Costa Rica birding day trips

Best Spots for Birding Costa Rica on a Short Trip

Visiting Costa Rica but only have a few days for birding? It’s not ideal but some birding is always better than none. Although most birders take a birding tour to Costa Rica or bird here for at least a week, quite a few also visit Costa Rica on brief trips. They might be a participant in a conference or convention, get a medical procedure, or be here for work.

It might not be a full-fledged two week birding vacation but the good thing is that you can still go birding!

Major birding.

You deserve to go birding too because this here country has a 930 plus species bird list. Yeah, a lot of stuff in small spaces and an ideal situation for a brief stay! If you only have a few days (or less) to work with, the following options are my top three choices for birding trips in Costa Rica.

The Poas Area

I’ve probably mentioned this birding option a lot but what can I say? if you only have one morning or a day for birding, it might be your best choice. It certainly is if you have never been to Costa Rica.

If coming from the Alajuela area (near the airport), it only takes 45 minutes to reach high elevation habitats on good roads. Everything from silky-flycatchers to Flame-throated Warbler and even Wrenthrush and Resplendent Quetzal are possible.

Head a bit lower down and middle elevation habitats host birds like Red-faced Spinetail, Violet Sabrewing and several other hummingbirds. If you have the time, you can also bird a bit lower and see more tanagers and maybe even Ornate Hawk-Eagle (!).

Blend this with birding in the Central Valley and Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrow might also make it into the day list.

The Caribbean Lowlands

Lowland and foothill rainforests aren’t prohibitively far from the San Jose area either. With an early start, you can probably avoid the heaviest traffic on Route 32 and reach excellent forest habitat in 45 minutes or an hour.

Nectar and Pollen is a great choice. This roadside private reserve often has Snowcap and other hummingbirds, various tanagers, White Hawk and other raptors, and many other species. It is also set up for bird photography, you might even capture images of White-tipped Sicklebill.

A bit further on, Cope’s experience, birding at Guarumo’s Restaurant, or detouring to the La Selva area will result in a wide variety of lowland rainforest birds.

Orotina and Tarcoles

Not to be outdone, we also have lots of birdy habitats on the Pacific side of the mountains. Once again, around 45 minutes or an hour’s drive from the Alajuela area, the Ceiba de Orotina road has open spaces and riparian zones with chances at Double-striped Thick-knee, Turquoise-browed Motmot, Black-headed Trogon, several raptors, and many other species.

You could bird there and then check mangrove habitats at Caldera, or, head to the Tarcoles area for chances at Scarlet Macaw, parrots, and a wide variety of edge, wetland, coastal, dry forest, and humid forest species!

Bird all day in any of these sites and you could easily record well over 100 species. My best days have been well over 170 species (both in the Sarapiqui lowlands and around Tarcoles), as well as many days birding the Poas area with quetzals, Black Guan, Costa Rican Pygmy-Owl, hawk-eagles, several hummingbird species, and roosting owls and Great Potoo with Cope.

In Costa Rica, there’s a heck of a lot of birds to see, even if you only have a day or two to work with. On longer trips, there are hundreds of birding sites in Costa Rica to choose from. No matter what, I hope to see you here!

Easy Going Birding in Costa Rica = 14 Hummingbirds, Black Guan, and More

Some of the best birding in Costa Rica is easy-going, relaxed birding. Although a definition of “best birding” is subjective and related to (1) what a birder wants to see and (2) how they want to do their birding, when the results of an easy morning of birding include several hummingbirds and various regional endemics (including uncommon and threatened species), that’s pretty darn good.

When birding in Costa Rica, you really don’t need to take long jungle hikes to see lots of great birds. To see a fantastic variety of species, visiting remote areas isn’t vital, nor is testing the limits of a rental vehicle’s suspension. It does help to know where to go birding in Costa Rica, know the best places to visit, and how to see those birds but you won’t have to buy any trekking boots.

Don’t get me wrong, expedition birding has its advantages too and I love being immersed in remote forest birding but Costa Rica offers much easier options. One of the best is the Poas and Cinchona area. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again; roadside birding from the Central Valley to Poas and along Route 126 can turn up an astonishing number of birds (a quick tally of birds that have occurred resulted in 500 species!). More than 100 are rare, various elevations are involved, and 50 of those birds are only present during the winter but that still leaves lots of birds to look for on any visit, any time of year. On a recent morning of birding with very limited walking, some birding highlights included:

14 Hummingbird Species

All were seen from the vehicle or at the Mirador San Fernando (the Cinchona Hummingbird Cafe). They included such sweet birds as

Fiery-throated Hummingbird

Scintillant Hummingbird

and the uncommon Black-bellied Hummingbird.

14 hummingbird species are a good total but amazingly, on the route we took, further effort can turn up at least 7 or more additonal species.

Large-footed Finch and Other Highland Endemics

In the high elevation areas of Poas Volcano, bird activity was somewhat hindered by cold rain. Even do, we still had excellent looks at regional endemics like Large-footed Finch, Sooty Thrush, Black-billed Nightingale-Thrush, and Flame-throated Warbler along with various other montane species.

Large-footed Finch doing its foraging thing in the leaf litter.

The Large-footed Finch is a towhee-like bird that needs cool, wet forest habitats. Like so many other bird species on Poas, it only lives in Costa Rica and western Panama.

Coffee with Black Guan, Buff-fronted Quail-Dove, and other Great Birds

We spent around two hours at Cinchona and had excellent birding. Most of the usual species came to the fruit feeders including “the Cinchona trio” of Northern Emerald Toucanet, Prong-billed Barbet, and Red-headed Barbet.

The hummingbirds were also very active and gave us multiple close views of species like Green Thorntail, Green Hermit, Violet Sabrewing and others.

As a bonus, a Barred Hawk soared into view, Black Guan showed at the feeder, and two juvenile Buff-fronted Quail-Doves occasionally appeared on the ground below the feeder.

There’s nothing like accompanying quality coffee with constant tropical birds at Cinchona!

Costa Rica is made for birding. Whether taking the easy birding route or exploring remote locations, fantastic birding is in the cards. See “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica” to learn about the best sites for seeing more birds in Costa Ricaa nd prepare for your trip. I hope to see you here.