In mid August I was lucky enough to spend about 9 days birding and hiking in Costa Rica with a couple of my birding/ biologist buddies. This was my first foray into Central America, but for my three companions, this was a return to some familiar territory. Since it was they who more or less set the itinerary, we skipped many of the better known spots on the birding circuit and headed to some of the less visited areas. Over the next two weeks, I'd like to share with you some of the sights we came across on our little excursion. Part One is Day 1 at San Jose through Day 5 at the Osa Peninsula, and Part Two will be the highlands and Caribbean slope.
To give a rough outline of our journey, I’ll start out saying that we landed in the capital, San Jose, and headed west to the Pacific coast, where we stayed one night near the town of Dominical. From there, we headed south to the Osa Peninsula, one of the last wilderness areas left in the Americas. Four days later we packed our bags for the misty mountains, and drove up into the central mountain ranges, working our way up and over the high peak of Cerro de la Muerte (11,300 feet), then east to Tapanti National Park before turning back to San Jose for the flight home.
The birding and scenery were both pretty spectacular. All of the lodges we used were extremely well managed, placed in extensive natural settings and manned by exceptionally responsive and knowledgeable staff. Although I was initially skeptical about reports that the water was safe to drink everywhere in the country, none of us had any hint of a reaction to it, or to the food l, which was exceptional.
Getting around the country by car is not terribly difficult, as long as the driver is not terrified of tight traffic conditions around the towns nor small, winding mountain roads. We avoided driving at night, as per all recommendations, and we never had the slightest indication that the Costa Rican people were anything but warm and friendly. Road signs are nonexistent and it is essential that you have a GPS and know how to use it!
Moving out of the city and into open country, we soon began spotting new birds along the roadway. Besides the same Black and Turkey Vultures that we see here in the states, we also started seeing the appropriately named Roadside Hawk perched, well, you know…
As we approached the Pacific coast, we made a quick stop at the bridge over the Tarcoles River. Here we saw our first wild Scarlet Macaws and a gang of about 30 American Crocodiles. Costa Rica and Brazil lead the western hemisphere in croc attacks on humans!
Eventually we made our way out to the Pacific coast and headed south to our first overnight stop at the Hacienda Baru, a great lodge adjacent to a national park.
We got a little birding in that evening, managing to get glimpses of a very vocal Collared Forest Falcon, and the next morning started racking up some real tropical wildlife, including several Agoutis (a rodent-like mammal about the size of a large rabbit) feeding along a hedgerow and this Spiny-tailed Iguana.
Several Yellow-throated Toucans added to the tropical flavor
and a juvenile Bare-throated Tiger Heron reminded us that the ocean was just a short distance away.
Soon we headed off to the south towards the first of our major destinations, Bosque del Rio Tigre on the Osa Peninsula. We did get a few more views of the Pacific Ocean, and at one stop we managed to find one of my target birds, the Southern Lapwing.
The lapwing is a recent addition to the Central American avifauna, as it is currently undergoing a range expansion from its core range in South America.
One of the interesting birding features that we kept running into in CR was the concept of species pairs- similar species whose ranges don’t overlap but who obviously fill a similar niche within their own areas. Groove-billed Anis (the same one that our southwestern birds see) occur along the Pacific coast almost down to the Osa, where they are replaced by the similar Smooth-billed Ani (now extremely difficult to find anywhere in the states.)
As we made the turn toward the Osa, we stopped at the famous (in birding terms) Rincon Bridge. The bridge is known as one of the few spots where Turquoise and Yellow-billed Cotingas occur, but it also affords great views of a wide marshy river where lots of nice birds and other wildlife can be viewed.
Several pairs of Spot-crowned Euphonias were nesting in bushes adjacent to the bridge, along with Common Tody Flycatcher and many swallows and martins.
We also managed so-so looks at several Yellow-billed Cotingas, but the snowy white males eluded my camera lens! Here’s a poor photo of a female, but I’ll include it as it is such a rare bird to see at all!
The two Cotinga species, by the way, each has a sibling species that occurs along the Cariibean side of Costa Rica. The Lovely and Snowy Cotingas are very similar to the Turquoise and Yellow-billed, respectively, but are separated by more than a hundred miles of high mountain range.
As we pushed on to the Osa proper, we began to see a much more lush, dense forest. This region is termed the Pacific lowland, and it is much closer to the hot, steamy rainforest that most of us imagine when thinking of a tropical jungle.
Scenes like this were the norm here, and we experienced a daily dose of heavy rain, usually in late afternoon and again overnight.
After another hour or so, we made our way into the village of Dos Brazos, where we found the local 7-11 (these shops are called “sodas” by the locals) and called our hosts at the lodge to advise as to the condition of Rio Tigre, which we would have to cross in order to reach the lodge.
As it turned out, the river was driveable and walkable, so we were able to bring the car over and walk back into town when we needed to. In the course of assessing the conditions, we managed to make a very nice sighting- a Fasciated Tiger Heron was using the river rocks as a fishing perch.
We crossed the river and headed up to the very rustic, but very comfortable Bosque del Rio Tigre Lodge.
The lodge could easily be given a story of its own. Constructed and maintained with minimal environmental impact, electrical power is completely solar, if somewhat limited. Electric lighting is generally available 24 hrs a day, but to really see well at night, flashlights or candles are the rule. If the batteries have stored a sufficient charge, several hours are set aside for charging cameras, laptops or phones and for providing wifi. In lean times, electricity is dedicated to running the freezers.
This amazing hotel is open to the outside world, with the jungle just feet away, no walls on the first floor, where the cooking and dining areas are. Half walls upstairs around the bedrooms make you feel as if you’re living in the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. Although every bed has a fine mesh mosquito net, we encountered no biting insects in the lodge! So much for Zika warnings and 100 % Deet!
The food here, by the way, was also top notch. We would meet up at 5AM for some coffee and home made banana bread, walk the trails till 7:30, get back in time for breakfast, hike again till 12:30 lunch, then take some down time as it usually rained for an hour or two, then go birding until 6:30 dinner. One night, dinner was Sea Bass, another night tuna steaks! By the second day we were asking for half portions because we couldn’t finish everything!
Anyway, back to the birds! Although it has a bird list of about 400 species (similar to that of many states in the USA), Bosque is known for being one of the best places to see Osa specialties, some of which occur only in this small region of Costa Rica.
Although Little Tinamou occurs throughout a wider area, it is considered almost impossible to see. Here at Bosque,we saw several every day, sometimes near the kitchen where they could scavenge some rice, but also up on the forest trails.
Black- cheeked Ant Tanager, on the other hand, is a local specialty whose entire world range is restricted to this small corner of Costa Rica.
A few other species who share the feeders and nearby trails include Buff-throated Saltator,
Crowned Woodnymphs and Pale-billed Woodpecker- one of the surviving Campephilus woodpeckers- relatives of the Ivory-bill
Some of those forest trails, by the way, are relatively easy slogs, usually through mud, sometimes through rain, but always through high humidity and temperatures in the upper 80s. Other trails, though, are downright difficult, steep with slick mud, slippery runoffs with sharp drops where the best you can manage is to move along in a controlled slide with hands. knees, and sometimes buttocks acting as your brace.
Mammals abound also, but are harder to spot. This 3-toed Sloth was cooperative along one of the rain forest trails.
One day a howler monkey put in an appearance
Nightime around the lodge was always interesting, with Abram, the owner and incredibly knowledgeable guide, usually able to find a snake or frog for us to check out.
Several times during our stay we made the short walk back into the town of Dos Brazos, named for its location at the two branches (“arms”) of the Rio Tigre. Dos Brazos was only founded in the 1970s and began life as a gold mining town. Some mining still goes on, but the federal government has protected a large part of the Osa within the Corcovado National Park.
Scarlet Macaws, gone from most of their range, are still easy to find around Dos Brazos.
At the other size extreme was this Olivaceous Piculet a tiny, sort-of-woodpecker
Elsewhere around town we ran into quite a few interesting species. One open field had a Striped Cuckoo and a very cooperative Laughing Falcon.
One evening we were lucky enough to have a flock of Fiery-billed Aracari pass through.
After three nights at Bosque it was time to move on. With a long drive ahead of us, we could only make a few stops, but along the road back to Rincon we couldn't pass up this road-kill, which turned out to be a Fer-de-Lance, an extremely dangerous snake which I had been hoping to see under better circumstances.
Upon leaving Rincon, we continued on up the coast and on to the high peaks of the Chiriqui Highlands. More about that in Part 2, next week. Thank you for stopping by!