October isn’t the most popular month for visiting Costa Rica but, as far as us local birders are concerned, pumpkin season is the best month for birding. Yes, we are deep in the heart of the wet season and yes, it rains a heck of a lot (especially this year) but, you know where the sun still shines?
Try the southern Caribbean zone. That would be the area from Limon southeast to Sixaola. I’m talking places like Cahuita, Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, and Manzanillo-Gandoca (and Tortuguero ain’t that shabby either!). It only takes a quick eBird check to see that several local birders have been in that area as of late, with luck, we’ll pay a visit soon too.
I want to go to catch the tail end of migration, to see the final movements of swallows and Peregrines and raptor movements. With that hurricane churning in the northern Caribbean basin, I’m also hoping it might send a weird bird or two our way, both on sea and on land.
I’ve also noticed a few more international tours to that area happening in October. I think more agencies have realized just how good it can be, how exciting the birding is when you mix a major migration corridor with a plethora of resident rainforest birds.
Here’s some specifics why, the things that keep me coming back and wishing I had a migration vacation house down that way:
Migration is fantastic
I didn’t mention major migration corridor for kicks. The Caribbean coast of Costa Rica really is migration central, especially in the southern part where a low coastal mountain approaches the sea. As happens in such geographic situations, birds tend to get funneled between the hills and the water. Stand in that funnel and you’re likely to witness an aerial avian stream, sometimes for hours.
The Hirundines, Chimney Swifts, and Eastern Kingbirds move through in the thousands, occasional birds getting caught by fair numbers of Merlins and Peregrines. Keep watching and you might catch a Black Swift or two in the bunch, maybe some Common Nighthawks flying way up there too.
Check any and all vegetation and you’ll see the less aerial birds on their way to South America. There’s Scarlet Tanagers, Bay-breasted Warblers, wood-pewees, Dickcissels, and other birds moving through.
Chances at something rare, maybe something new
As with any migration hotspot, a birder also always has a chance at the rare ones, the needles in the foliage haystack. Some, like rare swallows, could easily pass overhead unnoticed among the thousands of similar species (I bet it happens with one or more Sinaloa Martins). Others are waiting to be found in an abundance of rainforest vegetation, naturally hiding way up there in the canopy or in too many areas to check.
How many Connecticut Warblers skulk through? Even if a dozen were in the area, they’d still get missed. What about Swainson’s Warbler? Yeah, that’s a stretch but despite it not being on the official list, one was seen in 2017. There’s gotta be a few more quietly absconding in wet swampy woods that no one birds.
Out on the ocean, other intriguing birds pass by, get the right conditions and pelagics do occasionally show. There’s just not enough people officially watching for long enough to document them.
Then there’s the truly new birds for Costa Rica, the ones likely to be documented at some point. These are birds like Carib Grackle, Cocoi Heron, White-tailed Trogon, and maybe Rufous-breasted Hermit, Blue Cotinga, and Pacific Antwren. All live pretty close, all are possible, and are why I include them on the Costa Rica Birds app as “not seen” birds.
Top notch resident rainforest species
If you don’t find a new bird for Costa Rica, you’ll still see lots of the regular ones. One of the great things about birding this region is the degree of accessible mature forest habitat, even around many hotels.
Birds like toucans, parrots, puffbirds, Great Potoo, Black-crowned Antshrike, and Purple-throated Fruitcrows are all fairly common. There’s also plenty of woodcreepers, flycatchers, and other expected lowland species, even chances at Agami Heron, kingfishers, and other waterbirds along forested creeks.
Raptors can be good too and include Common Black-Hawk, hawk-eagles, Bat Falcon, Gray-headed Kite, and other species. Although it would be lottery rare, who knows if a Harpy or Crested Eagle might also wander in from populations in Panama or the lower slopes of the Talamancas? That would be very lucky but forest connections indicate that it is possible.
Other rare or uncommon birds to look for include Black-crowned Antpitta, Snowy Cotinga, Slaty-backed Forest-Falcon, Ocellated Antbird, and Sulphur-rumped Tanagers among others.
Underbirded
The area gets a lot of visitors but, it’s not exactly on the main birding tour route. That leaves much of the southern Caribbean underbirded even with several local guides and birders living there. There’s just not enough birders to adequately cover the amount of habitat.
That underbirded label means that there’s more places to explore and that you shouldn’t be too surprised to find some birds absent from eBird hotspots. As always, birds are where the habitat is and there’s a lot of it south of Limon. To learn more about where to go birding in this area, check out my Costa Rica birdfinding ebook.
Great food, lots of accommodation options, and some nice beaches too
Having come into its own as a tourist destination some years ago, this part of Costa Rica also boasts a number of choices for accommodation. Many are small hotels and house rentals but you’ll also find some cheaper and larger more expensive options too.
There’s lots of good restaurants too, some pricey, others more affordable but at least you have lots to choose from. Oh and there’s some nice beaches too although I tend to do more seawatching from them than venturing into the water. Just a note that if you do enter the water, not all beaches are good places to swim and you have to be be extremely careful of rip tides (tragically, one took the life of Malcom-Jamal Warner earlier this year).
If you are in Costa Rica these days, you might want to consider making your way to the southern Caribbean coast. I’m hoping I do, there’s a lot of birds waiting for me down that way.