ENHS Nature Trails May 98 Article 3

Costa Rica Visit (part 2 of 2)
by Herb Wisner

Next destination: the Guanacaste region, north along the Pan American highway to a two night stay at Hacienda La Pacifica just north of the town of Canas. Another nice accommodation. With vocalizing Pauraques all night long. Seeing one of these is tough, though we did manage the first night in the buses headlights on a drive back from Palo Verde Park. Palo Verde is noted as a wetland, lots of marsh area covered primarily with Black-bellied Whistling Ducks but with a mixture of Jacanas, herons and egrets, a Snail Kite, two Wood Storks and a Roseate Spoonbill overhead and a pair of Least Grebes. We have had a scarcity of any kind of duck but here there were several Blue-winged Teals - something familiar. Large mammals - Brahma cattle - were wading belly deep in the marsh. At least they weren't eating the birds. The Cattle Egrets liked them. It was at this location that we made a closer acquaintance with White-faced Capuchin monkeys than we previously were treated to. Monkeys seem to be everywhere in the country. Howlers are the most vocal and thus the most frequently noted. Spider monkeys were less frequent, seen ( by us) only on Tortuguero trips. The next day we drove a little farther north, a bit short of the Nicaragua line to Santa Rosa park, a dry, deciduous forest habitat. A brief stop on the way in gave us a good look at several Coatis, some of them conducting some X-rated business in a tree. There's a good campground in this park. Practically over where the bus was parked were two Magpie Jays. We had an excellent look at these which we had seen previously only as they flew in front of us on the way to Monte Verde. Good photographs resulted too. I'm grateful for small favors. A walk along the Gumbo Limbo (a tree) trail gave us a chance to view some petroglyphs left by an ancient, pre-Columbian, not well understood people. Beneath the rocks on which these were carved was a cave-like hollow in which a number of bats were idling away the day. Notable bird sightings included a Long-tailed Motmot, a Warbling Vireo, a Red-legged Honeycreeper (a female, unfortunately; the male is a glorious blue), a Rufous-capped Warbler and a Nutting's Flycatcher. The morning of departure we enjoyed a float trip down a portion of the Corobici River. Leisurely with only a few mild rapids. A Barn Owl peeked out of a hollow in a tree across from another tree on a branch of which were twined two boas. An Osprey kept us company for a while and Little Blue Herons in both adult and immature (white) plumage flew off ahead from time to time. A short side trip brought us up under perched Black-crowned and Boat-billed Herons for a good close look. A Turquoise-browed Motmot was sighted as we turned back toward the main course of the river.

Back to San Jose and then off the next morning to our final lodge destination - Marenco, located on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the southwestern coast of Costa Rica. It took a three quarter hour plane ride, a half hour bus ride and a two hour boat ride down a river and into the ocean to get us to our destination. Another attractive facility. We're scheduled for 3 days here. Quite a variety of birds were available for the watching right around the lodge grounds. Several species of tanagers, an attractive one being the Scarlet-rumped. Smooth-billed Anis were frequent. A Black-striped Sparrow sang a little like a Wrentit along a hedgerow. Ruddy Ground-doves scooted out of sight before I could snap their picture. Scarlet Macaws flew by several times. Walks on the trails provided us with introductions to interesting flowering plants such as the brilliant red passion flower and one known as hot lips. A vine snake didn't wait for us to get a good look but a pygmy squirrel did. The surrounding forest was described as primary and secondary, in all cases quite dense with occasional openings resulting from fallen trees. My sole gold star of the whole trip was locating a pounding Lineated Woodpecker high up on a dead tree trunk. It's a lot like our Pileated here in Oregon (and elsewhere). There were Ant-tanagers, Gnatwrens, Variable Seedeaters, a spectacular Red-capped Manakin, a Common Black Hawk and others to keep us interested at all times. The final afternoon saw us boating to Corcovado National Park. An offshore rock with a big dead tree provided a roosting place for Brown Pelicans, Neotropical Cormorants, Magnificent Frigatebirds and Brown Boobies. The park itself, with a new visitor center (no road access) and a pleasant camping area offered a trail to a waterfall and a pool in which several of our group (nine of us altogether) chose to swim, clothes and all. Spotted Sandpipers were frequent along the way and one Northern Waterthrush allowed us time for identifying. The return trip to the lodge exposed us to the only real rain we had this two weeks. We got sodden but not saddened.

Back to San Jose early the next morning and then the following day south on the Pan American highway to the Cerro de la Muerte region of the mountains at some 10000 or so feet. Paramo vegetation was the mode at this elevation - dwarf bamboo and a kind of moor- like character to the landscape. A Volcano Junco was the bird specialty here. A little lower elevation put us in an oak forest where all the trees were festooned with bromeliads and mosses. At our lunch stop we watched a Slaty Flower-piercer and Magnificent Hummingbird visiting fuchsias. Farther back down the mountain a stop along the highway produced a surprising number of species of birds: thrushes, migrant warblers, Long-tailed Silky Flycatcher, Spangle-cheeked Tanager, Sooty and Mt. Robins (Thrushes) and others.

An evening meal at a restaurant north of San Jose with a very Costa Rican menu completed the day for our group. It was time for goodbyes to our east coast members but with another Eugene couple and a resident from Woodburn there is a possible reconnection.

So endeth this dissertation!

Afterthought: It's tempting to think that the birds are always brighter or more interesting in somebody else's yard but I suspect that birders from abroad might find some of ours especially fascinating. How about our jays, or the red finches, or the distinctive west coast resident the Wrentit, or our waterfowl, or raptors, or the glorious song of the Black-headed Grosbeak or even our Robin or others too numerous to name. So, when we travel we should be careful not to give the impression we're knocking the locals. We have our own delights.
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