the day, we probably came within one kilometer of around 500-600 bird species total. No kidding and no exaggeration. We might have been within flying distance of all those birds but recorded far less, even missing several “common” species while seeing some rarities. For example, we missed Blue-black Grasquit and Squirrel Cuckoo but had close looks at three Yellow-eared Toucanets and Blue and Gold Tanager. The Grasquit we missed because we just didn’t spend enough time in pasture while the Cuckoo was just bad luck. If you are thinking of blitzing through Costa Rica for a few days and seeing everything, reconsider and spend more days in fewer areas. You will probably see more and it will be a lot more relaxed.

In any case, I think our total of 233 species was alright for a first attempt; especially without the benefits of scouting. Below is a summary of the day.

2:40 A.M.

I get out of bed, shave and am ready to roll out into the urban wonderland of Tibas to listen for Tropical Screech Owl. I hear a horn outside and am out the door to join my team members; Dieter, Johan and Ineke. Dieter is the tall guy in shorts. Hailing from Namibia, Dieter met his wife while guiding in South Africa. Now they live in Costa Rica and watch Motmots instead of elephants. Johan (Nascar street driver) and Ineke are from Holland originally. They have also lived in Africa; Mozambique and Zimbabwe before Mugabe went haywire. Now they too live in Costa Rica watching Motmots instead of elephants. I am originally from Niagara Falls, NY. I met my wife some years ago, we got married and now we live in Costa Rica with our 7 month old future kung-fu birder (fingers crossed) daughter and watch TV (for the most part) instead of Motmots.


After explaining the Big Day rules, we drove a few blocks to my old apartment to try for the Tropical Screech Owl that calls at night and is never seen. Almost as soon as we stepped out of the car, both Ineke and I heard it! It sounded distant but there it was- how fortunate we were! And then Johan pointed out that the sound appeared to be coming from the car. A few more owl calls and yes he was right, it was coming from the car alright; actually from inside my bag to be precise. Not only that but it sounded more like Spectacled Owl which of course it was; my cd player had somehow turned on by itself. If there was a Tropical Screech nearby, it made nary a peep and who can blame it after that display of silliness.

3:05-4:45 A.M.

We left that embarrassing moment behind and zoomed through the mountain night along beautifully silent roads, taking a left at La Garita to twist and turn our way out of the central valley. Our next destination was San Mateo. A small town located in the hot Pacific foothills, we tried for Mottled and Spectacled Owl at the entrance to Rancho Oropendola. Over the chorus of barking dogs and an occasional rooster, we got our first species as soon as we exited the car; a distant Ferruginous Pygmy Owl! Luckily, in addition to our two target owl species, we also tried for Pacific Screech Owl. While the two targets refused to answer my imitations, the Screech Owl called a few times and even gave us brief looks. At 4:45, we left the barking dogs behind and raced off towards Carara National Park.

Due to confusing road work combined with a general paucity of street lamps, we missed our turn-off (apparently a hidden gap among street cones) and raced towards Puntarenas (the absolutely wrong direction). Fortunately, one of those temporary lights that sprout at one way traffic in road work areas halted our race to Big Day disaster and after receiving directions from two middle-aged road workers who were manning the light and listening to reggaeton, we were back on course. On a Big Day one hopes that a wrong turn turns out to be serendipitous with a flyby Barn Owl or other random surprise bird and everyone says things like , “Ha ha! Good thing we made a wong turn!”, “How fortunate!” or “The birding Gods are doing a Manakin dance!” but no, nothing like that happened to us; we only saw a bunch of darkness where the wind played in the warm lowland night.

5:00 A.M.

The Tarcol bridge is a busy place during the day; people are constantly marching out along a skinny sidewalk to see the crocodiles on the river below while the cars and buses zoom by. At night, although there aren’t any pedestrians, it’s still a pretty busy road. During traffic lulls we tried for White-tailed Nightjar and got Double-striped Thick-Knees instead as they called from the grassland. Unexpected good bird! With hints of dawn in the distance we drove to the nearby Laguna Meandrica trail. This is always an excellent birding site. Its mix of dry and moist forest species along with waterbirds always makes for a huge list. Our plan was to walk a few kilometers back to an area of primary forest for the dawn chorus, picking up nightbirds along the way. Although we didn’t get any owls, we got loads of Common Pauraques, many on the track itself. We started picking up the pre-dawners too such as Blue-crowned Motmot (only ones for the day), and Cocoa and Nothern Barred Woodcreepers. You just don’t realize how common some woodcreepers are until you hear a dawn chorus. We had at least a dozen of each of those species with lesser numbers of Wedge-billed and Streaked-headed.

The Tarcol bridge during the day.

What everyone is looking at.

6:00-8:00

As daylight quickly vanquished the night, the birds came fast and steady at this exciting site. Although we missed many of the primary forest targets I had hoped for (appear to be more likely along the HQ trail), we still got 121 species over the next two hours (yes, Carara is one of the best birding sites in Central America).We picked up most of the herons including Boat-billed, got Purple Gallinule, Black-necked Stilt, had a Roseate Spoonbill drop out of the sky to feed in front of us, saw several Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and much more.

Best birds were a distant calling Striped Cuckoo, Golden-naped Woodpecker, 3 Toucan species, Three-wattled Bellbird and American Redstart. We also got many targets such as Stub-tailed Spadebill, 4 Trogon species, Orange-collared Manakin, a Crane Hawk spotted by Dieter, 4 Wrens, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, Royal Flycatcher, White-whiskered Puffbird, Scaly-breasted Hummingbird, Long-billed Gnatwren, Plain Xenops, Dusky Antbird and more.

The lagoon. This is another spot where I need to sit and watch all day sometime.


The lagoon is an excellent spot for Boat-billed Heron.

We found a perched Lesser Nighthawk picked out while checking out some Anis in a tree.

This Bicolored Antbird was at an antswarm along with Gray-headed Tanagers, Chestnut-backed Antbirds and Northern Barred and Tawny-winged Woodcreepers.

And of course we got great looks at one of the stars of Carara, Scarlet Macaws. This pair was inspecting a tree hole and preening right over the trail.

8:20-9:45

It can get hot pretty early along the Pacific coast and Saturday was no exception. You really have to be out and about by dawn or you are going to miss a lot of birds. On Saturday, bird activity dropped off by 8:30 A.M.; right around the time we we birded the pastures and forest edge near Tarcoles. This probably explained why we missed Striped-headed Sparrows and Blue-black Grasquits. We barely picked up Ruddy Ground Dove with just a few flybys and somehow missed Crested Caracara! We still picked up other things though like Common Black Hawk soaring way up in the blue with the Vultures, Philly Vireos, Orange-fronted Parakeets and Ruby-throated and Steely-vented Hummingbirds all feeding on orange-colored flowers, and Orchard Oriole.

At the mangroves near Tarcol lodge, we got great looks at a few Mangrove Vireos, saw a close female Blue Ground Dove, heard Red-winged Blackbirds and picked up Ruddy Turnstones and Whimbrel that were perched on snags in the estuary.

At the nearby beach, we did alright picking up expected species such as Osprey, Neo. Cormorant, Brown Pelican, Mag. Frigatebird, Laughing Gull and Royal Tern but aside from a distant Brown Booby, missed a chunk of shorebird and Tern species more likely during low tide.

10:00-11:30

Leaving Tarcoles by mid-morning we rushed to the bridge hoping for open country species and maybe a White Ibis or shorebird but were vanquished by the sun. I was starting to feel vanquished by the sun too. Unfortunately, I have been getting pretty bad headaches and feeling pretty drained when I walk around on hot days; to the point of feeling too tired to talk. Not sure why this happens but it’s a royal pain! I try to drink a lot of water so I don’t know what the deal is; maybe I’m turning into a mountain person? Maybe it was because I missed my morning coffee? In any case a couple of tylenol helped out and at least the birding was slow during my brief time of head pain.

It was during this hot time that we tried for dry forest species around Guacimo. For our 15 minutes of effort we picked up a Nutting’s Flycatcher panting in the heat and nothing else.

We swung by Orotina for the Black and White Owls and it was surreal as always; some non-birder guy on a bench asks me if I want to see the owls in the fairly busy plaza, I say yes please, he points to a large tree in the middle of the plaza and there they are. Just incredible. I say “gracias” and we walk back to the car noting a Turquoise Browed Motmot (which we already had but always deserve to be watched) and picked up Yellow-green Vireo via its incessant singing. Also got another urban bird here; Grey-breasted Martin. Like Purple Martins, these guys have also become completely adapted to and maybe even dependent upon the structures built by people.

From Orotina, it was back uphill towards the Central Valley. Along the way we stopped for a drink at the Café Mirador near Atenas. This is a great place to stop for a drink or breakfast. Nice ambience and beautiful view all the way to the sea, it can also be good for dry forest birds. Can be means not at 11 A.M. though because we only saw the wind make the trees dance. We did pick up two birds though; a Yellow-bellied Elaenia was friendly enough to call once and the local Blue and White Swallows were present. It was good to stop for a drink and brief rest but this may not be the best place to stop on a Big Day; the service was just too relaxed. This is nice any other time but on a Big Day even a a few squandered minutes can mean lost birds. This may sound crazy but not if you think in terms of priorities; number of bird species being the top priority on a Big Day.

Just past Atenas we had another brief yet fruitful stop to check out the Rio Grande reservoir. This stop was perfect; we got out of the car and picked up our targets; Least Grebe, Blue-winged Teal and Black Phoebe and got one non-target; Short-tailed Hawk!

If the A-team had converted to birding instead of firing guns and smoking cigars, they would have said, “I love it when a plan comes together”. Well, actually, their leader would have said that while Mr. T would have said, “I pity the bird who don’t show itself”. Face would have said something stupid like “I love Cowbirds” and the crazy one have mewed like a Clay-colored Robin.


View from the Mirador café

11:30 A.M. – 2 P.M.

This is when we saw very few birds because Johan was getting us through the traffic obstacle and maze of roads in San Jose. Traffic wasn’t too bad except along one stretch near our turnoff to the Caribbean. It might have been worth it if we had picked up a House Sparrow but nope, we saw nothing.

2-3 P.M.

Ahhh, relief to have escaped the car conglomeration and back out on the road heading up to Zurqui. I told the team to get on any bird that fluttered a wing or peeped as everything would probably be new up there at 1600 meters. We pulled over at some roadside café near patchy cloud forest habitat and tried to hear and see some birds through mountain pass mist accompanied by the din of passing 18-wheelers. Well, it wasn’t exactly the most active time of day for birds but we managed to get a few things such as Plain Wren, Slate-throated Redstart, Common Bush Tanager, Mountain Robin, Wilsons Warbler and our only Rufous-collared Sparrows of the day.

Further on, we stopped at our only good cloud forest site; the Zurqui police station in Braulio Carrillo National Park. There used to be an excellent trail here with cloud forest birding as good as or even better than Monteverde. The trail is too overgrown to bother with though so we were limited to the noisy roadside during rainy weather. We picked up a handfull; Golden-bellied Flycatcher foraging around the police station, Yellowish Flycatcher, a gorgeous male Flame-colored Tanager, and our best; Emerald Toucanets flying across the road!

Unfortunately we were slim on time, the birds were quiet at this time of day and you really can’t see too much from the side of the road so we left for lower elevations of the Caribbean slope. This was pretty frustrating since there was probably 70 new species somewhere nearby in those excellent cloud forests. Next year, we will have to figure out how to maximize our cloud forest species number. On our original route, we would have done quite well but that road no longer exists; the way through Varablanca and Cinchona which was destroyed by the January 8th, 2009 earthquake.

Taking in the mist and not seeing much at Zurqui.

3:30-4:30 P.M.

Heading downhill, lucky for us, the weather cleared up by the time we reached my patch; Quebrada Gonzalez. We had some good birding for that hour. We picked up Collared Aracari and Bay Wren upon arrival, White-breasted Wood Wren and Pale-vented Thrush as soon as we entered the forest, Tawny-capped Euphonia and a good variety of other Tanagers such as Dusky-faced, Olive, Tawny-crested, Emerald, Bay-headed, Black and Yellow, and best of all, Blue and Gold! We also got Rufous-winged Woodpecker, Black-headed Nightingale Thrush, Green Shrike Vireo, Buff-throated Foliage-Gleaner, Striped Woodhaunter and best of all, Yellow-eared Toucanet to clean up on Costa Rican Toucan species! As on other occasions when I have seen this species here, we saw three close and tame (but quiet) birds in the upper understory. I took the photo below zooming in about 3X.

Here is a digiscoped female from another a day there in January.

It was tough to leave with such nice bird activity but we still had to hit the Sarapiqui area so off we went; driving through the pouring rain for Carribean lowland targets. We got lucky again with the weather when it cleared up before reaching the La Selva entrance road. Along the way we got Pale-vented Pigeon perched on a roadside wire and upon arrival picked up a Swainsons Hawk amidst the 1000s of Turkey Vultures migrating en masse. It was incredible; this river of birds stretched from horizon to horizon! It was tough to pull ourselves away from this spectacle but we had targets to look for. The La Selva entrance road is always productive and we picked up several birds; the churring of White-throated Crake, Gray-rumped Swifts overhead, a Purple Martin (good bird!), a group of Olive-throated Parakeets screeching past, Golden-hooded Tanager, our only Masked Tityra and Lineated Woodpecker of the day, Fasciated Antshrike (!), Passerini’s Tanager, a distant Black-cowled Oriole scoped on a tree-top, a White-collared Manakin calling and then as dusk approached and most birds became silent we picked up our Little Tinamou and watched Crested Guans flap up above the tall trees to gracefully glide down into the shadows. As it got dark, we got one of our best birds for the day; Short-tailed Nighthawk! It gave us great looks right at the start of the entrance road, flying out on long wings a bit like a large bat. Our last bird though came at 6:15 P.M. when night had once again taken hold. It was another owl species; a distantly calling Spectacled. This was the end of our Big Day for 2009. So what if we didn’t get 300 species; its not every day that you get to identify 233 bird species while visiting lowland rain forest, montane cloud forest, mangroves, an oxbow lake and an ocean beach over the course of a single day.

A bad pic of the 1000s of TVs going by.


Violaceous Trogons are pretty common along the La Selva entrance road.

Our last stop; the La Selva entrance road.

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Birding Costa Rica Introduction

The Carara Christmas Count, Costa Rica

Like most bird counts, Christmas counts included, Dieter Holdt and I started the day so darn early that it was the middle of the night. This strange behavior is fairly typical of birders on count days. Be it a Big Day, Bird Race or Christmas Count, the more gung-ho (read psycho) birders take advantage of the midnight start time to listen for Nightjars, Owls, Rails and maybe disturb some poor sleeping bird with a bright light and excited whispers. In our case, we weren’t even looking for birds; we had to meet other Carara Christmas Counters at 4:30 A.M. Since we both live in the Central Valley, this meant a 2 hour drive down to the Pacific coast. At least night driving in Costa Rica is maybe 1,000 times better than during the day. Although drunk drivers might be a significant factor (and we saw one), traffic is more or less non-existent. This is in extreme contrast to day driving when the roads are clogged with honking cars, motorcycles zipping by and slow, behemoth trucks that reduce your average speed to about 20 miles per hour.

On the night of the count, driving was particularly nice with a full moon lighting up the roadways and painting the jade vegetation silver as we twisted and turned past the towns of Atenas and San Mateo. At one point we actually did look for a bird. This was in Orotina where a resident pair of Black and White Owls amazingly resides in the central plaza. During our plaza drive-by, though, Owls were replaced by a few drunken night people. Continuing on, before we knew it, we had arrived at our destination an hour before the meeting time- on a side note, if you drive at night in Costa Rica, you can probably cut off at least a third of your driving time.

We rested in the car for close to an hour until fellow counters arrived. After meeting up with the two other members of our group and getting our boxed (plastic bagged) lunches, we drove to our morning territory; the river or Vigilancia Trail. This trail/road/rainy-season mud-bath, accesses gallery forest, second growth, an oxbow lake before eventually reaching upland, primary rain forest. The variety of habitats combined with accessibility and ease of walking make it one of the best birding spots in Central America. It is one of those places where the birding seems to always be good and our day was no exception.

Our first species were typical of the pre-dawn lowland rain forest chorus; Pauraque from a nearby clearing, a mournful Collared Forest Forest-Falcon and Woodcreepers trilling and whistling into the dusky air. As we slowly made our way to our first and principal stop on the trail, other species were added to the list one after another, all by their vocalizations; Great and Little Tinamous, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, Pale-billed Woodpeckers double-knocking, Mealy Parrots and Orange-chinned Parakeets overhead, Spectacled Antpitta, Black-faced Anthrush, Chestnut-backed and Dusky Antbirds, Dot-winged Antwren, Black-hooded and Barred Antshrikes, several Flycatchers, Grey-headed Tanagers and so on.

Dieter, Maria and Nestor looking for birds.

Our main stop was the best Christmas tree a birder could ask for;  an immense fig tree in fruit.  Adorned with palatable ornaments of its own device, it was busy with over 20 species of birds.  The umbrella-like crown of the tree was so high up that we found birds by scanning with our binoculars. You could look with bins at almost any part of the tree and pick out at least one bird perched or feeding. Watching this incredible tree was surreal; three Trogon species looked as if they were in a feeding frenzy as they flew back and forth beneath the umbrella-like canopy, Kiskadees called and sallied for figs, even a few Long-tailed Manakins appeared now and then to snatch a fig. The strangest bird of all was a Band-tailed Pigeon, a species typically found at much higher elevations. Although we did not see the Turquoise and Yellow-billed Cotingas we had hoped for, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two had shown up and we just missed them because the tree was so big.

Looking up into the amazing fig; I am the one styling with boots with shorts.

After a couple of hours at the fig we noticed fewer fruits and fewer birds and so continued on down the trail trying to keep track of the birds we were constantly hearing and seeing. We picked up Ruddy Quail Dove (always a good spot for this terrestrial species), Gray-fronted Dove, flyby Wood Storks and a Great Blue Heron, Blue-throated Goldentail, Purple-crowned Fairy, Tawny-winged Woodcreeper, and so on. Some of the more common species were Plain Xenops, Buff-throated Woodcreeper, Dusky Antbird, Black-hooded Antshrike, Northern Bentbill, Orange-collared Manakin, Long-billed Gnatwren, and several Wren species. Carara is a great example of Wren diversity by the way. We saw 7 species along that trail, most common being Black-bellied, Rufous and White and Riverside.

Eventually we reached the oxbow lake. This was the perfect spot for a mid-morning rest.

We watched  a few crocodiles

and counted various widespread waterbirds including 4 Black-necked Stilts and several Boat-billed Herons that roosted in nearby trees. We also picked up Prothonotary Warbler and Ringed and Green Kingfishers. A bit further on was beautiful upland primary forest. We heard a few Rufous Pihas there and saw more of the same. Being midday, it was pretty quiet in the upland forest. If you are there at dawn, I am sure it is a whole other matter.

At that time, we made our way back up the trail, hanging out at the fig tree to get better looks at Long-tailed Manakin and hope for Cotingas. Although no Cotingas showed, we picked up one of our target birds along the way; Royal Flycatcher. This trail is a very reliable spot for this species.

We munched our bagged lunches of bread, cheese, fruit and crackers and wished we had slept longer the night before even though that would have broken the big day and Christmas count traditions of feeling exhausted most of the time. Since one of our count group forgot his bagged lunch, we drove to the nearby Guacimo soda so he could refuel. This was about 5 minutes from the Tarcol bridge, on the right side of the highway heading towards San Jose. The change in habitats is amazing; as soon as you cross the bridge, you enter into drier habitat which holds many species not found in the humid forests of Carara. The Guacimo had a nice overlook and we picked up a few new birds here.

Guacimo overlook.

From the soda, we continued up the highway towards San Jose taking a right at the next intersection for our afternoon territory. This area is called Sandillal and accesses much drier, grassy fields, and good moist forest before reaching the Tarcol river. We continued to get new species along this road. Best were Keel-billed Toucan and Montezuma Oropendolas (both uncommon birds around Carara) and Gray-headed Kite. We also had excellent Hummingbird activity at flowering Ingas. Dozens of Hummingbirds of 8 species were buzzing around these trees. The most common Hummingbird species on the dry side of the bridge were Steely-vented, Green-breasted Mango, Ruby-throated and Rufous-tailed. Our best Hummingbird species were White-necked Jacobin and Plain-capped Starthroat.

Down at the river we picked up a Snowy Egret and Gray Hawk but not much else so we sped over to the Tarcol river bridge hoping for flyovers of something new.

The Tarcol bridge.

We saw a few Macaws in the distance but very little flying over the bridge itself. Nevertheless, we managed to scope a distant Common Black Hawk, get our Spotted Sandpiper, and our only Cherries Tanagers and Grayish Saltators. By this time, it was 5 PM and we were more than exhausted enough to call it a day. We headed back to our lodging (dormitories in the park) and rested up before driving over to dinner provided by the Crocodile tour. This is another nice thing about some of these Costa Rican Christmas counts; the organizers do an excellent job of not only planning out routes but also getting local businesses involved to the point of providing food and a tee-shirt.

At dinner we caught up with other counters and found out that our team probably got the highest species total with 151 species. This is also the most I have recorded in one day in Costa Rica; a total I hope to soundly top with a Big Day possibly in 2009. Although our Yellow-billed Cotinga never showed at the amazing fruiting fig, another team got one female in the mangroves. The mangrove team also got the best bird; Nashville Warbler! A common species further north, this is a very rare vagrant in Costa Rica. Although the photos weren’t the best, they looked pretty convincing as were their descriptions. I think its no wonder this bird showed up in mangroves since a migrant at the periphery of its range is likely to be a juvenile that ends up using substandard habitat; mangroves being substandard for many Warbler species. I am still waiting for the final total for all teams but expect it to get close to or top 300 species as several shorebirds were recorded and a variety of cloud forest species from higher elevations that fell into the count circle.

After a night of much needed rest, Dieter and I birded the primary forest of Carara. This forest is just fantastic; giant trees that soar above a thin understory making it easy to see understory birds, clear streams, and of course lots of good birding. Over the course of an hour on the trails, some of the better species we saw (and typical of Carara)  were: a few Crested Guans, Scarlet Macaws, White-necked Puffbird, Spectacled Antpitta (possibly the easiest spot to see this species), Long-tailed Woodcreeper (a likely lump with Spot-throated Woodcreeper), Golden-crowned Spadebill, Sulphur-rumped Flycatcher and Rufous Piha.

After excellent forest birding, we drove to Tarcoles in search of wetlands and associated bird species. Along the road into Tarcoles, we had close looks at a pair of Yellow-naped Parrots and eventually found our waterbirds somewhere between Tarcol village and the Crocodile tour. The birds were in the flooded portion of someone’s backyard and this temporary pond must have been filled with aquatic goodies because there were..

at least a dozen White Ibis,

Wood Storks,

Great Egrets,

and Bare-throated Tiger Herons.

Further on, we took a left near the crocodile tour to head towards the beach. This section of road passes through more wetlands and mangroves before reaching the beach. We saw little in the wetlands and mangroves but had several new species on the beach such as hunting Ospreys, Sanderling, Black-bellied Plover, Royal Terns, Laughing Gulls, and many Frigatebirds and Pelicans. There were also a good number of birds perched on sandbars at the mouth of the Tarcol river. Unfortunately, we couldn’t check them out because it was time for us to head back to San Jose and we still wanted to stop in Orotina.

The beach near Tarcoles.

At Orotina, we walked through the plaza checking the trees for the local Black and White Owls. As per usual, the plaza was busy with all sorts of people and as on other occasions, I could not find the Owls until the local ice cream vendor pointed them out. On this day, we only saw one of the Owls and it was roosting in a fairly open tree at the edge of the park. If the ice-cream guy isn’t there, check for white-wash as there was plenty under the owl’s perch on that day.

With Black and White Owl under our belts and 168 other species in just a bit more than  one day of birding, we felt more than satisfied as we drove back up to the White-winged Doves and Tropical Kingbirds of the central valley. As always, I can’t wait to get back to Carara.