Esquinas Rainforest Lodge

Watching the Olympics and having a Costa Rica blogathon from my couch.  USA 2, Russia 2 - round six of shootout.  Crazy game: Detroit Redwings star, Pavel Datsyuk, has scored all of Russia's goals.

Day number four and our first in the rainforest.  Such a long day of birding, so many good birds, so many photos.  This will be a two entry blog day.

An unidentified lizard.

Alfaro's Pygmy Squirrel (Microsciurus alfari)

For such a common bird in this locality, I never did get a good photo of the Cherrie's Tanager (Ramphocelus  costaricensis).  This is just one of many attempts.  

It rained both nights at Esquinas.  The mornings were foggy and the air full of moisture.  These two teed-up Tropical Kingbirds struck the morning mood.

What's it like having breakfast with bats still flying through the open air dining room?  Kind of cool.  Then they tucked away on the restaurant walls for their daytime sleep.

Buff-rumped Warbler (Myiothlypis fulvicauda) working the lodge grounds. 

White-crowned Parrot (Pionus senilis) perched at high altitude.

Female Cherrie's Tanager* working a piece of fruit.

*Another correction from Matt, (see comments below); the above bird is not as I have it identified.  It is a female Spot-crowned Euphonia (Euphonia imitans).  Now that Matt points it out, I can see my identification mistake.  As with the Mountain Robin identification error in my Las Roblas trail blog entry, this again reveals the perils of working too hard for the photo before actually seeing and identifying the bird.   This is partially because of the kind of camera I use.  When the opportunity for a photo presents itself, I must work quickly. Birds flit and fly.  With a much fast shutter speed, photographing with a DSLR may allow the birder to do both, observe and photograph, the bird.  I recall a comment I made to Lathe as we walked away from the Torrent Tyrannulet and knowing my photos of that bird were not good. Since I began taking photos and keeping this blog, my birding skills have slipped.  As with Mountain Robin, I didn't even have Spot-crowned Euphonia on my list of seen birds.     

Fiery-billed Aracari (Pteroglossus frantzii).  We saw these birds a few times and later I'll have another photo.  We also learned how to pronounce Aracari correctly.  

Above and below, Black-mandibled Toucan (Ramphastos ambiguus). Photos speak for themselves.  We saw, and heard, these magnificent birds a few times, but this was absolutely my best look and photo op.

Baby Central American Agouti (Dasyprocta punctuate) chasing after its mother.

Variable Seedeater (Sporophila americana).

White Peacock (Anartia jatrophae).

Caiman with baby on its back.  No need to write more.  That jaw and those teeth say it all.

USA wins on shootout goals by T.J. Oshie from Minnesota.

Olympic USA and Russia hockey and Costa Rica birding blogathon, both, to be continued ...

Alas, leaving the highlands - day three

In early January I met up with a Detroit friend who had twice been birding in Costa Rica.  I told him I was going at the end of the month and he was effusive with his comments stating, "Costa Rica is a great place - so birder friendly."  Of course, it's easy to know that Costa Rica is worldwide famous for  birding.  It's another thing to experience it.

Something about this rustic sign was so appealing.  On the one hand, a little broken down; on the other, so representative of the importance of the natural environment to the well-being and economy of Costa Rica.

We came upon the sign along a muddy trail while chasing down the elusive Silvery-fronted Tapaculo (Scyalopus argentifrons).  We heard the bird vocalize, and saw it in quick flashes while it remained true to its tapaculo nature.  

Then we had an unexpected surprise when Vernon heard a Resplendent Quetzal calling.  We found the female high up in a tree and then saw the male bird fly over the tree with bright blue sky as backdrop to see its beautiful, streaming uppertail coverts.     

On our final morning at Savegre, the end of our morning walk gave us two good birds.  A family of Spotted Wood Quails (Odontophorus guttatus) was working the leafy ground for food.  

Coming out of the woods and with breakfast in mind, I heard a new vocalization.  This was quickly identified for us by Matt and others who knew to look up to find a couple of Emerald Toucanets (Aulacorhynchus prasinus) feeding - the only ones we saw on the whole trip.  Wow! 

Spotted Wood Quails and Emerald Toucanets inspired a celebratory breakfast with huevos rancheros, beans and rice, white cheese for the Europeans and some typical savory pastries.  Most breakfasts and lunches were vegetarian.  

I found woodcreepers, treerunners and treehunters to be the most difficult group of birds to identify.  We saw a lot and many several times, but so challenging to stick the identification.  Above is a Ruddy Treerunner (Margarornis rubiginosus),    

Up over 10,000 meters to find some high elevation specialities, this thick bed of clouds rolled in.

I think we missed three target species before finally finding this Volcano Junco (Junco volcani).

Resplendent Quetzal is everywhere in the highlands.

In the fields behind our lunch stop restaurant, this orange fruiting tree was full of birds seen well through the spotting scope.

Caterpillar.

A cluster of lemon and orange trees just off the deck of our lunchtime restaurant invited great birds to pose for photographs.  Tanagers are such amazingly patterned and colorful birds.  This Golden-hooded Tanager (Tangara larvata) posed in the orange tree.

I was not expecting or even thinking about Red-legged Honeycreeper (Cyanerpes cyaneus).  So beautiful!

I was thinking about Green Honeycreeper (Chlorophanes spiza) even less.

Red-crowned Woodpecker (Melanerpes rubricapillus) rounded out birds photographed in the orange and lemon tree grove.

A cattle truck leading us to the rainforest.

To be continued ...

Los Roblas trail and night birding - day two

Our second full day of birding the highlands from the Savegre Lodge left me with the impression of this area being my favorite of the trip.

The river around Savegre Lodge.

I love this photo of the Slaty Flowerpiercer (Diglossa plumb).  I don't remember taking it and for me, even though we saw it many times, this bird was difficult to view clearly through my bins, much less get a clear photo with a berry in it's bill.  Wait - stop the presses!  Just received a comment from Matt (below), telling me the bird above is a Mountain Robin (Turdus plebejus).  I does look a robin, doesn't it?  I didn't even have Mountain Robin listed as one of my seen birds.  Reveals the perils of photographing a bird before actually seeing it!  

Common Bush-Tanager (Chlorospingus ophthalmicus).  A terrible photo to be sure, but the triangular white spot behind the eye is visible.

Ruddy-capped Nightingale-Thrush (Catharus frantzii), above and below, was found by Sandy and it flew into a spot where I could get these beautiful photos.  Note the bi-colored bill differentiating it from the Black-billed Nightingale-Thrush.  

Not a very good photo, but Yellow-winged Vireo (Vireo carmioli) was a bird seen commonly in the highlands, especially around the lodge.

This crazy photo is of a soaring Ornate Hawk-Eagle (Spizaetus ornatus), just to remind me we saw it.  A distant flyover photo cannot reveal this, but it's a pretty dramatic-appearing bird.

Spangle-cheeked Tanager (Tangara dowii).  Now there's a name.

Our fearless leader.  Vernon Campos has an incredible work ethic.  His goal, plain and simple, was to get us on the birds and teach us some Spanish along the way.  Vamos!

As yet another unidentified butterfly.  A note on photographing the butterflies we saw.  Difficult.  The above butterfly and a few others were exceptions, but mostly they did not land.  I had intended to photograph as many as I could, but from day one I saw that this was going to be difficult and abandoned my plan.    I thought that the propensity of the butterflies to flit rather than land might be a life-saving adaptation that keeps them from becoming bird food.  

I love flycatchers - maybe my favorite genre of birds - and Costa Rica does not disappoint.  We saw over half of their 80 species of flycatchers.  I was thrilled with this photo of a Yellowish Flycatcher (Empidonax flavescens).

On the morning of our third day, this was our ride up to the top of Los Roblas trail, elevation 10,500 meters, to bird the trail on the walk back down.  

Unidentified beautiful flower.  

Bromeliad?

Look closely to pick the Flame-throated Warbler (Oreothlypis gutturals) out of the other colorful junk in this photo.

Our first evening meal at Savegre Hotel dining room buffet.  100% of the time, our food was very good.  Reminded me, yet again, that Americans eat plastic and cardboard.

Another Tufted Flycatcher.

As already written about flycatchers, I love this photo.  Black-capped Flycatcher (Empidonax triceps).

Black Vulture - kind of cute.

Torrent Tyrannulet (Serpophaga cinerea) - a bird I really wanted to see and we saw only this one.

Charming, cute and clownish, the Collared Redstart (Myioborus torquatus) was ubiquitous in the highlands, and as is apparent from above, difficult for me to photograph.

Collared Trogan (Trogan collaris), the first of our six trogan species. 

The Ochraceous Pewee, already mentioned from day one, and the Costa Rican Pygmy-Owl (Glaucidium costaricanum) are two of the most desired specialty species seen in the highlands.  

Another view of Costa Rican Pygmy-Owl.  What a great bird!

Dusky Nightjar (Antrostomus saturatus), another highland specialty, provided us with a thrilling chase on our owling night in the highlands.  

We also had long, satisfying looks at a Bare-shanked Screech-Owl (Megascops clarkii) and at a stunning Mottled Owl (Ciccaba virgata). My camera cannot handle any little bit of distance for night photos. The nightjar photo above was successful because the bird was perched beneath a street light, we were relatively close and Vernon had his powerful night light focused on the bird.

To be continued ...