Birding Costa Rica
Great birds and some wonderful wildlife are to be enjoyed in this Central American country
Brilliant birds and other great wildlife await birders visiting this Central American country
Sometimes it is the reactions of experienced birders that tell you all you need to know. A small band of us were wandering along the track in the Cordillera Central Volcanic Forest Reserve, near Costa Rica’s capital city, San José, when there was a loud scream.
“Over here,” squealed our local guide, Margherita Bottazzi Basti. “Here, here!”
We came running. “Green-fronted Lancebill,” she shouted. Her voice echoed across the valley, still half asleep at six o’clock in the morning. Everybody quickly got on to the hummingbird, its bill as long and thin as a needle. The assembled birders murmured a mixture of approval and wonder.
“Barred Parakeets,” interrupted our guide Abelardo Murillo urgently, as the close-knit flock of tiddlers flew
over in the cool mountain air. Raymond van Buskirk, master Neotropical birder and adventurer, his bloated Central American life-list swollen by one, pointed a fist to the air, face beaming.
In awe of the birds
“Hey everyone, we need to get on to these,” urged Chris Fischer, a man in the midst of a Costa Rican “Big Year”, hoping for 700 species. He pointed his binoculars towards the mid-levels of the tall forest above the road. Little by little, a flock of birds appeared, unwrapping themselves from the foliage like sweets, each one a marvel, with a marvellous name to match: Spangle-cheeked Tanager, Flame-throated Warbler, Common Chlorospingus. “Whoa, here’s a Ruddy Treerunner,” said John van Dort, a bird guide based in Honduras. “This is a good flock.”
“Oh, man,” continued Daniel Aldana, professional Guatemalan bird tour leader. “Barred Becard here. And wait, hold on. Buffy Tuftedcheek, going up the dead
branch. It’s right next to the treerunner.” And everybody slipped into an attitude of awe. Expert Central American birders were now admiring the flock as if they were experiencing snow for the first time.
Anyone familiar with the miracle that is Costa Rica will identify with this moment. A country with 900 species that is the size of Wales is always going to surprise and thrill even hardened birders. In a sense, every tropical forest flock is a lucky dip, with routine prizes mixed with treasures.
Half an hour later, our same party, slow-burning with joy, threw off our birding expertise and relaxed on the balcony of the café of the Montserrat Cloud Forest Bird Sanctuary, coffees in hand, casually watching hummingbirds and other colourful birds come and go from the feeding stations.
The fact that the hummers were Purple-throated Mountain-gems and that specials, such as Prong-billed Barbets and Yellow-thighed Finches, were showing at point-blank range was almost incidental,
such was the happy, carefree bubble that had enveloped us. We had moved from awe to “Aaah” in a very short time.
And this, perhaps, is the greatest singular enchantment of Costa Rica. It offers a rare combination of incredible birding and genuine comfort, juxtaposed so closely that you flit from one to the other like a hummingbird swapping feeders. Many a roadside café or restaurant provides sustenance for birds and humans alike. You can see shy forest creatures from your bed. You can see colourful tanagers, hummingbirds, toucans and parrots in a hot country without taking malaria pills.
I suffered only four mosquito bites in a week, one for every hundred bird species that our party saw. If you wish to dip your toes into the extraordinary biodiversity of the American tropics, the richest area for birds in the world, Costa Rica is the place to do it.
Autumn migrants
My trip took place in October 2018. Most visits to the country are squeezed into the start of the year, when the weather is supposedly more reliable. However, our hosts wanted to showcase the autumn as the best time for sheer bird variety. Not only are all the residents on station, but the stream of North American migrants heading south towards their winter quarters reaches flood proportions at this time of the year. As a result, we could enjoy delightful North American sprites, such as Canada Warbler, rubbing shoulders with tropical relatives, such as the gorgeous Collared Redstart (or Collared Whitestart), which looks like a bird that has been bathing in butter.
This was my first time in the country, and indeed anywhere in Central America. And I had wanted to see one particular
THE MALE WITH A TRAIN LONGER THAN THAT OF MEGHAN MARKLE’S AT HER WEDDING
Central American bird ever since spying its picture in a book called The World Atlas of Birds, perhaps 30 years ago.
I even dreamt about it once, my mind imagining this pastel-shaded beauty perched on a treetop in a clearing in a remote cloud-forest, with nothing to its backdrop but endless forest-clad hills.
The Long-tailed Silky Flycatcher is an uncommon, localised species for sure, but here in Costa Rica we watched a pair at close quarters perched on a bush in the garden at Paraiso Quetzal Lodge, near San José, seeing them without breaking sweat or abandoning our beers. The backdrop to these medium-sized grey-and-yellow beauties, with their pert crests and pin-shaped tails (they are related to Waxwings) was, in fact, eerily redolent of the scene of my imaginings, with forests and mountains into the distance. But this was an ambition fulfilled in comfort. And, in common with most sites we visited, there was a glittering supporting cast. The hummingbird feeders throbbed with competition: Fiery-throated Hummingbirds flew in and out, incandescent; Volcano Hummingbirds fumed. A few kilometres down the road we were almost incidentally introduced to one of the most famous of all Central American birds, the Resplendent Quetzal. It was staked out in the forest of Machogaff, in an area where the locals make a special effort to look after and nourish the celebrity birds, planting and protecting their charges’ favourite wild avocado trees.
We puffed up a steep slope for this one, birding royalty. It was a star alright, glittering in iridescent green, the male with a brilliant emerald train longer than that of Meghan Markle’s at her wedding, as well as a brilliant crimson front. When it flew from its favoured tree across to the next, there was an audible intake of breath from the assembled audience.
At the Rainforest Adventures resort, near Jacó on the west coast, we didn’t need to climb any steep slopes at all. That was done for us by riding an aerial
tramway, a slow-running, open cable-car that gave fantastic views of the nearby canopy. Although a short ride, it was superb for birds. According to the Neotropical experts, pride of place went to a Double-toothed Kite that perched in plain sight close by, with a supporting cast of two White Hawks and some Crested Guans. The birds kept us concentrating, which was just as well, since the ground looked a long way down from up on the wires.
Rich forests
For me, the clearest juxtaposition of luxury and wild nature occurred at Rancho Naturalista, near Cartago. This is very much a birding lodge, run with great panache by Lisa Erb, a professional bird guide and entrepreneur who is no less glamorous than the glittering hummingbirds at her feeders. I could list the remarkable tally of unusual birds we saw, of course, but picture this instead. One evening, after dinner washed down with a beer or two, my good friend Niklas Aronsson and I (we were really the naughty schoolboys of the trip, being far less experienced or serious than most of the other participants) joined our other main guide Meche Alpizar for an ‘invertebrate foray’ into the rich forests that surround the Lodge. For half an hour the comforts of life seemed far away. The torchlight revealed an extraordinary array of creatures, including some very large specimens of creatures known as amblypgyi, or whip spiders, living in hollows above the path.
They are as big as spiders and even more leggy, and I suspect fast runners, too. There were a lot of conventional spiders, of every size and, as we had hoped, several large holes were home to suitably cuddly tarantulas.
We visited the ‘moth-sheet’ and marvelled at the range of forms and colours – in contrast to a British moth catch, every individual was a different species from every other (no legions of Large Yellow Underwings, here.) Finally, we visited some hummingbird feeders in the dark and realised that, at this hour, they have quite different visitors. We turned off the torch and marvelled at the sound of bats flapping past our heads. This wasn’t a night walk for the squeamish, of course. But, by day, the birds included the incomparable Snowcap, one of the world’s smallest hummingbirds, with the male’s extraordinary combination of white forehead and a body colour that is almost impossible to describe, an intense purplish bronze. We also had prolonged views of Sunbittern nearby.
None of the local fauna entered the rooms at Rancho Naturalista. But on the trip, we did surrender a little comfort at one site, the unique Selva Bananito Ecolodge, on the Caribbean coast near the border with Panama.
When I was led to my room, I was surprised to see it had three permanent sides, but the balcony was left completely open to the forest. I was encouraged not to use the shutters. The beds were fitted with mosquito nets and so I nestled down that night feeling thrillingly part of the milieu, with its strange calls coming from the darkness. Anything could have crept in, but I slept soundly.
I could make mention of the very comfortable Cristal Ballena Lodge, on the Pacific side, where we saw 80 species before breakfast, and where 10 minutes down the road a Humpback Whale was lob-tailing in the Ocean. I would be unfair not to doff my cap to Selva Verde Lodge in Serapiquí, with its Kinkajou in the garden and its astounding variety of frogs. But that, once again, is the point. Costa Rica throbs with incredible wildlife spots, and many of them are easy to reach and even easier to enjoy. In this part of Central America, richness is easy to find.