Birding Costa Rica. March 2023

March was quite and interesting Month. While it is considered the hottest and driest time of the year, usual weather affected the country and brought with it a lot of rain for the first 15 days of March, I thought simply the rainy season had came it 1+ month earlier that usual!! May trees flowered! May beetles emerged from the ground to mate, land crabs did their migration, all in March!!

Interestingly this intense rain stopped and went back to its normal sunny conditions; this comes to show climate change is a reality whether politicians want to see it or not.

In terms of birding, I spent most of the month leading trips locally in Esquipulas, again, the best location to go birdwatching in Manuel Antonio.

It was quite productive, each morning we would get from 85 to 112 species in a morning with many of the typical near endemic species such as Riverside wren, White-crested Coquette, turquoise Cotinga, Black-hooded Antshrike and much more. Nonetheless, this month I got to guide a short trip to friends from Dallas, Jim and Gretchen Peterson.

These birders, Jim in particular, have been coming to CR for more than 20 years now and when they come, their target list just gets tougher and tougher, i.e more fun!!

This trip took us to one of my favorite locations; Caño Negro area and Arenal Observatory lodge in La Fortuna area. We met in a Hotel near the airport and our day started bright and early with a stop at Cinchona cafe where we got a lot of the typical birds that show up here.

Great Potoo near Caño Negro. Feeders at Cinchona. Northern Emerald Toucanet.

Crimson-collared tanager, Palm, Scarlet-rumped, Silver-throated and blue-gray Tanagers never fail to show at this feeder. With Coppery-headed Emerald and barred Hawks as the highlights here, we then went down to La Virgen del Socorro —a must do stop when heading to fortuna or la selva biological station area.

This location offers some productive road-side birding, here we got about 28 species in a about 15-20 minutes, including Ornate Hawk-eagle, Sooty-faced Finch and Green Thorntail.

Our next adventure was at Caño Negro with the one and Only! “Chambita Romero” he is a local bird guide who covers caño Negro and Medio Queso wetlands. His birding skills are second to none and knows the area like the back of his hand. Our two boat rides delivered many good birds, as typical we got Pinnated and least Bitterns, Sungreebe, Blavk-collared Hawk, Northern Harrier, Nicaraguan Grackle and Nicaraguan Seed-Finch among many many others.

Black-collared Hawk. Green and Rufous Kingfisher. Boat ride in Medio Queso. Nicaraguan Grackle. Selfie after Medio Queso bot ride with Chambita.

Our next stop was Arenal Observatory lodge, we were quite excited as we kept looking at reports of Rufous-vented Ground-Cukoo, unfortunately, no recent records near our arrival time. However here we got Nightingale Wren, a nemesis bird to Jim, Cape May Warbler (my favorite of the trip), Golden-bellied Flycatcher, Ocellated Antbird and Ornate as well as Black Hawk-eagles!!

Jim and I on the Caño negro tower. Nightingale Wren. Yellow-eared toucanet. Cape May Warbler. Ornate Hawk-eagle

In Sky adventures we had a good walk that produced a bird Jim wanted to see the most: Yellow-eared Toucanet, possibly thanks to the intel shared by a fellow bird guide Anthony Arce whom I thank for always sharing knowledge of the birds around his area. Tanwy-faced Gnatwren and uniform crake (at Bogarin Trail) were special birds during our time here.

Black-and-white Owl. Uniform crake. View from Arenal observatory lodge.

On the way back, we did a quick stop at Canopy San Luis where the trails were not productive at all but the feeders delivered as usual some good birds.

A very nice trip full of great memories and thought birds for Gretchen and Jim. I am now looking forward to our next outing in October.

Sunbittern. Black-cheeked Woodpecker. Emerald Tanager. Cinnamon-bellied Saltator