Costa Rica 27 and 28 January 2019

To those who have the happy ability to find adventure among little things, I recommend the hummingbirds. In no other warm-blooded animals, perhaps in no other living creatures of any kind, has nature managed to compress so much beauty, vitality, animation and complex behaviour into so small a compass.

Alexander Skutch (1977)

27 January 2019

Hotel Carara - Carara National Park - Santa Elena - Monteverde Hummingbird Garden

     The room at Hotel Carara was pretty substandard, and there was hardly a drip of water coming out of the faucet or the shower and the toilet kept running until I fixed it. Breakfast, however, was excellent. There was good coffee, lots of fruit and a variety of items from a hot buffet.

     We left for Carara National Park with a full stomach!

     Upon arrival we paid our entry fees and waited for the park to open. In the parking lot we saw Franklin with a couple of clients, and he invited us to tag along. We made sure that his paying customers were agreeable - and they were! We are indebted to Rich and Nanette Armstrong of Sedona, AZ for their kindness.
     The list of species to be found at Carara is impressive, but locating many of them is another matter! The trails are more than adequate, and well maintained, but either side of them is dense rain forest. Even with Franklin's local knowledge and ability to recognize birdsong we saw relatively few species.

     A White-whiskered Puffbird (Malacoptila panamensis) was perched quite close, but stubbornly refused to show us its best side. We had to be content with a dorsal view before it flew deeper into the forest.

     It was too bad that most of the birds were not as obliging as these two!

     Many of the trees were impressive, with huge buttresses. This of course is part of the joy of visiting the rain forest. Our quest was for birds but everything was delightful and interesting.

     We trudged along.

     We glanced skyward frequently, searching for movement in the canopy. Mostly there was none, or at least none that could be detected from the ground.

     The only time that I had ever seen Northern Royal Flycatcher (Onychorhynchus mexicanus) was at Carara National Park in 2011, so it was a singular pleasure to meet up with this enigmatic species again in the same location. This time we had a much better line of sight for a photograph.

     A Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus) reminded us that spring migration is really not so far away, and this species will arrive in Ontario by the thousands.

     We heard the loud rapping of woodpeckers and were thrilled to find Lineated Woodpecker (Dryocopus lineatus) and Pale-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus guatamalensis) on opposite sides of the same trunk, high up, however, with much intervening vegetation. A poor photograph of Pale-billed Woodpecker is all we were able to obtain to memorialize the sighting.

     The signature bird of this region is without question Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao), a bird whose numbers for years spiralled downwards, due to trapping for the lucrative cage bird trade, and habitat destruction. Slowly, with some degree of protection, and more importantly enforcement of the law, numbers are recovering somewhat. It was a moment of elation to see a pair occupying a nest.

     May their beauty grace the skies forever. Jim always selects a "bird of the trip" and on this journey it was Scarlet Macaw.

     I might add a brief word about the cage bird trade and its implication in the decline of so many psittacids around the world. It is easy to blame poaching and illegal trapping, but it is the insatiable and irrational demand from Europe and North America for exotic birds  that fuels this trade. I hope that the day will come, and soon, when a total ban, rigidly enforced, will be imposed on the trafficking of wild birds. Only then will endangered and seriously depleted populations recover. 
     Checkout time at the hotel was 13h:00 so we had left our stuff in our rooms and returned to pick up our belongings and have lunch. Then we hit the road for Santa Elena, a small town near Monteverde where we had accommodation reserved for the night.
     We checked into the Pension Santa Elena, where the accommodation was basic, but acceptable; in fact some thought it "cute." It was not a judgement I shared, but in reality it was no worse than the hotel the night before which was considerably more expensive. 
     We decided to take a drive to Monteverde so that we would know the route the following morning, and it was in fact pretty straightforward. We visited the hummingbird garden there and for those who had not previously experienced such a location it was both exciting and maybe a touch overwhelming. The activity is frenetic to say the least, but it is an amazing opportunity to see nature's gems up close.
     Photographing hummingbirds is not the easiest pursuit in the world for two reasons. First of all the birds move at incredible speed and are seldom perched for more than the briefest of moments, so high speed capture is essential. Second the iridescence of hummingbirds, the very feature that produces their dazzling colours, is structural in nature rather than chemical, so that a bird which is brilliant at one moment can appear black the next. A bird that even moves from one perch to another on the same feeder can change its appearance.
     Consider the following images of Green-crowned Brilliant (Heliodoxa jacula).

     And here is a juvenile of the same species.

      Identification is not easy, or at least I do not find it easy, and much more familiarity is needed than one can acquire on a brief visit, to become totally confident that one's identification is correct. Some birds, especially juveniles or females, of necessity remain unknown. It has to be remembered that for most us we see these birds at most every several years. On visiting Cuba it is easy; one is faced with a choice of only two species, and they are radically different from each other. In Costa Rica there are fifty-one species, with many plumage gradations, conditions of moult, males, juveniles and females. To add to the complexity there has been much taxonomic revision in recent years with changes at the genus and species level.
     If I have misidentified any of these birds I accept my errors with humility and urge you to offer corrections. 
     A Violet Sabrewing (Campylopterus hemileucurus) is fortunately unmistakable!

     Here is a male Purple-throated Mountaingem (Lampornis calolaemus)....

     ...... and here is a female of the same species.

     Bananaquits (Coereba flaveola), friendly as always, were also anxious to get their share of the hummingbird nectar.

     A Common Bush Tanager(Chlorospingus flavopectus) was content to feed on the ground, on what I am not quite sure, but it appears to be food dropped by a human.

     We returned to Santa Elena and went out later for dinner to a restaurant called Taco Taco, where the food was excellent. I had chicken fajita tacos and Miriam had pork carnita tacos, served with a cob of grilled corn, which challenged the roots of your teeth trying to separate the kernels from the cob. It seems to be impossible in Costa Rica to have dinner without music being played so loudly that it is hard to hear each other speak, and words become strings of sound, difficult to tease apart. As mentioned, however, the food was simply delicious.
     There was not a single chair in our room at the "pension" to sit on, so we retired early, read for a while and turned out the light. The management had provided ear plugs to block out the noise and gaiety of this festive little town. Dogs barked, brakes squealed, music played, people called to each other, but we fell asleep nonetheless, anxious to be well rested for our visit to Monteverde the next morning.

All species 27 January: Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Brown Pelican, Magnificent Frigatebird, Black Vulture, Broad-winged Hawk, Laughing Gull, White-winged Dove, Groove-billed Ani, Violet Sabrewing, Fiery-throated Hummingbird, Blue-throated Sapphire, Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Purple-throated Mountaingem, Green-crowned Brilliant, Gartered Trogon, White-whiskered Puffbird, Lineated Woodpecker, Pale-billed Woodpecker, Red-fronted Parrotlet, Barred Antshrike, Tropical Kingbird, Northern Royal Flycatcher, Yellow-throated Vireo, Rufous-backed Wren, Common Bush Tanager, Baltimore Oriole, Great-tailed Grackle, White-shouldered Tanager, White-lined Tanager, Bananaquit. 

28 January 2019
Santa Elena - Monteverde - El Coco

     We were up early and went to a little bakery in town that opened at 05h:00 and had very good coffee and an appetizing range of pastries, both sweet and savoury. We were well pleased with our choices and the service provided by a very friendly young man.
     In high spirits, fueled no doubt by caffeine and sugar, we meandered through town and took the road to Monteverde. 
     A Lesson's Motmot (Momotus lessonii) was there to greet us; a more splendid welcome would be hard to conjure.

     We had sought the advice of Charlie Gomez as to a guide at Monteverde and he had recommended Samuel Arguedas (samguia@hotmail.com) and we were happy to see him waiting for us.

       Sam is a consummate guide, a dedicated naturalist and a passionate and ardent conservationist. Wisely he rejects the use of laser pointers which in errant fashion can damage a bird's vision, and in the process of moving the point of light around can inflict destruction on a range of micro organisms. He is advocating for their total ban in Costa Rica. Sam is so ardent that he does not even have a business card, electing not to use paper for such trivial purposes!
     His efforts are paying dividends, however. He acts as the Monteverde guide for the well known travel company, Tauck World Discovery, and was appalled at the sheer volume of plastic water bottles provided to their clients - 11,500 per year. He advocated to the company, with the persistence of a terrier nipping at your heels it seems, to have the company provide a refillable water bottle for each client - and succeeded. That's a lot less plastic littering the forests and streams of Costa Rica. Bravo, Sam!
     As a registered guide, Sam is able to gain access for his clients at 07h:00, an hour before the main onslaught begins. There is a choice of trails and we were happy to rely on Sam's intimate knowledge of the cloud forest to select the trail with the best likelihood of seeing Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus macinno), that most enigmatic of birds, a creature of mythical proportions, the stuff of legend and history, a source of joy for all, verging on adoration for some.

     Amazingly, within minutes we saw a female.

      And almost before we could get our starry eyes reoriented a male came to join her.

    The day was already a grand success! I know one birder who has been to Costa Rica three times and has not yet succeeded in seeing a quetzal. 
     We wandered along the trail, still quiet, without the press of people that was about to occur, listening to Sam explain the multi-faceted structure of the forest.

     The tranquility was about to be broken, however, as the flood gates opened and the trails were invaded by a serpentine stream of birders, backpackers, hikers, and tourists of every description. As Sam aptly commented, "The Cloud Forest becomes a Crowd Forest."

     Charlie Gomez had told me that even though Costa Rica Expeditions owns a lodge at Monteverde he does not take his tours there for this very reason, preferring to search for the quetzals in the quieter regions around Savegre.

     An Elegant Euphonia (Euphonia elegantissima) was a lifer for everyone.

     And Sam spotted a Black Guan (Chamaepetes unicolor) deep in the trees, about 75 metres off the trail I would guess, and had it in his scope almost before the legs of the tripod hit the ground!

     We kept hearing a Prong-billed Barbet (Semnornis frantzii) and finally saw it; alas no pictures!

     People had no hesitation in milling around us, and profiting from the expertise of a guide who earns his living from ecotourism, without paying a cent. 

     We slowly drifted back towards the main gate, birding along the way, and for those who cared to listen, receiving Cloud Forest 101 along the way.

     The Hummingbird Gallery was too much of a lure to pass up and Miriam and I went to get a coffee and sit and watch the feathered jewels. Verging on self-flagellation we started to identify the various species and get photographs when possible! It was fun though, challenging and rewarding. It is always great to stay at a lodge that has hummingbird feeders so that you can really spend some time and hone your identification skills.

     Here is what Miriam got, in the order in which she took the pictures.

Purple-throated Mountaingem

Mexican (Green) Violetear

Green-crowned Brilliant (juvenile)

Stripe-tailed Hummingbird

Green-crowned Brilliant (female)

     A Common Bush Tanager was moving around in the bushes too.

     Sam had suggested to us that we have lunch at the restaurant in the park, assuring us that the food was good, and that by spending our money there we would be contributing funds for conservation. We did so and were happy with our choices. Miriam had a chicken sandwich and I had a chorizo sandwich - both excellent.

     Our drive back to El Coco went smoothly with no delays, and we were happy to be back to our base.

All species 28 January: Black Guan, Western Cattle Egret, Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture, Western Osprey, White-winged Dove, Green Hermit, Violet Sabrewing, Mexican Violetear, White-tailed Emerald, Coppery-headed Emerald, Stripe-tailed Hummingbird, Purple-throated Mountaingem, Green-crowned Brilliant, Purple-crowned Fairy, Magenta-throated Woodstar, Resplendent Quetzal, Collared Trogon, Prong-billed Barbet, Hoffmann's Woodpecker, Northern Crested Caracara, Red-faced Spinetail, Ruddy Treerunner, Lineated Foliage-gleaner, Grey-throated Leaftosser, Olivaceous Woodcreeper, Spotted Woodcreeper, Slaty Antwren, Silvery-fronted Tapaculo (heard only), Mistletoe Tyrannulet, Northern Tufted Flycatcher, Yellowish Flycatcher, House Wren, Ochraceous Wren, Grey-breasted Wood Wren, Tropical Gnatcatcher, Black-faced Solitaire, Slaty-backed Nightingale-Thrush, Mountain Thrush, Clay-coloured Thrush, White-throated Thrush, Elegant Euphonia, Golden-browed Chlorophonia, Common Bush Tanager, Great-tailed Grackle, Golden-winged Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Golden-crowned Warbler, Black-eared Warbler, Slate-throated Whitestart, Summer Tanager, Bananaquit.