Costa Rica Blitz Blogging: Of Swallows, Seedeaters, and Getting Birds at Gamba

Time is running out...the blog window is closing. January is not a month to be blogging about birding in Costa Rica, as I will be very busy. With a great...many...things.

We left off in the tranquilo town of Golfito, where I picked up some absolutely debilitating food poisoning. It was easily the worst I've ever had. This was, predictably, immediately after I proudly declared that I would not get poisoned on this trip....and thus the puke train commenced later that night. A couple days later I thought it was Dengue Fever, had all the right symptoms, but it faded a bit too quickly for Dengue. If I got it where I think I did, the food was actually pretty good. Oh well, at least I picked it up near the end of the trip. Anyways, as popular as it is for birders to publicize their health problems, we should be talking about birding.

Dipper Dan and I weren't really planning on birding along Golfito Bay but we got quite a few trip birds on the mudflats...this sort of habitat isn't exactly widespread in the country, so it was refreshing to get some terns and shorebirds to work with. Of course, it was hell of scenic as well.

A little flock of Gray-breasted Martins were roosting under the roof of a dock. They put the CONFIDING in CONFIDING. It's always bizarre, almost surreal, to see a recent lifer so close-up, although it left my face quite intact.

This martin was crushed with a point-and-shoot. Remember those? Cute little bugger.

After Golfito we did some roadside birding south of Gamba. It was hot as fuck, but the birding was quality. As a great birder once said, "Middle of day is best for make good birding". This is true.

Great Kiskadees are common and widespread in Costa Rica, but thankfully they are not as painfully abundant as Social Flycatchers. It's hard to like Social Flycatchers after a while, because 99% of the time you look at them you are only doing so because you are hoping they are something else.

After the mediocre morning of birding, shit really started to pick up. Lifers began to appear again...Plain Wren, Blue Ground-Dove, and this insidious, little junco-looking bastard, a Yellow-bellied Seedeater.

They really do have yellow bellies, and we got to see quite a few of them. You know, one of the toughest things about blogging this Costa Rica trip is that I don't know jack shit about many of these birds, so it's hard to give them a lot of background. What do I know about Yellow-bellied Seedeaters? They look like juncos and Tricolored Munias, they like fields, and I think I like them. That's about it. We only saw them at this one spot, so there's not much more I can fill in. It's a sad state of affairs. Sorry....I have brought much dishonor to me and my family.

I'm a little more familiar with White-collared Seedeaters; this is one of those.

Oddly similar to a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak from this angle, with a less flashy breast patch of course. There are hella different subspecies of White-collared Seedeater, and the birds in Costa Rica look very different from what I've seen in eastern Mexico.

Now this...this is a bird. This a bird we know...yet it is almost a total stranger. Even those who haven't yet birded out of the country can recognize such a bland creature, for it is a rough-winged swallow. However, it might look a bit different to you...perhaps you are thinking, "Did Sibley just miss on this one?"

No, Sibley didn't miss on this one. This isn't just any rough-winged swallow...it's a Southern Rough-winged Swallow. Yes, there really is a counterpart to our familiar yet unloved Northern Rough-winged Swallow, which is nobody's favorite swallow, let alone favorite bird. Note the bright, contrasty rump and the rusty throat that make this an easy ID.

This is a fucking woodpecker! We saw an acceptable number of these tiny Olivaceous Piculets while in the country, but they were a serious pain to photograph. This was the best I could manage. Awesome birds, one of the many that struck a nerve with me.

Woodcreepers. You know I like woodcreepers, but when blogging about them all I want to talk about is how bloody hard they are to identify, which you likely know all about already because I keep telling you that over and over again. I had to break out the field guide just for posting this photo; I reckon this is a Cocoa Woodcreeper with its big, straight bill, spotted crown, standard underparts, etc.

There hasn't been a great deal of color in this post, so here is a poignant Yellow-crowned Euphonia for your trouble. Speaking of troubling birds, learning how to sort female euphonias was a major chore, so be ready for that group when you head south.

Fuck...you guys, I think I only have one Costa Rica post left. Thanks for staying with me on this trip...for all these years. It might be a while until the next (final!) CR post though, for there will be other birds to blog.

Carara Part III: The Pitta Incident

Turquoise-browed Motmot. Sweet dreams are made of these. Tarcoles, Costa Rica.

Finally! The last installment from Carara National Park and Tarcoles. It's been a long-time coming...we can now let go and move on to the next part of the trip...but that's for next time. For now, its a mixed bag of crushes, the obligatory crap pics of cool birds in a rainforest, and the first public detailing of THE PITTA INCIDENT.

The first few of these you see will really cripple you. They belong in that upper echelon of bird that make you doubt everything you know and hold dear when you see them. Tarcoles, Costa Rica.

One of my favorite Psittacid experiences of the trip (aside from the Scarlet Macaws) was with this roadside flock of Orange-fronted Parakeets, bucolically chewing on flower pedals. Amazingly, Pat had a male Yellow-billed Cotinga in these same trees the same day! Photographed near the Cerro Lodge, Tarcoles, Costa Rica.

Nom nom nom nom. Nom. I dig the head pattern of these birds.

Why hello Cocoa Woodcreeper, what a stout bill you have. Photographed in Carara National Park, Costa Rica.

For our second day of birding Carara, we met up with Pat O'Donnell, the great ex-pat birder and guide who has excellent content on his Costa Rica bird blog right here. I can't imagine going back to Costa Rica without spending a lot of time researching Pat's posts, as he is constantly reporting on new birding spots and updates on areas that draw a lot of birders. If you need a guide, he's your man.

Unlike us four idiots, Pat knows pretty much all the local birds by ear, so he was pointing out all sorts of things we would never have recognized. As we walked the trail system closer to the visitor center (highly recommended, don't just do the "river trail"), he heard a Streak-chested Antpitta calling. None of us had seen any sort of pitta before, so we were stoked. He whistled the bird in....and we were all able to lay eyes on this fantastic lifer. After a couple minutes it moved back into the underbrush. There was much joy and merriment...until I saw Stilt.

Stilt had not seen the bird, and it took me a few moments to realize that she was crying. I couldn't believe it! It was amazing! She was uncontrollably sobbing because she had missed a life bird. While feeling bad for her, I was also savoring the moment of just having gripped off someone so badly that they were in tears. She asked me to not blog about it, but seeing as it has been over a year...I am blogging about it. Has anyone else ever seen anything like this?

My one attempt at documenting The Pitta Incident. Don't worry, after Stilt pulled herself together she eventually got to see the pitta.

Here is a Black-throated Trogon, which took over a year to identify from this photo. In shitty light, they can look remarkably similar to Gartered (Violacious) Trogon; note the white eyering and slightly different tail pattern. Carara National Park.

I somehow managed to not crush this Great Tinamou that we ran into a couple times. Probably because I was too busy soaking it in with my eyes. Carara National Park.

Fiery-billed Aracari, forged in the fires of facemelt. Photographed at Cerro Lodge.

The Tarcoles area is one of the relatively few parts of country oft-visited by foreign birders where there is a nice diversity of waterbirds. This cooperative Wood Stork lurked next to the road just west of town.

What a face. What a bill. What a neck. What a....helmet.

Magnificent Frigatebirds are abundant in the area. I dislike living in a place where I don't see frigatebirds at any moment I decide to look up. Photographed at the Tarcoles River Mouth.

Double-striped Thick-knee!!!! How bizarre. Photographed on a road I don't remember near a town I don't remember near La Ensenada Wildlife Refuge.

After we left the wonders of Carara behind, we made our way northward to La Ensenada Wildlife Refuge to try to pick up some additional North Pacific Slope species. Well once we were almost there, it turned out a certain "Frank" had left his binoculars over two hours away back at El Cerro Lodge. We were all devastated...but brave Frank had the courage to keep on birding, even without binoculars. This turned out to be an excellent decision, as we managed to get a lot of good birds and a number of lifers all around...birds like Long-tailed Mannikin, Plain-capped Starthroat, Crested Bobwhite, White-fronted Parrot, White-throated Magpie-Jay, and Three-wattled Bellbirds (heard only, but there seemed to be many). Unfortunately, my camera battery died and I was too giddy on birds to realize I had a fucking car charger for the battery with me in the car...and so I missed countless crushes of Hook-billed Kites, Streak-backed Orioles, etc. One of the biggest birding fails of my life. I definitely want to return to La Ensenada again and give it the thorough bush-flogging it deserves.

On the flip side, El Cerro had Frank's binos waiting for him when we returned that night.

This was one of my main target birds for the trip, which I thought we dipped on once we left the lush pastures of Tarcoles behind. I still struggle to make sense of the proportions of these birds. Great success!