Montezuma Oropendolas feeding at Volcano Arenal. Arenal had a large feeding station and we could sit on our balcony or sit in the restaurant and see multiple different types of birds. 
It was amazing luck to have spotted this White-whiskered Puffbird. It was very well hidden sitting not too far from it's mate at Carara National Forest.
One of my favorite birds was this Boat-billed Heron. We spotted him while taking a boat tour from Mawamba Lodge in Tortuguero.
Also on the boat tour we saw this Northern Jacana. If you look really close in the upper left of this photo you can also see a Bare-fronted Tiger Heron.
Great Curassow roaming the grounds of La Selva Organization for Tropical Studies.
The hummingbird on the left is a Green-crowned Brilliant and the hummingbird on the right is a Green Violet-ear. We saw multiple different species of hummingbirds feeding here at the park in Monteverde Cloud Forest.
A close up of the Bare-fronted Tiger Heron.Hopefully our upcoming trip will provide us with even more birds to add to the life list and of course share with everyone on the blog.
8 comments:
Just recently started following you through your Get Your Botany On! blog, love your material. Over 500 birds is very impressive! Looking forward to upcoming posts!
Great post, Lindsay! I'm amazed at the proportion of birds on your list that are from CR. I read the other day that there are 380 species of ferns in North America and over a thousand in Costa Rica. What a place!
One of my favorite all time birding locations is the feeder at the Arenal Observatory Lodge. A close second would be the Hummingbird Gallery at Monteverde.
Thanks everyone for the comments!
A.L. Gibson- glad you enjoyed the post, obviously Scott is the big blogger since he is much more the expert in plants and animal life but I do enjoy chiming in every now and then so it's nice to know people are reading the blog.
Justin- I don't remember the exact numbers but a guide showed us a huge tree one time and stated that over a thousand plant species have been known to be found on just one tree like that. Scott about fainted, he said he has sites that are hundreds of acres and they don't have anywhere near that number of plants. Amazing!
Peter- I completely agree. Those were two of my favorite's as well. If we weren't on a tour at Arenal we were watching those feeders. La Selva was amazing as well, have you ever been there?
Yes, we were in La Selva in July of 2000 with a birding tour group. We walked the road for a mile leading into the research station, had lunch, crossed the suspension bridge and birded in the rain during the afternoon. I think we saw the very same Great Curassow you have pictured here. I remember talking to a researcher there who had been bitten by a Fer de Lance and survived to write a tale of his experience, helicopter evacuation, etc. which appeared in Natural History magazine.
Hey Peter! That's amazing. I might have to look up that story in Natural History magazine. When in Punta Leona we went on a night hike with a guide named Elliot. While hiking he almost stepped on a Fer de Lance so we all had to pause for quite some time to let it clear the path. In some ways I was excited to see the snake and in others ways I was looking around at all the people on the hike to see who I could shove toward the snake and then outrun to secure my get-away.
This post made me smile because I'd have just about the same list of highlights from my trip last year to CR, including a group of four boat billed herons hidden away in Tortuguero...the guides were telling each other where to look as each boat went in and out of the little waterway.
But no quetzals? Good excuse to go back! All the guidebooks say you're virtually guaranteed to see them with the guides at Mirador de Quetzales and we were not disappointed...though we had to be very patient, in the cold rain, to see one.
Hi Elizabeth- I checked out your blog. Loved your pictures. Looks like you had a great trip. I am jealous of the quetzals you saw. We were apparently there when they migrated to the other side of the mountain. Our guide really tried to get us one but no success. We are going back to CR this year in June so hopefully we can add more birds plus we purchased a nice digital camera instead of the pocket nikon coolpix that the posted pictures were taken with.
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