‘Costa Rica: an introduction to the Neotropics’, a talk by Richard Swinbank
This was the first of a series of talks we are organising using Zoom. We plan to continue these while indoor meetings are suspended.
Richard visited Costa Rica in Central America on a Limosa holiday in February. It is the ideal place for an introduction to Neotropical birding, being a small country with Caribbean and Pacific coasts, a wide range of habitat and a great many species. There are direct flights from London and the food, accommodation and facilities are good.
From San Jose airport the group went to their hotel and took a pre-breakfast walk in the grounds seeing some common species such as the great-tailed grackle and the clay-coloured thrush, the National Bird of Costa Rica. This rather plain brown bird was possibly chosen because it is one of a few species which is common throughout the country.
Next day they drove to La Quinta Lodge, en-route visiting La Paz Waterfall Gardens where bird feeders bring forest birds close. They had good views of prong-billed barbets, various hummingbirds and a slaty-backed nightingale-thrush which came for left-overs from lunch. A stop at Cin Chona Cafe on the other side of the valley produced blue-throated toucanet, red-headed barbet and a roadside hawk, so named because it is often seen perched by the roadside. A visit to La Selva Biological Station produced several species of motmot and good views of a fasciated antshrike, a bird which often lurks in the forest undergrowth. There were also deadly poison-arrow frogs. Touching one can be fatal. The group also visited “Cope’s Place”. He has set up a fine viewing station in his garden, where they saw rufous-naped wood rails, chestnut-headed oropendolas, which build long dangling nests, and collared aracaris, brightly coloured small toucans with very large bills which are partial to bananas. Cope took them into the woods to see a magnificent spectacled owl roosting.
Next day, the wettest of the holiday, the group travelled on to Rancho Naturalista. One of the birds seen was a Nicaraguan seed-finch, a bird with an extremely powerful pink beak. The lodge has attractive grounds where they saw Montezuma oropendolas and also a grey-headed chachalaca, a rather strange looking chicken-like bird. In the nearby forest it was necessary to avoid columns of army ants. Photography was difficult but they had a good view of a golden-hooded tanager, one of the harder to find tanagers.
The group moved higher up into the mountains to Rio Perlas where a sunbittern was nesting by a river which runs through the grounds of the Lodge. From here they travelled up into the cloud forest on the Talamanca Mountains getting very good views of a resplendent quetzal. At the top they saw the spectacular main crater of the Irazu Volcano. Continuing down the other side into the Savegre Valley, they stopped at Miriam’s cafe, another place with birdfeeders. These produced a colony of acorn woodpeckers, sooty-capped chlorospingus and talamanca hummingbird. As they approached their next base, Hotel Savegre, they saw a second resplendent quetzal.
From here the group visited an oak forest (not English oaks) where they saw yellow-thighed finches, dark grey birds with splendidly bright thick yellow feathering on the thighs, and also ruddy treerunner a woodpecker-like bird which creeps up and down treetrunks. There were attractive little spotted wood-quails in a wood near the hotel.
Finally the group moved to the Pacific Coast staying at Hotel Villa Lapas. Richard saw black spiny-tailed iguana outside his room and birds seen locally included the black-throated trogon, yellow-throated toucan and also the fine big black and white owl. In the Carara National Park, a lowland forest reserve, they saw three species of manikins and a chestnut-backed antbird. On a trip out along the Guacimo Road, turquoise-browed motmot, stripe-headed sparrow and double-striped thick-knee were seen. A visit to Tarcoles Beach produced brown pelicans and magnificent frigatebirds with beautiful scarlet macaws giving really good views up in the trees. A boat trip on the Rio Tarcoles, taking in a section of the river and mangrove swamp was very productive. There were bare-throated tiger-herons, yellow-crowned night herons, little blue herons, roseate spoonbills, albeit roosting with their bills hidden and ringed kingfishers. A pair of mangrove swallows had their nest on the boat and followed it along. Next day the group returned to San Jose and home. In answer to a question at the end Richard said that he saw some 380 species.
We thank Richard for a very enjoyable and interesting talk illustrated with a lot of good slides. I do urge those of you who did not participate to try to join our future Zoom presentations if you possibly can.
Helen Baker
