Costa Rica 2013
Fifteen Years Later

January 24, 2013 - Arenal Observatory Lodge and Heliconias Lodge

Starting a little before 6 AM, we birded from the deck at Arenal until breakfast. Amazing numbers of birds, some of them improbable for feeders: Chestnut-mandibled and Keel-billed Toucan, Masked Tityra, clouds of Montezuma's Oropendolas and the usual fruit eaters. And a Coatimundi. After breakfast, we birded some of the trails towards the waterfall until interrupted by army-sized groups of locally guided touristas. At least three groups of 25 passed us on one trail. But we did get Thicket Antpitta before the hordes arrived, which had Nick pretty excited.

Then a long drive with a lunch break in La Fortuna – a/k/a Cherokee, Tennessee South – we drove back around Vulcan Arenal and along the Caribbean foothills to Vulcan Tenori. We are perchedat Heliconias Lodge in the foothills below the volcano. We tried a late afternoon bird walk but some rain on the first puente - a very narrow, football field-long suspended bridge - turned us around before we'd gotten too far along.

Very limited internet access here; probably no photo posts tonight.


Birds
Crested Guan
Great Curassow
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Cattle Egret
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Roadside Hawk
Rock Pigeon
Red-billed Pigeon
White-winged Dove
Ruddy Ground-Dove
Gray-chested Dove
Groove-billed Ani
White-necked Jacobin
Stripe-throated Hermit
Green Thorntail
Violet-headed Hummingbird
Scaly-breasted Hummingbird
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Black-mandibled Toucan
Keel-billed Toucan
Black-cheeked Woodpecker
Golden-olive Woodpecker
White-crowned Parrot
Russet Antshrike
Streak-crowned Antvireo
Thicket Antpitta
Wedge-billed Woodcreeper
Spotted Woodcreeper
Plain Xenops
Scale-crested Pygmy-Tyrant
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Long-tailed Tyrant
Great Kiskadee
Social Flycatcher
Tropical Kingbird
Masked Tityra
Tawny-crowned Greenlet
Brown Jay
Southern Rough-winged Swallow
Band-backed Wren
Black-throated Wren
Stripe-breasted Wren
Song Wren
Long-billed Gnatwren
Black-headed Nightingale-Thrush
Clay-colored Thrush
Black-and-white Warbler
Tennessee Warbler
Tropical Parula
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Golden-crowned Warbler
Passerini's Tanager
Blue-gray Tanager
Palm Tanager
Golden-hooded Tanager
Emerald Tanager
Red-legged Honeycreeper
Slaty Flowerpiercer
Variable Seedeater
Bananaquit
Buff-throated Saltator
Chestnut-capped Brush-Finch
Black-striped Sparrow
Hepatic Tanager
Summer Tanager
Carmiol's Tanager
Blue-black Grosbeak
Great-tailed Grackle
Tawny-capped Euphonia
House Sparrow

Brown Jay

Black-cheeked Woodpeckers

White-crowned Parrots

Masked Tityra
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