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:
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| Snowy egret |
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| Wood Stork |
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| Boat-billed Heron |
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| White Ibis |
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| Yellow-crowned Night-Heron |
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Bare-throated Tiger Heron
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There were numerous waders present including these dainty Black-necked Stilts
Brown Pelicans and Black Vultures lined the banks, presumably hoping for some easy pickings...
There were also lots of beautiful Kingfishers. The American Pygmy Kingfisher is a diminutive 13cm in comparison to the Ringed Kingfisher at 41cm.The Green Kingfisher sits somewhere between the two. Our own Kingfisher is approximately 18 cm in size. (Photos provided by Bernie Forbes).
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| Ringed Kingfisher |
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American Pygmy Kingfisher
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| Green Kingfisher male |
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| Green Kingfisher female |
These Magnificent Frigatebirds are well named, with a distinctive silhouette in flight. The male puffs his red chest up like a balloon when displaying to the female.
This Anhinga, sometimes known as the Snake bird due to the curved shape of his neck, looked stunning drying his wings in the morning sunlight
And so did this Osprey, possibly fattening up ready to head our way soon...
And finally, in case you’re bored with birds, we saw plenty of these not so friendly chaps!
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