Costa Rica 2020 Part I: La Cinchona

Wow, we made it back just in time! Greetings from San Jose, California, which is now deep in the shadow of coronavirus. While things are increasingly tense here - and just now my daughter is screaming about a squirrel in the living room, which for some reason there actually is - I can at least say that the Costa Rica 2020 tour is in the bag, and it was brilliant. Joining me this time was the controversial Jacob Durrent, attention-seeking Flycatcher Jen, and the surprisingly dry-eyed but armadillo-adverse Stilt. I planned our route to visit some of the best inland areas north of San Jose (Costa Rica), and although we did not have time to get to all of them by any means it was GREAT SUCCESS. It's kind of daunting to think I have a duty to blog all of it but I can try!

We flew in to San Jose and immediately experienced our first logistical obstacle of the trip (the first actual obstacle was large and dumb pile of Envision Festival goers doing unnecessary yoga at our feet in LAX), which was getting our rental car from Hertz. The 4x4 I had reserved was not available and they tried to give me a sedan, which I napesed. After much waiting we were informed a 4x4 SUV was available and would be ready soon...then we were informed that it kept slipping into neutral by itself while in gear so that one was off the table. Finally we accepted an SUV that did not have 4x4 as I figured we would at least have good clearance to deal with shitty roads...this did work out fine, though it would not have if we had met with real rainy season weather. It was also a surprise to get in the car and find out it was a manual transmission, which I had not driven in about seven years. Luckily Jacob helped out with a lot of the driving and all the stalling I did when I drove was just funny for everybody (how embarrassing) instead of being catastrophic. The car was weak and grossly underpowered BUT our little Chery (that's right, not Chevy) did succeed in getting us everywhere we wanted to go.

Why did I tell you this rambling story of inconvenience that you almost surely don't care about? Because that is Geri's way, and we did our share of GERI BIRDING. In fact, almost this entire post is about Geri Birding!

Finally underway, we got to our first stop, the soda/mirador at La Cinchona. We had a great time here back in 2012 and it has only gotten better! Oh, I don't want that Silver-throated Tanager photo up at the top of this post to fool you...that photo was made possible by fruit. La Cinchona is all about GERI BIRDING (though the human food ain't bad either), and the geri was indeed top notch. Here is a Prong-billed Barbet/Black-headed Saltator combo.

Prong-billed Barbet is a weird bird. When you are the object of the barbet's smile, you aren't quite sure what to do with yourself.

Buff-throated Saltator, old friend. Trusty BTSA turned out to be the most common saltator of the trip.

And Scarlet-rumped Tanager was by far the most abundant tanager of the trip. Better post an obligatory photo now!

This bird, on the other hand, was gripping. My first lifer of the trip was this plump little crippler, Buff-fronted Quail-Dove. They have become very reliable at La Cinchona and did not disappoint during our visit. They weren't exactly confiding but we got some great looks. I needed some more quail-doves in my life and now I should be set for a while. As expected, these were the only ones of the trip and (sadly) the only quail-doves of any species we actually laid eyes on. Much unfinished quail-dove business have I.

Another crucial target bird here was the facemelting/ridiculous Red-headed Barbet, which we also did not see anywhere else. This is the first male I have ever seen and it was absolutely stunning. The Geri Gods smiled upon us that afternoon.

I think the first time I saw Violet Sabrewings was here in 2012. As it was back then, having these giant glowing hummingbirds whiz by inches away is great but not exactly comforting.

Black-bellied Hummingbird was lifer #2 for yours truly. These are only really reliable at a handful of sites so it was a pleasant surprise to have this single bird at our very first stop. Neither drab nor flamboyantly crippling, it's just a very nice hummingbird. Pura vida.

Both the bane and the bedrock of many cloud forest mixed flocks, Common Chlorospingus dropped in for some of the delicious Geri action.

The Northern Emerald Toucanets here are probably some of the most photographed birds south of the Rio Grande. Why? Because they get their geri on within a few feet of you and they are crushable by cell phone, if that's what one wished to do. They also happen to be terrific.

Crimson-collared Tanager is an arresting bird.

And the same case could be made for Blue-gray Tanager, but they are so freaking common it can be difficult to give them the credit they deserve.

Like the Blue-gray Tanager, Palm Tanagers struggle to be looked at. Whenever a Palm Tanager is in sight, there is invariably something more interesting to look at as well. Such is life for the Palm Tanager.

As expected in February, we also had a pleasant mix of neotropic migrants mixing in with the resident locals. Summer Tanager wishes it could participate in more geri birding on its migration routes.

This gluttonous Baltimore Oriole is acting like its never had a banana before. It's practically mantling the poor defenseless fruit.

I call this portrait "Tennessee Warbler With Banana".

Yes, I will even post a photo of the dreaded Clay-colored Thrush. They are brown. And very common. But not only is this a picture of a Clay-colored Thrush, it is a picture of a banana. This one is titled "Banana with Clay-colored Thrush".

Foreboding Black Guans were getting in on the feeder action too. You would think that such a large bird would not be attempting to feed on the same thing as a diminutive Tennessee Warbler, but you would be wrong.

Some other roadside stops on the way to Hotel Gavilan produced birds like Bat Falcon (above), Double-toothed Kite and Lesser Swallow-tailed Swift.

That will do it for the first post! Much more to come. And if you are wondering, no, the squirrel is not still in the house.

Back to Costa Rica: Birding El Toucanet Lodge

Black Guans are very docile for their size...they lack the courage of a chachalaca and the brazenness of a guan, and the unabashed curls of a currasow. Unlike all three, you are much more likely to find this bird feeding on berries up in the trees than running around on the ground like a mutant forest-sanderling.

I bet you didn't see this coming, did you? Well I still have not completed coverage of the BB&B winter tour of Costa Rica (2012-2013), and I thought I would change things up a bit and return to Costa Rica for a post. After all, it is the middle of June...with not much birding to be done, its time to start thinking about that winter trip to the tropics.

When we left off with The Pitta Incident, Stilt, Dipper Dan, Frank (spirit bird: Double-crested Cormorant) and I finished birding on the west coast and retreated inland. After much weeping, Dan and I dropped off Frank and Stilt at the airport and struck out on our own. Where to go? We did what we thought was best and headed south, and for the second time of the trip (after picking up some genital pastries) made our way into the Talamanca Mountains.

We decided to check out El Toucanet Lodge, a relatively cheap birder-friendly lodge that had been recommended by Patrick O'Donnell, the living birding legend of Costa Rica. The lodge sits at a lower elevation than the more popular Paraiso Del Quetzales and the Savegre resort, and not surprisingly had some different birds to offer. Like every other birdercentric place we stayed in Costa Rica, the birding was of a high caliber and everything else was tranquilo. And for those of you with pinche Spanish-speaking skills, the owner is an American ex-pat and knows his birds very well. The property isn't large but the birding along the driveway and along the road up-canyon was very rewarding, and the hummingbird scene is a good one as well.

Brown-capped Vireo! I know, I know, it doesn't look like anything fancy, but it is a bird I really wanted to see. El Toucanet was the only place we recorded them on this trip.

Brown-capped Vireo looks like a cross between a Philadelphia and Warbling Vireo, which is kind of disturbing when you think about it because birders don't fare very well telling those two apart anyway. They really are quite brown above though, so it is a bird with a useful name. I thought I saw one through the fog in an epic mixed flock up in a Mexican cloud forest once, but couldn't bring myself to count it...no problem now though.

In the spirit of birds with useful names, here is a Yellowish Flycatcher. I honestly don't know what to say about it. I'm at a loss for words. It is a flycatcher that is very yellowish. God Bless the Empidonax.

It bears more than a passing resemblance to "Western" Flycatcher, but luckily for the birder, Pacific-slope/Cordilleran don't go south to Costa Rica. Yellow-bellied Flycatchers abound though, so it's good to be Empid-literate if you go down there during winter.

El Toucanet introduced us to our first Stripe-tailed Hummingbirds of the trip, which we also had later at Savegre.

Stripe-taileds range from southern Mexico to Panama, most often at middling elevations. Birds in Costa Rica and Panama are of the egregia subspecies, with two other subspecies being described for populations to the north.

There was no shortage of tiny Selasphorous hummers coming to the feeders at El Toucanet. They were all immatures/females, and all of them that we could identify appeared to be Volcano Hummingbirds (above). I'm sure scintillants show up there as well, but we could not find any.

Here is a more familiar bird you might appreciate. Golden-winged Warblers are fairly common winter residents in Costa Rica, and can be found at a wide variety of habitats and elevations throughout country. We saw many, which was a cause for much celebration.

Common Bush-Tanagers are the anchor for many mixed flocks in Costa Rica. I'm always glad to see them, because you never know what may be lurking in their ranks.

A random view from the deck of their lounge/restaurant. Not bad, eh?

Another perk of hanging out on the deck is the chance to see Magenta-throated Woodstar! I wish I got a photo that did this bird justice, but you get the idea here I hope. This was another species that we relished at the lodge and saw no place else.

The Talamancas are thick with Green Violet-Ears. The feeders at El Toucanet are no exception. I know this isn't exactly a crush, but I cannot deny the appeal of those outstretched "ears".

Look at this...an accidental vagina pastry! I told you we had genital food. They weren't bad at all, and they all looked like vaginas. Accidental vagina pastries are not available at El Toucanet, so it would be weird to ask for them. More from El Toucanet and the Talamancas in the next Costa Rica post (whenever that is).