birding never sleeps: COSTA RICA 2022: north and east (04-07 May)

This is the fourth of five blogs covering a trip to Costa Rica with Nick Preston and Paul Noakes. Paul was the instigator and to all intents and purposes Nick and I went long for the ride. A very good ride it was too, far exceeding expectations. We'd worked our way down to the far southwest and were heading back north. Photos are mine and Paul's (credited, although being bigger and better are easy to spot).

Wednesday 04 May. We left Cerro Lodge at 05:15 and spent from 05:30-07:15 seeing little on the northern (Laguna Menduca) trail at Carara as the car park there wasn't locked making early access easier, although perhaps official. We saw little and continued to the main trail at Carara. The entrance gates were till locked so we parked outside, as another car was doing. We'd been told the previous evening that although the park didn't officially open until 08:00 it was possible to enter from 07:00, but no one was about. We went in anyway and spent an enjoyable 07:30-10:20 on the main trail (Sendero Carara). The highlights were a very obliging pair of Streak-chested Antpittas, Turquoise-browed Motmot and Orange-collared Manakins. We returned to headquarters to pay and were given a rudimentary telling-off for entering before the National Park was open (at 08:00), our car having been spotted by the officials. We returned to Cerro Lodge, left at 11:05 and drove to La Ensenada where after a fairly slow journey we arrived at 13:45. It was very hot, the area typified by farmland with thin strips of gallery forest between fields. A Pacific Screech-Owl with two large chicks roosting in a mango tree near the restaurant was an excellent start as was a Lesser Ground Cuckoo found by Paul in a small forest strip as we spread out to check some of the trails around the finca. We birded until heavy rain drove us inside at around 17:00.

inside the forest at Carara

Plumbeous Kite at Carara (photo: Paul Noakes)

Orange-collared Manakin at Carara (photo: Paul Noakes)

Rufous and White Wren at Carara (photo: Paul Noakes)

Rufous-naped Wrens at Carara

Rufous-naped Wrens at Carara (photo: Paul Noakes)

Green and Black Poisoned Dart Frog at Carara

Streak-chested Antpittas on the main trail at Carara

Streak-chested Antpitta at Carara (photos: Paul Noakes)

Turquoise-browed Motmot at Carara

Bicoloured Antbird at Carara

Grey-headed Tanager at Carara (photo: Paul Noakes)

Pacific Screech-Owl at La Ensenada

Pacific Screech-Owls at La Ensenada (photo: Paul Noakes)

Lesser Ground-Cuckoo at La Ensenada

Lesser Ground-Cuckoo at La Ensenada (photos: Paul Noakes)

White-fronted Amazon at La Ensenada

a better looking White-fronted Amazon at La Ensenada (photo: Paul Noakes)

Thursday 05 May. We walked the trails at La Ensenada from 05:30-08:45 with Thicket Tinamou our main target. We heard distant birds and finally tracked one down to a patch of scrubby woodland where we hoped to attract it to the edge. It came closer but presumably saw us and never showed. We tried again where a track bisected the woodland hoping to entice it across a track. Again it came closer and this time appeared at the edge of a more open area before it saw us. I also saw Cinnamon Hummingbird, 8 Black-headed Trogons, Turquoise-browed Motmot and White-lored Gnatcatcher before returning for breakfast. The Pacific Screech- Owl family, this time with both adults, were roosting in their mango tree. We packed and left at 10:00 for the nearby salinas seeing a Lesser Ground-Cuckoo on the track as we approached them. The Salinas were hot and mosquito infested and, seeing very little there, we didn’t linger. One of our main misses during our first few days in central Costa Rica had been Black-bellied Hummingbird in the central mountains. We were heading back that way and had booked a chalet at Cataratas del Toro where they were being seen with some regularity. It was another trying drive for Paul with MapsMe not always helpful by suggesting windy dirt roads which might be a 100m shorter than a straight paved one. The last two hours were also in heavy rain. We arrived at Cataratas del Toro at 14:00, found our chalet 400m further down the road but it was locked with no one about. Returning to Cataratas we located the lady who owned the chalet working in the restaurant. It was still raining hard so we watched the hummingbird feeders from inside, having negotiated our entrance fee would include the following morning too. Lots of hummingbirds were in evidence with Purple-throated Mountaingems and Violet Sabrewings the highlights. The closest we came to a Black-bellied Hummingbird was a female we couldn’t be sure wasn’t Stripe-tailed. We stayed watching them until 17:00 by which time the rain had eased off but it was getting cold and the light was starting to go. Our cabin was unlocked and although quite basic had a well provided kitchen, not that we had any food to cook. I did make use of the toaster though.

Gulf of Nicoya from La Ensenada

La Ensenada

Squirrel Cuckoo at La Ensenada

male White-lored Gnatcatcher at El Ensenada (photo: Paul Noakes)

Crane Hawk at La Ensenada (photo: Paul Noakes)

Stripe-headed Sparrow at La Ensenada (photos: Paul Noakes)

hard to resist revisiting the Pacific Screech-Owl family at La Ensenada

Lesser Ground-Cuckoo by the entrance track at La Ensenada

Coppery-headed Emerald at Cataratas del Toro

Friday 06 May. We entered Cataratas del Toro at 06:00 and spent the first two hours around the feeders and flowers by the centre. We soon saw male and female Black-bellied Hummingbirds on the Verbena. The male was really quite smart and vindicated our decision to visit the site. We spent the next two hours on the trails to the Jardin and back where more Verbena hosted White-bellied Mountaingem, more Black-bellied and a Scintillant Hummimgbird. We saw Zeledon’s Antbird and Slaty-backed Nightingale-Thrushes on the trail but Nick and I failed to find a Ruddy Woodcreeper Paul had seen there. We left the chalet at 10:15 and drove to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui where we arrived at noon. Our accommodation, Andrea Christina, was in a cool shady setting under tall trees but it was still very hot. We unpacked and sorted our stuff out before calling in at a supermarket on the way to the La Selva entrance road. There we met Graham and Richard again. They were staying at La Selva and grippingly had seen a female Snowy Cotinga above the entrance gate that morning. We birded along the entrance road from 13:45-17:15 when heavy rain came in. No cotingas although we did see Rufous-winged Woodpecker again, Black-throated Wren and Red-throated Ant-Tanager.

Nick scoping Red-billed Pigeon from Casa del Campo, our pad for the night

Cataratas del Toro from main viewpoint

male Black-bellied Hummingbird at Cataratas del Toro

male Black-bellied Hummingbird at Cataratas del Toro (photos: Paul Noakes)

female Black-bellied Hummingbird at Cataratas del Toro (photos: Paul Noakes)

Green Thorntail at Cataratas del Toro

Green Thorntail at Cataratas del Toro (photos: Paul Noakes)

Green-crowned Brilliant at Cataratas del Toro

Green-crowned Brilliant at Cataratas del Toro (photo: Paul Noakes)

Purple-throated Mountaingem at Cataratas del Toro

Purple-throated Mountaingem at Cataratas del Toro (photo: Paul Noakes)

Violet Sabrewing at Cataratas del Toro

Coppery-headed Emerald at Cataratas del Toro

Coppery-headed Emerald at Cataratas del Toro (photo: Paul Noakes)

Green Hermit at Cataratas del Toro

Green Hermit at Cataratas del Toro (photo: Paul Noakes)

White-tipped Dove at Cataratas del Toro (photo: Paul Noakes)

Bat Falcon at Cataratas del Toro (photo: Paul Noakes)

Grey-breasted Wood-Wren at Cataratas del Toro

Zeledon's Antbird at Cataratas del Toro

Zeledon's Antbird at Cataratas del Toro (photo: Paul Noakes)

Slaty-backed Nightingale-Thrush at Cataratas del Toro

Slaty-backed Nightingale-Thrush at Cataratas del Toro (photo: Paul Noakes)

leaving Cateratas del Toro

Red-billed Pigeon still opposite Casa del Campo (photo: Paul Noakes)

Broad-billed Motmot along La Selva entrance road

Cinnamon Becard along La Selva entrance road (photo: Paul Noakes)

Northern Barred Woodcreeper along La Selva entrance road (photo: Paul Noakes)

Black-cheeked Woodpecker along La Selva entrance road (photo: Paul Noakes)

Rufous-winged Woodpeckers along La Selva entrance road (photos: Paul Noakes)

Red-eyed Tree Frog at Sarapiqui

Saturday 07 May. This morning was likely to be my last chance to see Snowy Cotinga as we would then be leaving La Selva and were unlikely return. We had a spare day at the end of the trip but Paul and Nick were understandably not keen to spend it here. No pressure then! It was dry so we were on the entrance road at 04:25 playing Middle American Screech Owl recordings but all they seemed to attract was a Spectacled Owl we saw poorly. I birded the end of the entrance road and the car park by the main gate from dawn to 08:45 hoping a cotinga might appear, as one had the previous day, but had no success. While I was concentrating on the ‘favoured’ cotinga trees Nick had a brief view of a female fly across the road 200m away and later he and Paul saw a male fly across a clearing 400m away while sitting by the road. Needless to say I saw neither and found the situation very frustrating to say the least although good views of a Semiplumbeous Hawk was some compensation. For a change of scenery, we decided to try the road along the edge of La Selva where Nick had seen one fly over my head on our second day. Returning to the scene of the crime did not fill me with confidence but amazingly in almost the same area I picked up a male Snowy Cotinga flying into a tree where it landed! Albeit partially obscured I managed to scope its top half (one of the few times it had really been worth carting a scope around Costa Rica) before it dropped out of the back of the tree and disappeared. I was quite elated and hugely relieved, not having fully realized how much I was stressing over not seeing one. It also levelled off cotingas for the trip: Blue 2 White 2. We returned to the lodge, me on a real high, the others relieved not to have to try any longer, packed and tried a short scrubby trail behind our accommodation but only saw a Green Ibis. We drove to the Sleeping Mountain Arenal at La Fortuna, arriving before noon. It was a basic town centre hotel with a rudimentary kitchen run by a very helpful lady. We drove up to the very posh Arenal Observatory Lodge & Spar to suss it out for the morning. Access to their trails was from 05:30 and cost $12 each which was better than we’d expected in both cases. We walked a section of the dirt road a km below the lodge entrance and Nick heard a close Thicket Antpitta calling below us. It was in an area we could access so we scrambled down the bank towards it. Paul strategically placed his speaker and we sat quietly while he taped it in. It took a while but suddenly I spotted it in a gap deep in the vegetation although initially Nick and Paul were unsighted. It soon reappeared and gave decent views, sometimes fleeting and usually brief and partially obscured but very pleasing all the same. We returned to La Fortuna and spent the last three hours of the day on the Bogarin Trail. At the small overgrown pool by the entrance and along the trails we saw Rufous-naped Wood-Rail, American Pygmy Kingfisher, 2 Keel-billed Motmots, a female Black & White Owl with fully grown youngster and Laughing Falcon as well as sloths and agoutis. It is a good site for Uniform Crake but only I saw one, while walking the trails. It had been an excellent day, perhaps the best of the trip if I forgot my early frustrations!