Costa Rica Part II: The Edges of La Selva

Well, well, well...it's just a whole new world out there, isn't it? Here in Santa Clara County, the Coronavirus Capitol of California, we have been under a shelter-in-place order for what seems like a little while now. This...this is some weird and bad shit.

But as Hunter said, "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro". Get off Facebook, get outside. Now is not the time to chase esoteric county birds hundreds of miles away, now is the time to geri bird and give your 5MR the attention it deserves, while you still can. Now is the time to have some fun, because by the time April rolls around there probably won't be anyone having fun, anywhere. These are the last days of friendship, of love and life, so enjoy them before your lungs fill with covid-19 and...

Who said that? That sure is dark...but what did you expect? You knew what you were getting when you surfed over here. BB&B is not the type of place to just throw up a picture of some common bird, recite some well-known piece of trivia about it copied and pasted from allaboutbirds and wait for those sweet, sweet likes to roll on in. Anyhow, with each passing day I am all the more grateful to have fit this Costa Rica trip in last month.

As I mentioned in the last post, our first base was Hotel Gavilan again. There's decent birding to be had on the property (especially if it is your first time in the country), and it's pretty cheap and laid back. Unlike La Cinchona, seemingly little has changed since we were there in 2012. The food is fine though they don't give you many options...but if you like tipico, you can get tipico. Their credit card reader was down so I had to scrape a large amount of cash together to check out (not ideal), but they charged us less than they would have if I had paid by credit card (ideal). Anyhow, it's still a good though not extremely comfortable option, but it wasn't packed with tourists and there are Pale-billed Woodpeckers nesting next to their driveway (above). There are also VERY nice, VERY chatty Canadians to provide you company.

A VERY persistent puddle in the driveway attracted a number of birds, but mostly enchanting Dusky-faced Tanagers. Of all the birds in Costa Rica, is this simply the best one? Stilt would assure you it is. More from Gavilan in a later post.

For our first real morning of birding in Costa Rica, we headed over to the edges of the La Selva Preserve, which is conveniently just a few minutes from Gavilan. To bird the main part of La Selva you have to either be staying there or pay for a guided walk, and we decided to do neither and take our chances with doing some road birding. We first walked the road along the northern edge of the preserve that ends at the river (here is the eBird hotspot). Great Tinamou was one of the first birds I heard when we got out of the car - it would also be the last time we detected a tinamou of any kind for the trip! How embarrassing. At least we saw Short-billed Pigeons?

Cinnamon Woodpecker was a life bird and is a real looker...just an ace woodpecker in my book. Other life birds for me here were Blue-chested Hummingbird, some flyby Great Green Macaws, and White-ringed Flycatchers.

A pair of confiding Slaty-tailed Trogons were giving a potential nest site a gander next to the road. Don't you just love confiding trogons?

We then walked down the main access road for the preserve - you can walk all the way to the guard station. The walk in was pretty slow except for two SNOWY COTINGAS that flew over the road. Agonizingly brief looks but a great life bird for yours truly. No photos though so here is a Great Kiskadee building a nest instead (sorry).

There are hella Olive-backed Euphonias in Costa Rica. Here is one of them.

We didn't see a whole lot of becards on the trip - most of the ones we did see were Cinnamon Becards like this.

The way back to the car was much birdier than the way in...you know what they say, "Middle, most hottest part of day, is best time to make for greatest birding". A pair of fabulous Long-tailed Tyrants was hanging out near the road, and that too was a life bird.

After struggling in the heat of the day for a while we finally hit another decent mixed flock. Northern Barred-Woodcreeper is a cool bird itself, but is also often indicative of some other interesting birds nearby.

Red-throated Ant-Tanagers anchor many low and mid elevation flocks.

I was really stoked to get good looks at this Fasciated Antshrike. I was kind of confused at the time why it was being so obliging, and it wasn't until I looked at my photos that I saw it was because it was trying to deal with an enormous spiky caterpillar that has amazing camouflage - just look under the tip of the antshrike's bill.

I have pictures of the antshrike flinging/coughing/sneezing caterpillar juice on more than one occasion, so perhaps the caterpillar ultimately survived the encounter by being nasty...or succumbed to its antshrike wounds.

"Soul-satisfying views" has admittedly become a bit of a cliche, but those words are still apt and highly relatable. The soul was satisfied in its absolute entirety after walking up to this totally tame Black-throated Trogon.

I'm not a raptor fetishist but it is a rare and special occasion to see a new species of hawk, and Semiplumbeous Hawk was yet another lifer that morning. Unlike some of the others this one was very obliging and hung out on an open perch next to the road. Semiplumbeous Hawks reside and abide in lowland tropical rainforest and was one of the (admittedly many) target birds that morning.

It is indeed Semiplumbeous, in fact it is the only bird named "Semiplumbeous" in existence. That's fine, we don't need more of them. I very much appreciated this lifer brazenly loitering on the same branch until we decided to walk away, lifering often doesn't end up that way.

Motmots. Who doesn't love motmots? No one, it is impossible. Somebody struck gold when they decided that some birds should be named "motmots", and it goes without saying that the birds have great looks and great vocalizations to match their fantastic names. We saw many Broad-billed Motmots on this trip.

I am nothing if not honest though, and now I must show you the truth. This motmot had an absolutely pathetic tail. Utter bullshit. It looked like it landed in a fire and had almost the whole thing burned off. Most unfortunate, but at least the rest of the bird was not equally haggard.

Go ahead, cropshame me if you must, I can take it. More CR to come soon, until then I recommend feverish yardbirding.....though perhaps "feverish" is not the most sensitive choice of words....well you know what I mean.

Belize! Part VI: Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, Mayflower Bocawina National Park, Hopkins

Morelet's Seedeater (formerly White-collared Seedeater) is one of the most abundant and widespread birds in Belize. I was hoping for a Morelet's Seedeater-Morelet's Crocodile combo but it never happened. Photographed at Hopkins Bay Resort.

After Black Rock Lodge, it was time to head over to the coast for the last part of our trip. We made the semi-long drive (by Belize and/or driving with toddler standards) over the Hummingbird Highway without any birding stops, as it rained most of the time...which the Black Rock army ant swarm had correctly predicted, for the second time. We made it to Hopkins in the afternoon, where we checked in to the Hopkins Bay Resort at the very north end of town...this was the first time I've ever stayed at a typical beach resort, and while it worked for our family purposes I wouldn't recommend it to birders visiting here. It's expensive, the birding on the grounds is mostly poor, they spray the beach sand with pesticide every morning (!) and rake up any sargassum on the beach, and they try to claim to be all sustainable despite clearing out large swaths of mangrove forest...not going to be staying there again. On the flip side, I will say I did have a couple great cocktails there, and the resort is right across the street from the old cemetery in town...this is where I lifered Yucatan Vireo, which I was super stoked on, and I also had my first really good looks at Mangrove Vireos a little further north.

Tropical Kingbird are, as one might expect, dirt common in Belize. It's still a nice looking bird though. There were Couch's Kingbirds at several sites but Tropical was generally much more abundant. Photographed at Hopkins Bay Resort.

Hopkins has a lot of visiting foreigners but is also pretty mellow...it's certainly not overrun by tourists and not dominated by sky-scraping mega resorts or anything. There is a great deal of good birding within 45 minutes of town, and with many lodging options it is a sensible place to be based out of for birding in the area if you don't opt for staying at the lodge in Mayflower Bocawina National Park or the rustic Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary cabins. Bordering the west side of town is a huge marsh, which provided some trip birds but more importantly got me my first Ruddy Crake...it was a heard only, but I'll take it!

No matter how many of them you have seen, if Brown Pelicans are plunge-diving next to you, you must stop what you are doing and watch. Or crush. Photographed at Hopkins Bay Resort.

While our lodging sitch in Hopkins wasn't super productive for birdlife, I was able to get out for multiple ace mornings of birding while staying there. One morning I went out to Mayflower Bocawina National Park, just 20 minutes or so up the road. Of course the camera was out of comission at the the time so I've got nothing to illustrate my time there, but the birding was very entertaining and I would definitely recommend a day or two here. Within the boundaries of the park is the Bocawina Rainforest Resort, which gives you excellent access to the area and no doubt has good birding right there on the grounds...I would definitely consider staying there if I return to the area. As for birding the park itself, I was impressed. Highlights included looks at Gray-headed Dove, Blue Ground-Doves, Ornate Hawk-Eagle, and Stub-tailed Spadebills. Here is my eBird list from my visit, if you're interested.

The last birding spot of the trip turned out to be the very best - Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, where I was lucky enough to spend two mornings. Billy had been here before and recommended it highly, and she was right to do so. In doing my research before this trip, I found Cockscomb listed in surprisingly few trip reports despite the blood red pin it sported in eBird's hotspot map...why birders overlook this gem while birding in Belize is a mystery to me. This place is fully legit. Visitors have the option of staying the night here at some rudimentary cabins, but I suspect you have to bring all your food/water/supplies in with you. This was the one place we visited where both diversity seemed very high and bird abundance was staggering at times, and I was super impressed with the quality of birding both days I was there. The place is huge and there are lots of trails to choose from...I totally could have birded there a third day and probably seen a grip of birds I missed the previous days. The entrance road alone is probably worth a whole morning, and the one place I pulled over yielded the only Green Honeycreeper of the trip.

Shockingly, my camera worked one of the days I was at Cockscomb, so here are some more pics!

Northern Waterthrushes are one of the commonest neotropical migrants that winter in Belize. This one would not get out of the path I was walking down so I took its picture.

White Hawks were easy to find on the trip...huzzah! Back before I saw my first White Hawks in Costa Rica some years bak, this was a neotropical bird that really stood out in my imagination...difficult to fathom a bird like this without seeing it with one's own eyes. Like a handful of other prominent birds, I literally dreamed about seeing these (as opposed to just fantasizing about it, like usual) before I actually did. Easily one of the coolest raptors I have ever seen.

While not abundant, Pale-billed Woodpecker is another widespread, fairly common woodpecker...but they are huge, exotic, and are in the same genus as the iconic Ivory-billed and Imperial Woodpeckers. The day after I took this photo, I came back and got a glimpse of it (or its mate) almost get taken out by some kind of large, black raptor that went plunging through the trees after it..it was livid.

One of the many idyllic creeks that run through the preserve. I was unsuccessful, but Agami Herons are regularly found in Cockscomb in places like this.

Ruddy Woodcreeper was a lifer back at Black Rock, but I was able to get a few identifiable photos of this bird here in a nice mixed flock.

While not exceptionally scarce, Slate-headed Tody-Flycatcher are notoriously difficult to actually see...so they say. I had no such misfortune with this tiny todyish tyrant of the tangles, a true trip target. Luckily I had the prescience to memorize their song and found this shrub friend (shrub-friend) relatively easily instead of walking by it obliviously as it sang away, which I've probably done with dozens of other neotropical would-be lifers in the past. How embarrassing. 

One of the wildlife highlights of the trip was seeing this tayra! I only knew what it was because we had seen them close up at the Belize Zoo the week before...way to go Belize Zoo for successfully educating a dumb tourist. A tayra is like a giant mega weasel, a wolverine-otter looking thing. Megawolverotter. It paced back and forth across the trail in front of us a few times for good looks before trotting away.

From this angle it looks more like a bear-weasel combo. This was a very high quality lifer mammal - we also saw brocket deer, which the zoo had prepped me for as well. No jaguar sign (Cockscomb is famous for jaguars) but those were two sweet lifer mammals.

Pretty sure this was a lifer creature as well, white-lipped mud turtle (right?). It was crossing the entrance road during a rain storm. I know I am GBRS #7 in the U.S. and all that, but did you know my first real love of wildlife was herps? 

Billy and Annie in action. Billy's action was probably scanning for a Gray-headed Tanager I failed to get her on before it flew away (sorry Billy). Annie's action was sleeping.

Some unphotographed highlights from Cockscomb: absolutely stunning views of a confiding Black-faced Antthrush (the first I've seen, rather than just heard), lifer Yellow-tailed Orioles and Royal Flycatcher, getting the Leptotila hat trick (seeing White-tipped, Gray-headed and Gray-chested Doves in the same morning), and mixed flocks and concentrations of birds of such quality that I was beside myself.

I'll do one more post to kind of summarize the Belize trip for anyone who is thinking about going, but this will about wrap it up! You can thank Nikon for making a shitty product - the lack of photos to sort really enabled me to actually blog the whole trip in an almost respectable amount of time.

Winter Mexican Tour Y2K16, Days 1-3: Lo De Marcos and Lower Singayta

Bat Falcons were easy to see in Lo De Marcos, on our first morning of birding. We never saw them again! Mexico is a mysterious place.

Nerds. Dweebs. Dork-sympathizers. I have returned from an eventful West Mexican bird trip. We birded the states of Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima, which are incredibly bird-rich states, as promised. Rather than just regurgitate mediocre photos from the trip, I'm going to try to write this all up in a way where it could actually be useful (!!!) to birders who may be heading that way in the next few years. The Howell birdfinding guide is still a fantastic resource, but Mexico changes...some hotspots are no longer accessible and new hotspots always seem to be popping up, as the whole area is definitely underbirded, with the exception of the areas immediately surrounding San Blas.

We wanted to rent an SUV originally, but the price was too rich for our blood, so we ended up getting a minivan for the five of us. This worked out quite well, since we had a little extra clearance (always a good thing in Mexico) and had enough space so things did not get too cluttered. We barged the van up every type of conceivable road and managed to put some dings in it...but were only charged $80 extra dollars! A Mexican miracle! If you are going to rent a vehicle, I would recommend National in Puerto Vallarta.

Here is how things played out:

January 2 - Fly into Puerto Vallarta, night in Lo De Marcos (Nayarit)
January 3 - Lo De Marcos, San Blas, night in San Blas
January 4 - Lower Singayta, Shrimp Ponds, night in San Blas
January 5 - La Bajada, Shrimp Ponds, Chacalilla, night in San Blas
January 6 - Cerro San Juan, night in San Blas
January 7 - Chacalilla, Rio La Tovara (boat trip), night in San Blas
January 8 - Lower Singayta, Isla Del Rey (Peso Island), night in San Blas
January 9  - Tecuitata, night at Rancho Primavera
January 10 - Rancho Primavera, Provincia Road, night at Rancho Primavera
January 11 - Racho Primavera, Barranca El Choncho, night in Autlan
January 12 - Puerto Los Mazos, night in Autlan
January 13 - Microondas San Francisco, Volcan de Colima (RMO Viboras and other stops), night in Ciudad Guzman
January 14 - Volcan de Colima (main access road and other stops), Laguna Zapotlan, night in Ciudad Guzman
January 15 - Vocan de Fuego, night Colima
January 16 - Colima to Laguna La Maria, night in Barra De Navidad
January 17 - Playa Del Oro, night at Rancho Primavera
January 18 - Rancho Primavera, Boca De Tomates, fly out of Puerto Vallarta

Sinaloa Crow (endemic!) was my first lifer of the trip. They are tiny, slender, like perching extremely close to one another, and sound like quail. This is my new favorite crow. Lo De Marcos, Nayarit.

Our first night we attempted to stay in San Francisco, which is on the way to San Blas. This was a mistake. The town may be mellow the rest of the year, but that first night there was a huge, raging party in town and it was a complete clusterfuck. Really, it was a disaster, and Flycatcher Jen was permanently affected. The silver lining was eating delicious tacos. The huge, raging Mexican party theme continued for over half the time we were in the country in multiple towns...Christmas seems to drag on forever, and then its another holiday (something to do with saints)...things didn't really settle down until January 11 or so. If I were to do this trip again, I would not schedule it between Christmas and mid-January unless you are into huge, confusing events that occupy the middle of towns and cause panic and despair if you are unlucky enough to be the one driving.

After our failure at San Francisco, we tried the next town over, Lo De Marcos. I had done some Google Earth scouting before the trip and saw that there was a lot of good habitat near the edge of town, so it seemed like a logical place to stay if we wanted some easy birding the next morning. We spent the night in some hella cheap bungalows (bung) on the main road into town off Highway 200. The beds were on raised cement platforms! Incredible.

Nerds study feverishly before our the first morning of birding.

The next morning we just walked southwest until we got into some birdable habitat, and were hugely rewarded. Turns out Lo De Marcos is not a bad place to end up if you wake up there with bird fever. It ended up being an extremely productive morning with lots of life birds...Russet-crowned Motmot, Yellow-winged Cacique, Happy Wren, Sinaloa Wren, Orange-breasted Bunting, Black-throated Magpie-Jay, Golden-cheeked Woodpecker, etc. Camino a las Minitas (check Google Maps) was particularly good. Our eBird checklist is here.

Easily the best bird at Lo De Marcos was this Lesser Ground-Cuckoo, which was a lifer for everyone and the only one of the trip. HJ to Dipper Dan for this one. Brilliant bird, though obviously not something that wants to be photographed. I really like this photo of it, though I suspect you do not understand why.

Rufous-bellied Chachalaca (endemic!) were widespread and common in Nayarit, though this bird at Lo De Marcos was the only confiding individual interested in being crushed. It munched leaves quite casually next to the road.

I dig the big rhino tuft. A lifer for all.

Later that day we made it to San Blas, where we promptly checked in to El Bucanero for our entire stay there. We did this because it was really, really cheap. It was a step up from the bungalows in Lo De Marcos, but not a very big step up. Somehow, styrofoam was a part of one of the rooms, and actually had been painted. Anyways, it was walking distance to a lot of good places to eat (as well as the dock that has the pangas that will take you to Isla Del Rey), and it was right on the main drag, so the location was solid. People often were raging out on the street at night, but birding made us SO SLEEPY that it wasn't really an issue.

Mexican Parrotlets (endemic!) look like leaves. They are tiny, green, and adorable. I like them very much. Photographed at Lower Singayta, Nayarit.

The morning of Day 3 we hit lower Singayta, which was very birdy. Lifers galore. The eBird checklist is here. I'm not sure if it still earns the title as the best spot near San Blas (per Howell), but it's certainly worth birding. There's a solid diversity of birds here...raptors, waterbirds, flocks of wintering birds, and lots of regional specialties.

Crane Hawk was a solid lifer this morning...we would go on to not find another one the rest of the trip. Such pink legs! Such gray cere! I've waited a long time to see this bird...a long time.

Citreoline Trogon (endemic!) was another group lifer. We would end up seeing many of these yellow-bellied tree-beasts during our trip.

Pale-billed Woodpeckers are a fairly common bird down there, but they never fail to impress. This was a "Flycatcher Jen Only" lifer, one of many that she wracked up during our heroic birding tour.

We ran across many Elegant Trogons on the trip as well. What a nice bird to repeatedly run across....much easier to come by than in Arizona.

Something we didn't see a lot of was Scrub Euphonia. It turns out you can really appreciate euphonias when you don't see them constantly and have to remember a lot of field marks. It also helps when they just sit next to you and sing, giving none fucks, refusing to leave a favored tree. This is Godman's Euphonia, the subspecies endemic to West Mexico. Check out the white undertail coverts.

More from Nayarit to come soon, obvi.

Carara National Park (Part II)

I didn't make it back to Costa Rica this winter, but I still have plenty of material from last winter...which I'm really falling behind on. Sorry about that, some lifers and tequila got in the way. And so we carry on...Scarlet Macaws are abundant in the Carara area, and can be seen sharing the sky with Magnificent Frigatebirds as you drive through Tarcoles, although they don't exactly form mixed flocks. Such crippling birds. Photographed at Carara National Park.

They nest in huge tree cavities like this one. A grandiose bird requires a grandiose nest site. Carara National Park.

Pale-billed Woodpeckers are fairly common and widespread in Costa Rica, and it's a bird you should plan on meeting if you will be birding there for very long. Listen for the infamous "double-knock", which their Campephilus cousins the Ivory-billeds are/were famous for. Carara National Park.

We were lucky to see Spectacled Owls more than once on our trip. I still can't really reconcile their sense of fashion with what northern owls wear. Carara National Park.

Part of the luscious rainforest canopy at Carara National Park. I'm pretty sure there were a couple of Turquoise Contingas somewhere up there, which besides being very good birds are pretty unusual for the area. Brutal "warbler neck" though.

Just north of Carara is the "waterfall road", which yielded some decent birds for us. It's best to just park and walk up and down the road at intervals of good habitat. In the field where the road meets the main highway, there were several Gray-crowned Yellowthroats wallowing in their just-barely-subdued glory.

Really cool birds, I wish they ventured into the United States more often.

Blue-black Grassquits were also present in numbers. You show me open fields and I will show you grassquits.

Further up the road was this Collared Forest-Falcon, which had previously eluded me in eastern Mexico and other parts of Costa Rica. This life bird was one of the Carara-area highlights for me, despite not being particularly rare or range-restricted. It's really cool to meet raptors that are completely unlike anything you've seen before.

Higher up on the road there are some nice ridges that are conducive to seeing soaring raptors. Aside from this Zone-tailed Hawk, we also had White Hawk and King Vulture. It is weird to mention seeing the latter two birds in the same area (and not lifering), since before this trip those had been close to Grail Bird status in my mind for years.

Many mixed flocks in the country contain Philadelphia Vireos. They are hard to avoid. You may try to convince yourself that you are seeing Warbling Vireos, but you would (probably) be wrong. Photographed on the Waterfall Road.