Costa Rica Intro

 

Earlier this February, something unheard of happened: I actually got caught up on blogging, posting about my pelagic trip just a week after the birding actually happened. I found myself without any backlog of photos to edit or posts to write, for the first time since I resurrected this blog back in 2022. For a solid couple of days, I had no idea what to do with myself. Well, I can now happily report that that is no longer the case, as I just returned from possibly the best birding trip I've ever done: an epic 8-day circuit of Costa Rica. 

This all started sometime last year, when my good birding friend Josh Covill mentioned that he was heading to Costa Rica in February with Tom Forwood and Hilary Turner. I initially wasn't sure if I could commit considering how frequently my travel plans change, but by January it became clear that I (unfortunately) wasn't going to be heading back to Asia anytime soon. I decided to bit the bullet and buy the tickets for my first trip to Central America since becoming a birder. 

Despite spending years in South America in high school and college, I had never properly birded the Neotropical realm with the exception of a couple of trips to northwestern Mexico (which barely counts). That's a shame, as it's widely regarded as having the most birds–and best birding–of any region in the world. It also made preparing for the trip rather intimidating- while I feel like I have a decent handle on the birds of Southeast Asia, and North America, this was an entirely different beast–literally. I hadn't fully realized this until I began preparing for the trip just how different Neotropical birds were from anything I had experienced before, full of entire families I was unfamiliar with: furnariids, tinamous, puffbirds, jacamars, tyrant flycatchers (ugh), and dozens and dozens of different species of hummingbird. 

Among the Latin American countries, Costa Rica is perhaps the most famous as a birding destination, being the first experience of tropical birding for many American and European birders. That was another unfamiliar thing for me, as most of my tropical birding tends to take place, uh, off the beaten path. Here I was going to be just like the rest of the neotropical neophytes, getting my introduction through Costa Rica. 

If you've gone so far as to start reading an esoteric blog about birding mishaps then Costa Rica is probably familiar already, and there's a reason for that. It has just about everything going for it as far as birding destinations go: good infrastructure, an incredibly well-developed tourism and ecotourism industry, an excellent array of well-protected and well-maintained national parks, decades of peace and stability, and unusually good governance (sex pest president notwithstanding). And that's not even considering the fact that it contains a dizzying array of different habitats and biodiversity: high mountains, cloud forest, lowland tropical rainforest, savanna, dry forest, and wetlands all crammed together mean that over 900 species of bird can be found in a country smaller than West Virginia. 

The other thing this trip had going for it was my companions: Josh has done more birding in Costa Rica than I can shake a stick at, and now guides bird tours there professionally. Tom had already been there twice already and did a mind-boggling amount of studying the birds and their calls, putting my own preparations to shame. Hilary, like me, had never birded south of Mexico but possesses an uncanny ability to spot difficult birds at a great distance- some of the most impressive field birding skills I've ever seen. Meanwhile I... drove a lot? Spoke decent Spanish? I'm not sure I brought much to the table in terms of local familiarity or birding ability, but I do know that I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to join me for my first-ever Neotropics birding trip.

Since I was a relatively late joiner to the trip, things were already pretty much organized by the time I came aboard. We were in Costa Rica from February 18 to 27, and would be doing a circuit of the northern part of the country, a route that allowed us to hit many of Costa Rica's best birding spots and at least theoretically net an impressive variety of birds, mostly just missing out on the species restricted to the high mountains of the Cordillera de Talamanca, the arid northwest, and the deep forests of the south. The results I'll get into in the subsequent blog posts, but suffice it to say that the trip went far, far better than I had any right to expect it to. 

mapmaking is my passion

It ended up being cheapest for me to fly into Costa Rica on February 16, leaving on a Friday night from DC and arriving in San Jose early on Saturday morning. That meant I got an extra day in Costa Rica on my own before the others arrived, and I had high hopes for some birding around the city. Predictably, things didn't go as I had predicted: my departure from DC Friday night was delayed by a winter storm, and I spent two hours sitting on the tarmac watching the plane get repeatedly de-iced, snowed on more, and then de-iced again. By the time I arrived in Panama City Saturday morning my connecting flight to San Jose had long since departed. Thankfully the airline was able to put me on a connecting flight just a couple hours later, and in short order I was properly on my way to Costa Rica. 

It was late morning by the time I cleared customs and made it out into Costa Rica proper. I took a taxi to our lodging for the night, the Hospedaje Flor de Katty just a few minutes from the airport. The eponymous Katty is an extremely hospitable Costa Rican woman who was more than happy to welcome me into her little hostel, give me local recommendations, and generally talk my ear off for much longer than I expected. Eventually I managed to extricate myself from the conversation and head out to get some lunch and go birding. Katty had some bird feeders outsider her house, and while I didn't take much time there I was able to get started with birding. My first lifer was, appropriately enough, Clay-colored Thrush, the national bird of Costa Rica and a common denizen of urban areas throughout. There was also a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, a few Blue-grey Tanagers, a Cinnamon-bellied Saltator, and even a surprise Squirrel Cuckoo.

Clay-colored Thrush

After a quick lunch of some halfway-decent fried chicken, I headed out to do some proper birding. My destination for the afternoon was a trail behind the recreational center of a local university. The recreational center itself is off-limits, but the trail is publicly accessible and runs along a small river through some coffee plantations and scrubby forest. It's not much by Costa Rica standards but it's a well-known spot for Cabanis's Ground Sparrow, one of the country's only endemic birds, and there had been some very impressive lists posted from there recently. 

Birding didn't start out particularly well, for a variety of reasons. I was feeling pretty out of it after a delayed flight, very little sleep, and a minor cold I'd managed to pick up in transit. The beginning of the trail was also surprisingly quiet. A lull in activity was to be expected given it was the middle of the day, but even by hot tropical day standards it was shockingly dead- not quite what I'd expected from Neotropical birding. The only birds for the first half hour or so were a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet, a very noisy House Wren, and a territorial pair of Boat-billed Flycatchers, the last of which at least was a lifer for me. 

Boat-billed Flycatcher: like a Great Kiskadee but with an enormous schnozz

House Wren- currently conspecific with what I get in my backyard in Michigan, but it looks different and sounds different...

At least the butterflies were active- here's a nice pair of Banded Peacocks

Fawn-spotted Skipper, I think

Cardinal Airplant, an impressive bromeliad

Mountain Immortelle, a beautiful flowering tree

The trail behind the recreational center

I continued onwards and upwards, and eventually both the birding and my mood improved. I saw a nice Hoffmann's Woodpecker checking out a flowering tree next to the trail, and I had a few more new birds in the form of singing Cabanis's Wrens and Rufous-collared Sparrows. The trail went through a little patch of woods, and a scratching in the shrubbery nearby alerted me to some sort of ground bird. I looked around in hopes it might be a ground sparrow and I was right- a pair of beautiful White-eared Ground Sparrows! It wasn't the bird I was looking for, but they were still lifers, and gorgeous birds to boot. 

Hoffmann's Woodpecker- the most common woodpecker in Costa Rica but a pretty good-looking one

White-eared Ground Sparrow

Emerald Swift

Tropical Checkered-Skipper

There were a few more decent birds as the trail climbed up through coffee plantations and woodlands: a couple of singing Yellow-throated Euphonias, flocks of huge (and charismatic) Brown Jays, more Cabanis's Wrens, a classically shy Squirrel Cuckoo, and some foraging warblers, including migratory American Yellow Warblers and American Redstarts and resident Chestnut-capped Warblers, a lifer for me. 

Yellow-throated Euphonia, one of many species of essentially identical Euphonias in Central America

Brown Jay: huge, common, and just as much fun to watch as every other corvid

Chestnut-capped Warbler, a very cute resident bird

Somehow this is the only picture I ever managed of Cabanis's Wren, despite the fact it's one of the most common birds in the country

Squirrel Cuckoo- basically a Neotropical malkoha in every way

Edessa caldaria- the first record of this species on iNaturalist!

Cerulean Dancer

Tropical Plushback

Pseudomethoca areta- actually a velvet ant (a type of wasp) rather than an actual ant

Hairy-headed Leafcutter Ant

Eventually it was getting into mid-afternoon and it was clear I probably wasn't going to see any Cabanis's Ground Sparrows- I was in the right habitat but the middle of the day isn't great for skulking ground birds. On the way down, I decided to take a little side trail down into the river I had been paralleling to see if there was more activity in the forest area. For the most part there wasn't, but I did take the opportunity to chill out for a little while on a nice rock in the river and watch the birds and butterflies in the canopy above me. In the process a pair of gorgeous Lesson's Motmots came in- my second-ever motmot, and stunning views of them!

Lesson's Motmot

Red Postman- common in Costa Rica but stupidly hard to get a picture of since they're always flying.

The surprises didn't end there, however. I clambered down the rock to continue on my way, and suddenly found myself face to face with a Sunbittern! Sunbitterns are strange water birds of the Neotropics, the only species in their family and most closely related to the even-weirder Kagu of New Caledonia, thousands of miles away in the South Pacific. They're best known for the stunning sunset pattern in their wings, visible only when spread and used in courtship and threat against predators. I had randomly seen one 15 years ago in Bolivia, long before I was a proper birder, but they're regarded as being extremely difficult in Central America. It was a long-shot target of mine for this trip, but I absolutely had not expected to find one in the outskirts of Costa Rica's largest city!

Sunbittern!

Unfortunately I don't have any in-focus pictures of it with its wings spread, but this should give you a good idea of how it got its name

I spent the next half hour or so sitting and watching the Sunbittern do its thing. It was wary of me and didn't let me approach too closely, but as long as I stayed still it was happy to perch up on a rock and preen. It was one of the most magical birding experiences I've had, and more than a little bit surreal thanks to the complete unexpectedness of it. 

Occasionally it would spread its wing to show a bit of that patterning

Sunbittern

I eventually made my way down the river, and had a couple more lifers, including a surprising flock of Red-throated Ant Tanagers and a Rufous-and-white Wren giving its gorgeous song. White-tipped Doves were common but difficult to see as always. Finally I clambered my way up the riverbank and bushwhacked until I found a trail leading back to the main road. 

Sadly my only Red-crowned Ant Tanager picture of the whole trip

White-tipped Dove

I took an Uber back to Flor de Katty, where I met up with Josh who had just gotten in. We picked Tom up that evening at the airport, then ordered Indian food for dinner and headed to bed. The next morning we left the hostel at 7AM to pick up the rental car and meet Hilary at the airport. The rental car was a bit of a hassle as it always is, as they insisted on getting our car washed, apparently not knowing what we were going to put it through. The car itself ended up being excellent though- a 4WD SUV that was big enough to fit the four of us and our things comfortably and make it through the occasionally dodgy mountain roads we drove on. 

After picking Hilary up we swung by the hostel to drop our things before some birding. We spent a bit of time at the feeders outside Katty's place to get Hillary her first Costa Rica lifers, and managed some decent birds like Rufous-tailed Hummngbird, Rufous-backed Wrens, and a Blue-black Seedeater. The Wrens in particular were a favorite of mine- huge, good-looking, and full of personality, with incredibly loud burbling songs. Central America is the center of wren diversity and that was on full display this trip, though sadly many were heard only- truly the babblers of the Neotropics. 

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, by far the most common hummingbird in Costa Rica

Blue-black Seedeater

Rufous-backed Wren, one of my favorite wrens anywhere

We had a bit of time in San José before we needed to head down to the coast to start the proper birding, and we decided to head to the trail I'd been at the previous day for another try at the ground sparrow. We also wanted to look for Sunbittern as that was a long-standing nemesis bird for Tom, although that was more of a long shot.

We parked the rental car in a corner near the recreational center and decided to try for the sparrows in the scrubby woods nearby. Almost immediately after we tried a burst of playback, a pair of Cabanis's Ground Sparrows came in! We were treated to excellent looks, and I was able to get some of the few good pictures of this species I can find on the internet. Despite being endemic to the valley around the largest city in possibly the most birded country in Central America the ground sparrows are weirdly overlooked, and frequently missed by birders who concentrate on better habitats. That's a shame, as they're good-looking birds and lots of fun to watch even if they're incredibly skulky. There's a lot of competition, but they ended up being one of my favorite birds of the trip.

Cabanis's Ground Sparrow

We spent a couple of hours walking the trails and the river. The Sunbittern was, sadly, a dip but we did happen on some other cool birds- lots of migratory Yellow-throated Vireos, a surprise Green Mango, an immature Violet Sabrewing, and the first of many, many Chestnut-sided Warblers. Butterflies were out in force as well and I was able to greatly expand my insect list, including with some more rare species. 

Yellow-throated Vireo

Ruddy Daggerwing

Fine-lined Hairstreak, a very rare record in Costa Rica

Orange-patched Crescent

Dirce Beauty, aptly named

Narrow Stingless Bee

Alana White-Skipper

The local guard dog

Satisfied with our looks at the ground sparrows and an overall successful morning of birding, we returned to the car only to find it completely boxed in by the vehicles of hikers who had come in later. After executing a cool 85-point turn and barely avoiding testing out the insurance policy on the very first day, we got on our way and started the drive down to the coast. That was its own adventure, but it will have to wait for the next blog post.