For the Birds - Costa Rica Trip - Part II

This column is the second of two presenting some birding highlights of my visit to Costa Rica in January.

We left the rainforest reserve at La Selva bound for the Ecolodge at San Luis just west of the Continental Divide. The trade winds were unrelenting there, making birding by ear difficult and keeping the birds down.

One of the highlights was a pair of Emerald Toucanets, a mostly green small toucan. A pair of male Black-breasted Wood-Quail were fighting with other, oblivious to the ten people watching them.

In local pastures, I had nice views of Yellow-faced Grassquits, White-eared Ground-sparrows and a Social Flycatcher. Raucous Brown Jays were extremely common.

A local family maintained a bird feeder, stocked with fruit, that attracted Blue-gray Tanagers, Passerini’s Tanagers, Crimson-collared Tanagers (spectacular!), Buff-throated Saltators and Yellow-throated Euphonias. Old friends were seen in the trees: Black-and-White Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler and Baltimore Oriole.

We hired a taxi to take us from San Luis to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve for a daylong adventure. This site was only 500 meters higher than San Luis but was truly a different world. Typical weather is misting rain with low-lying clouds. Epiphytes are everywhere on the trees.

The most sought-after bird at Monteverde is the Resplendent Quetzal, a specialist on avocados. We hired three guides to lead our class on a morning walk. The guides knew of an avocado tree where a pair of quetzals were feeding. With patience, we got a good look at a female through a spotting scope. Later in the morning, a male appeared briefly no more than 50 feet way.

The Resplendent Quetzal, a member of the trogon family, is often touted as the most beautiful bird in the world. I find it hard to argue. The male has a brilliant green head, throat and back and a scarlet red breast and belly. The tail is white with four long green uppertail coverts that extend well beyond the tail. The female is similar with more muted colors. Females lack the long tail coverts of the males.

This species is the national bird of Guatemala. Quetzals were revered by the Aztecs, Mayas and other Mesoamerican peoples.
Other avian highlights at Monteverde included a Black Guan, a roosting Mottled Owl, and Ochraceous Wood-Wrens. Several fearless Slate-throated Redstarts flitted about us for a while. These mostly yellow sprites are called candelitos (little candles) by Costa Ricans because their frenetic movements suggest flickering.

We saw seven hummingbird species including the large Green Hermit and Violet Sabrewing. Stripe-tailed Hummingbirds were seen as well. These hummers are nectar robbers. Many flowers with long tubular flowers rely on hummingbirds for pollination. The flowers essentially reward the hummingbirds with nectar for acting as pollinators. Striped-tailed Hummingbirds have relatively short bills. To reach the nectar of tubular flowers, the birds pierce the base of the flower to get the nectar but do not get a shower of pollen on them like other hummingbirds do.

Bananaquits and Common Bush Tanagers were nice finds as well.
Our last stop was the tropical dry forest of Santa Rosa National Park. This park is in the northwest corner of Costa Rica. We were there during the dry season when a strong rain shadow effect of the mountains to the east makes rain a rare event for half of the year. It was very hot during our stay.

Because of the dryness, some of the trees lose their leaves. The forest floor had a significant layer of dead leaves, similar to our northern broad-leaf forests.

The most conspicuous birds were White-breasted Magpie-Jays with their curly feathers on the top of the head. A Roadside Hawk, a buteo hawk, was regularly seen. Three species of parrots were heard and sometimes seen: White-fronted Parrot, Yellow-naped Parrot and Orange-fronted Parakeet.

Hoffman’s Woodpecker was the most common woodpecker. Flycatchers were conspicuous but less diverse than at La Selva. Most were Great-crested Flycatchers, Dusky-capped Flycatchers and Streaked Flycatchers
The resident Rufous-capped Warblers were joined by Yellow Warblers.

The pigeons were represented by three common species: Inca Dove, White-tipped Dove, and White-winged Pigeon.  Thicket Tinamous called from sights unseen. Lots of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were present. Other neat birds were Barred Antshrikes, Rufous-naped Wrens and Scrub Euphonias. We found a sleeping Northern Potoo, doing a superb imitation of a broken tree limb.
Santa Rosa is a great place to see monkeys. We had several extended views of white-faced capuchin monkeys and howler monkeys.

A trip to the Pacific Ocean (Playa Naranjo) yielded Brown Pelicans, Magnificent Frigatebirds and lots of Brown Boobies. I never got used to the lack of gulls.

[Originally published on March 7, 2009]