Durika, Altos de Salitre. Buenos Aires

On September 15th my wife Karina my friends Johan Fernandez and Roy Orozco went to Durika and Los Altos de Salitre in search for the birds that are specific to this area i.e wedge tailed grass-Finch, White tailed Nightjar, ocellated crake and rosy thrush-tanager.
This is located north of Buenos Aires in the Puntarenas province.
On the 15th we found a hotel where to sleep for the night, checked in at 7:30pm and went to Los altos de Salitre in search for the Nightjar as the night was really nice (no rain) we got to the soccer field of the place and looked aroud there base on other friend’s suggestion and no luck, we drove back down and one flew off the road, our only chance!  We got off the car and surrounded where the bird landed, it flew again but this time flew right infront of us quite slow allowing us to see it good just by the necked eye,  in anoher attempt to get a picture we got to see it in the ground just enough for some in the group to put the binoculars on it, what a treat!  First lifer at 10:00pm!

Roy spotted this beauty! a common potoo.

Next day (16th) we left the hotel at 4:30am and went back to the soccer field as we were told the wedge tailed grassfinch lived by, at 5:20ish I got to spot it and called the other immediately! We got 3 individuals.

Wedge tailed grass-finch

Breakfast time! notice the soccer “field” the grass-finch was across from it.

After breakfast and a toast (with coffee instead of beer) we continued for another specific bird; rosy thrush tanager, considered by many one of the hardest to see of all CR bird species.

I guess camo colored didnt work that well!

We got to the intersection to Durika, where the bird is located (we had done a trip here before to search for it, we got to hear it several tikes but it just acts like a ghost) and after an hour of hiding and looking in the middle of he forest with dense vegetation and hilly terrain Johan Fernandez spotted the first female and all of us got to see thanks to him, I was lucky to get a picture of it even though its bad it was exiting due to the difficulty level . Later I got to see a male and then in another spot Roy had a great view of a male but no chance to get a picture,  it is incredibly elusive.

A great picture of the leafs, notice a female rosy thrush tanager in the back

The population here at Durika is good, we got to ID at least 6 individuals by ear in different spots

Interesting during a trip to Panama, we got to see the rosy thrush tanager various times and it behave completely different than the population here in CR.  It was much more deliberate and would come to the edge of the trail easily,  like if it was a robin!!

Here a picture I got from Pipeline in Panama, completely exposed and not shy at all

We walked down the road searching for more and then we got army ants which led to many Thamnophilids and similar birds associated with the ants. Bare crowned antbird was a lifer for all except Johan F.

Bicolored antbird, an ant swarm specialist

Slaty spinetail

Later as we continued I almost stepped on a jumping pit-viper, it is incredible that one develops a sixth sense or truly has an angel protecting us, if my step was 15 inches longer I would had stepped right on it. It was picture time of course!

Atropoides mexicanum – Jumping pit-viper

 

we moved the snake for pitures and then relocated away from the road to avoid people from having an accident, the road is frequented by some local indigenous people who live at Durika.

I guess the poor snake was more afraid of us than we were of it!

 

After a while we jumped back on the car for our last target of the day; ocelleated crake. We played Mp3 in 3 sites untill one responded, once then we crushed the grass making a circle surrounding the birds (remember this 15cm birds like tall grass and behave like a mouse) we waited 1+hr under the hot sun, the bird kept responding but were not able to see it, we crushed more grass to corner the bird even more, it was THE ONLY way to see it, once it flew out of the grass we all got 3 seconds to see it, forget the pictures as you either see it or loose it. I must thank Johan F. for his spontaneous jump to get that bird outta there!

Based on the previous experience and this one this works better on taller grass than at shorter grass as the birds were much more skittish at grounds with shorter grass, I imagine we were more exposed?

After seeing this birds we all were extremely pleased as anyone who has tried them knows the dedication and physical effort it requires to get this 4 birds from this area.