Window to Wildlife

Our third destination was the Wilson’s Botanical Gardens where we were based for 3 nights. The gardens were beautiful, with a variety of trees, flowering shrubs, lawns, a small pond and wooded areas. This rich tapestry of vegetation led to a diversity of habitat and a good variety of birds. Many of the hotels, cafes and gardens  in Costa Rica supplemented the planting by offering feeding tables laden with fruit, which acted  as a magnet for many spectacular birds, allowing brilliant views and good photo opportunities. Here, this was positioned outside the dining room at a central courtyard where we would meet for meals and walks. Tanagers were a species especially attracted to such feeders, many displaying beautiful, bold colours. These included the sunny Silver-throated Tanager, seen here eyeing up a tasty piece of banana. Silver-throated Tanager The lovely, blue tinged Golden-hooded Tanager And my personal favourite,  the stunning Speckled Tanager. T...

It was a beautiful sunny day as we set off on a whale watching trip from the Marina Ballena National Park. Although we did not see any whales it was a thoroughly enjoyable excursion. The sea was calm, making for a relaxing journey. We encountered several pods of Spotted Dolphins which leapt and danced in front of the boat and also a few parrot turtles swimming at the surface. We stumbled across a small fishing boat, which had also attracted the attention of these lovely Brown Pelicans, who floated expectantly at a short distance, bursting into action as unwanted fish were thrown back into the sea. We also found a group of Brown Boobies together with two Red-footed Boobies (one shown here on the right) and were able to slowly edge in quite close to observe them bobbing along on the surface. Next we noticed a piece of driftwood, shared by a Brown Booby at one end and a Royal Tern at the other. Again, we were able to get in very close and drift alongside these birds, who appea...

Today we visited the rainforest at Carara National Park. It was dark, hot and humid and a marked contrast to the locations visited yesterday, resulting in completely different birds and wildlife.  One of the first birds we saw was this classic “Woody woodpecker’ - actually a Pale-billed Woodpecker, but surely the model for Woody in the childhood cartoon. It was quite hard work birding in the thick vegetation, but our guide was helpful in identifying species and we all played out part in finding the birds. Some such as Chestnut-sided Warbler and Black-throated Trogon were neck-craningly high in the treetops  and others, such as Rufous-backed Wrens skulked in vegetation on the ground. This beautiful Lesson’s Motmot was found  perched in a tree lit up by a raft of sunlight penetrating into the forest. You can just make out the shuttlecock type tail feathers which are a distinctive feature of the Motmot family. We found a variety of birds from the Trogon...

Our first day in Costa Rica got off to an early start with a boat trip on the beautiful  river Tarcoles booked for the unearthly hour of 6AM. This was to ensure we had a suitably low tide with more birds making use of the muddy banks, but also had the advantage that we had the river to ourselves. The trip was a great success with so many birds everywhere that we scarcely knew where to look. A few birds were familiar to us, such as Great Egret, Sanderling and Grey Plover, although this is known as Black Bellied Plover in Costa Rica. There were many varieties of elegant herons and egrets: Snowy egret  Wood Stork Boat-billed Heron White Ibis Yellow-crowned Night-Heron                                                                         Bare-throated Tiger Heron ...

Following on from our pre-breakfast boat trip, we gathered together again at 10AMand set out for an area of scrubland in search of owls. Our guide knew exactly where to take us for these beautiful Black-and-White Owls: As we stood by the road admiring this pair, a local Tico pulled up and offered to show us some more owls roosting nearby. They were actually roosting in tress very close together just a few hundred yards away, but incredibly well camaflouged. There was a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl Photo by Clive And a wide eyed Pacific Screech-Owl staring straight at us All beautiful birds, but the trip highlight was unfortunately not seen by me. Later in the trip and in a different location, Clive had walked along a forest trail in search of Spotted Wood Quail, and after successfully locating a family group, he sat down to rest in a secluded area with a seating area and small fountain. Before long, a small brown bird flew past into a bush, then returned to start bathing...

It is incredible to think how much we packed into our first day of this fabulous holiday. After the morning activities described in previous posts, we headed to a cafe near the Tarcoles River for lunch. This site is famous for it's views of the large American crocodiles: However we were equally pleased to find Black-bellied Whistling Geese, Kingfisher, and  this Yellow-Headed Caracara perched on a log at the edge of the river : Next we headed to Tarcoles beach where we found magnificent Scarlet Macaws feeding in the trees: We returned to Hotel Villa Lapas for a well earned siesta, but were out again at 4pm to meet together to explore the attractive grounds and gardens. These pictures below give a flavour of the setting, and perhaps illustrate why it was such a good location for birds with a good variety of vegetation and habitats leading to a great diversity of species. View of the hotel gardens Plenty of iguanas  A small river flows through the g...