Tourist traps

For the most part, we avoid touristy areas with cheap souvenirs.  However, we’ve had some long drives and our drivers stopped at a few.  One place had good empanadas and was by a river with howler monkeys and iguanas.

The best souvenirs are made in China. Here’s a colorful bird with its bill on the top of the head above the eyes.

We were going to get this for our new grandson Adam, but I’m afraid it would hinder his learning of the natural world.

We found the Agami heron at Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge

We originally planned staying at six places, but at the last minute, Mike decided he wanted to see the Agami heron, which was not at one of those places. It’s a rare bird, quite colorful, with a very long bill.  We went out last night, found a juvenile, but the lighting was terrible for photos. We went out again this morning, Took a boat down a river, and then walked through wetlands, where they are occasionally found. We did only find the juvenile, but the light was better, and Mike was patient  and waited for the bird to walk in his direction.

The juvenile isn’t as colorful as the adults, so we might have to go on another trip to find them. They are in a few other central American countries, so stay tuned.

This was the end of the time that they are usually in Costa Rica, so we were lucky to even find the juvenile.

We saw lots of other birds and things too, but we also have to finish off the rum before we return, so here are some pictures. Will add the description tomorrow.

American Pygmy Kingfisher; smallest kingfisher in Costa Rica.

Boat billed heron again, or as fondly referred to by Chris now, boat Bill Terron.

Grey Headed Tanager. This was a target bird for Chris. A lot of the common tanagers come to the many fruit feeders so our list has grown over the different countries, but Chris likes finding the gems of the forest. We were out with Chambita, a pretty good guide, and Chris saw it fly and land and he helped us identifying it. Always fun to see them with nesting material! Next time Chambita drags a couple birders down this swamp, he might be able to show them a nest.

White wiskered puff bird. This was fun. Chambita heard it and said he knew it had been reported recently but he had not seen it, so it’s always fun when your guide has a good day as well!  We have seen this bird in Panama but, you know, new camera.

Tiger Heron.

Anhinga with the fresh catch of the day sans rice and beans.  One of our drivers made us laugh as we drove he pointed out all the agriculture which included rice fields. Chris said, good thing since a lot of rice is eaten here. He said, yes, for breakfast it’s rice and beans and for dinner it’s beans and rice.

Dusky capped flycatcher.  There was a path we had to walk down alone to meet our driver after getting off the boat with Chambita. We had to pause each time to wait for a cow or horse to clear, so we took a minute to bird and found this one.

We saw this from the boat. There were lots of horses just grazing on the paths around the river. Here we finally saw them being used by actual cowboys rounding up some cattle.



And who can resist “baby cow.”  We will have to look up which type we were seeing with these long drooping ears. They were everywhere and seemed to be keeping track of the coming and going of boats on the river.

Chris braved 95 degree heat and walked through a swamp filled with crocodiles just so I could photograph a stork

The jaribu stork is the largest bird in Central America.

And I wasn’t speaking to him for an hour afterwards! No one told me there was going to be swamp walking. My options were sit in the boat alone and look like crocodile bait or walk between Mike and Chambita. There were several signs that said no swimming, crocodiles, and I saw a family happily swimming and cooling off so I guess maybe it was an over reaction on my part 🤷‍♀️. 

Lazy birding

We are just hanging out. We went inside to cool off for a minute and all the birds came out.

A  chachalaka came to our table and admired all of Mike’s belongings.

The buff-throated Saltator finished the fruit we had with breakfast.

But the best bird by far was the long-billed gnatwren.  It was a target bird for Chris. She loves the little hard to find gems of the forest. We got a quick glimpse of the gnatwren yesterday at Arenal Observatory Lodge with our dumb guide who rushed us along, so today we had such fun with it. We heard it. We used Merlin to identify it. We used a call sporadically to entice it. Once we got a good look and photo, we did not play the call further. It is still calling occasionally all afternoon along with the great antshrike.

We also “Say No To Bread” when it comes to enticing birds. All the lodges use fruit so we don’t feel too bad using our leftover fruits as bait.

Lunch/dinner is on the way, so we will just continue to enjoy our porch and see who else might fly in.

Morning walk

We decided to skip our tour today and just have a relaxing day before we head up to Cano Negro tomorrow.  We went for a morning walk and ran into a laughing falcon and another Yellow throated toucan.  Chris found the falcon and Mike found the toucan. 

Chris found a hummingbird nest

Chris found this hummingbird nest outside our room, visible from the table where we have our meals.

Arenal Observatory and Lodge

Arenal Observatory and Lodge is one of the best birding spots in Costa Rica.  Our travel agency wanted us to stay there, but it’s pretty basic with no plunge pools, so we stayed five miles away. Today, we visited with a guide who wasn’t particularly good.  Nonetheless, we saw a few birds but had higher expectations.

Here are some highlights.

Semiplumbeous Hawk

Red-lored parrot

Lineated woodpecker.

White-collared manikan showing its beard.

Emerald Tanager 

Black-crested coquette

Although Chris is upset we didn’t see everything we hoped for, she’ll be fine after a nap