We started by birding around the Holiday Inn Express where we stayed last night and the nearby Hampton Inn at the San Jose airport. We didn't find the target bird, Prevost's Ground-Sparrow, but found some other good species. Then we drove out and up CR 2 to La Esperanza at Tapanti National Park. It was a steep climb from park gate but good birds, including very good views, but mediocre photos, of Resplendant Quetzals and a Collared Trogon. Then lunch at an amazing cafe-style place.
Then we drove up Providencia Road to the corner of the new Los Quetzales NP. Finally, we walked and birded a long ways down the steep, switch-backed road into the Savegre Valley, ending at Trogon Lodge. Slight drizzle walking along the trail at Providencia; otherwise excellent, shirtsleeve temperatures with an intermittent light breeze. For once, in the late afternoon the cloud forest mostly clear of fog.
I struggled mightily with the tripod first three hours. The ball clamp had locked up and flatly refused to turn, leaving the tripod head floppily loose the whole time I was around the Quetzal. I successfully repaired it by hammering the knob with a rock, probably voiding any remaining warranty, but it works now. But not in time to use it with the Quetzals.
Trogon Lodge is lovely, as advertised, "a mountain lodge in the cloud forest of Savegre."
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