Costa Rica Birding Trip Report
July 2-12, 2016
Day 8: Saturday, July 9
Our first order of business this morning was to find a Mangrove Hummingbird that would be more cooperative than yesterday’s, so we headed to a patch of mangroves accessible by road. Along the way, we spotted Orange-fronted Parakeets, more Scarlet Macaws, a Black-headed Trogon and a few Stripe-headed Sparrows. Once at the mangroves, Andrew played a recording and moments later, a Mangrove Hummingbird perched above us, staying just long enough for everyone to get on it. As a bonus, this location also provided our only Olivaceous Piculet of the tour. Common Black-Hawk and Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl provided photo-ops.
We spent the rest of the morning exploring the trail system at Carara National Park’s headquarters. We passed quickly through the paved section at the entrance and made our way to an unpaved trail that brought us deeper into the interior forest. At one point, a singing Streak-chested Antpitta required us to go completely off-trail to track it down. While focused on trying to find the antpitta, no one but Andrew noticed that a Baird’s Trogon was calling somewhere above us. By the time we got everyone on the antpitta and shifted our attention to the trogon, it apparently had moved on. Another was calling later in the morning, but also remained heard-only. We had no time, though, to dwell on misses, as new birds kept popping up along the trail, including Black-hooded Antshrike, Dot-winged Antwren, Black-faced Antthrush, Long-tailed and Tawny-winged Woodcreeper, Yellow-olive, Royal, Sulphur-rumped and Black-tailed Flycatcher, Blue-crowned Manakin, Tawny-crowned Greenlet, Green Shrike-Vireo and Long-billed Gnatwren.
Streak-chested Antpitta, photo courtesy of Ted Center
After lunch, we loaded up the bus and headed north to the tour’s final destination, Monteverde. We made a stop along the way in Punta Morales, in a coastal area that provided opportunities to see birds of the northwestern dry forest. This area had many shrimp farms that attracted our only Black-necked Stilts seen on the tour. The mangrove race of Yellow Warbler provided photo-ops. Dry forest species seen here included Northern Beardless Tyrannulet, Northern Scrub and Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, Yellow-green Vireo, White-lored Gnatcatcher, Banded Wren, White-collared Seedeater, Streak-backed Oriole and Scrub Euphonia. After a well-earned ice cream break, we continued north, slowly climbing the winding, dusty, bumpy road up to Monteverde. We reached Cala Lodge, our base for the next two days, just before nightfall. We learned that our faithful driver, Luis, needed to return to San Jose, so we would have a new driver for the remainder of the tour.
Yellow Warbler (mangrove race), photo courtesy of Ted Center