If I Were Going...: Birding in Costa Rica #2: The Trip

A Scarlet-rumped Tanager in the jungle

Now that I laid out the basics of Costa rica in my last post, let's get some foundational information about the trip.

The Group
The participants came from all over and formed a nice combination of experience and interests. The group comprised seven people for the main trip and six for the extension.

Michael, Susan, Heather, Joyce, me, Conceicao, Neil and (front) Juan Diego

Michael is a phenomenally well-traveled and experienced birder who can identify practically any bird, no matter how far away or how fast it was moving. He is an attorney, who was born in New Zealand, has lived all over the world and lives in Chicago.

Neil, from the UK, is also extremely well-traveled and boasts a mind-boggling bird life list. He is also a photographer, who actually sells many of his wildlife images. His cameras boasted faster lenses than mine and he had a very clever flash system, making it possible for him to get shots that were too dark for me.

What a difference a flash (and skill) makes! Left, my Bare-shanked Screech-Owl pic; Right, Neil's

Conceicao was born in the Azores and has lived multiple places. She has worked in libraries and taught Portuguese at Harvard. She just published a book of her grandmother's fairy tales.

Gathering for an al fresco breakfast

Joyce, a delightful retired chemistry teacher from Connecticut, has just developed an interest in birding.

Heather is veterinarian from the Seattle area who served in the Army with my friend Susan. An avid traveler and developing birder, Heather had a phenomenal eye for spotting birds.

Susan is my friend from Colorado Springs who introduced me to PIB and this trip. She's a retired Army nurse who has birded all over the Americas.

I think this is the first time I have ever been the least remarkable in any category in any group I have traveled with: I was not the most traveled, I was not the best photographer, I was not the youngest, I was not the oldest, I was not the best birder. The people were so interesting and talented that it was a treat to spend time with them.

Joyce, me, Conceicao, Heather, Michael, Susan, Neil and (as usual, in front) Juan Diego

And, then, there were our guides. PIB operates by contracting with local tour operators who do all the actual planning as well as the guiding. That means that they pick the hotels, plan the route, contract for a vehicle and driver and handle all the details, such as contracting for COVID testing, picking restaurants and so forth.

The Guides: Juan Diego

Photo: Lifer Nature Tours

Our guide for the bulk of the tour – the part on mainland Costa Rica – was Juan Diego Vargas, who owns Lifer Nature Tours. I cannot say enough about how wonderful he was: personable, sensitive to each travelers' needs, phenomenal at identifying birds by both sight and song and knowledgeable about photography.

He seems to genuinely love what he does, exhibiting excitement and joy with each sighting, despite doing this all the time. And, he makes a great deal of effort to ensure that every group member sees the birds and that photographers get a good shot.

Juan Diego grew up in a rural and undeveloped jungle area at the base of the Juan Castro Blanco National Park. His father died when he was young and his uncle, who happened to be a bird poacher, introduced him to bird identification and tracking. As Juan Diego grew into his teens, he realized that he had a deep interest in birding – not as a trader, but as a birder and, eventually, as a guide.

Photo: Lifer Nature Tours

He got a BA in Ecotourism and then a Master of Science in Sustainable Development with emphasis in Conservation of Biological Resources. Throughout his undergraduate and graduate career, he worked during high seasons as a full-time bird guide with some of the most renowned birding tour agencies in Costa Rica.

He is active many bird-related projects, including co-founding Cerulean Warbler Conservation Costa Rica, serving as vice chair of a Working Group for the Convention on Migratory Bird Species of the United Nations Environmental Program and serving on multiple local committees for rare birds and birding clubs. Juan Diego has birded in Europe, Asia and the Middle East and guided and birded throughout South and Central America. His bird count is 805 species for Costa Rica and over a 3,000 worldwide.

Arenal Oasis Lodge

The hotels Juan Diego arranged for us ranged from nice to extraordinary. All were clean, reasonably well-appointed and most were air-conditioned.

Most importantly, all were in beautiful settings where we could see birds and animals on the grounds or even from our rooms.

We didn't spend a lot of time at the hotels, but all worked very well. I'll talk specifically about them later.

Transportation was in a small tourist bus. It had ample seats for all of us and our gear and large windows that opened (with a little effort, as is always the case) so that we could photograph from the bus when necessary.

Boarding the bus

Our driver, Melvin, was delightful and had some pretty mean bird spotting skills of his own.

The Guides: Nito

Nito showing us Bats

Our guide for the Osa Peninsula segment of the trip was Nito Paniagua (literally "Bread and Water).

While not as polished as Juan Diego, Nito was an extraordinary guide.

He found lots and lots of birds in addition to introducing us to the wonders of Army Ants and Sucker-footed Bats that sleep inside furled leaves (more on those later).

Nito's "road to guiding" story is pretty interesting. He grew up very poor as a self-described oddball child in a family of eleven children. While his brothers loved soccer and killing birds and small animals with slingshots for sport, Nito was introverted and fascinated with jungle insects, especially the aforementioned Army Ants. He was teased and bullied a lot, but it didn't diminish his passion for learning about and protecting living things.

Nito has a passion for nature

When he grew up, he got a job as a clerk in a hospital. In Costa Rica, this type of government position has good pay and benefits and is considered "making it."

But, he told us, he was miserable working indoors away from the jungle. So, despite the objections of friends and family, he left.

He went back to school in his 30s and earned a degree as a Tourism Guide (specializing in Nature). In 2003, he worked for a Stanford University avian research study in his hometown of San Vito. The study sparked a new interest and passion birds. Since then, he has worked as a guide with an emphasis on birding in the Osa Peninsula.

Like Juan Diego, Nito has traveled to other countries. He is active in community environmental education, working with area schools and colleges, giving talks that focus on bird preservation and environmental conservation. And, he frequently posts videos of his animal and bird encounters on YouTube and Twitter.

The tour component in the Osa Peninsula were not quite as good as the mainland tour, but I have no idea what resources Nito had to work with.

The Osa BioLodge was drop-dead gorgeous

The hotel (which I will talk about later) was gorgeous, but the transportation left a lot to be desired. It was a van that packed us in tight. The windows wouldn't open and we couldn't open the doors from the inside. This caused me to miss several shots I would have liked to get. And, it's a bit scary being inside a vehicle you know you can't get out of in a hurry.

Photo: Neil Bowman

For one full day of the tour, we had no van at all.

This was generally fine, but I think we might have been able to see a bit more if we hadn't had to hike from the lodge everywhere.

I know I missed the Choco-Screech Owl because I didn't want to hike through the jungle at night to reach the main road, which would have been a quick drive away. It wasn't so much that I was afraid to hike, I just knew I'd be very slow in the dark.

The Itinerary

The trip had, as I mentioned, two parts. The first segment, which Juan Diego guided, covered a great deal of ground in Costa Rica. It generally followed the itinerary provided in advance, but we made a few changes to provide improved chances to see certain birds.

A typical stance

Our days were hectic. We generally met for departure at between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. and birded until lunch time.

We usually had an afternoon break when the temperatures and humidity were the highest.

Some of my lists

Then, we would bird in the late afternoon until sunset.

At dinner, we would record the birds we had seen for the day on sheets provided by PIB.

Several nights we went out again to look for Owls.

Night-time success: a Black-and-white Owl

I planned to keep up with my photos, my bird lists and my blogs by working on them during my down time. I was about 85 percent successful at downloading photos. I did download every night, but when I got home I discovered that I had missed a batch of about 685 RAW photos (in my defense, I had had to change cards and I forgot to pull from the first card).

It took a while

I got the first day entered into eBird.

We were under the impression that our guides would submit and share eBird lists, but that never happened. I was able to successfully log all my birds after I got home, but it took several days and was quite difficult because I hadn't recorded my locations as carefully as I should have.

We did a list for each day. I marked the ones I saw and noted the ones others saw but I didn't.

I learned when I got home that logging by day was not good enough; I should have logged by day and location (most days, we went several places).

Birding is tricky business and some birds are so fleeting, high up in the air or deep in the jungle that not everyone can see them. I estimate I missed at least 10 percent; probably more.

Focus is tough in the dark

It was easy to figure out where I saw the birds I photographed because the photos have timestamps. But, I couldn't always remember exactly where I saw the ones I didn't get photos of. I missed photos for the same reasons I missed birds: too far, too dark, too quick.

Even with missing photos of a 57 of my lifers (about 20 percent), I still filled up two and a half cards, more than I have ever shot on a trip.

I also found that it was difficult to keep track because sometimes I wasn't exactly sure where we were. I took a map, but forgot to track on it. Oh, well, lessons learned for the next time.

I processed some photos on the road, but I never even got around to blogging. It took about two weeks to finish processing and logging my birds.

But, back to the itinerary ..

This is reasonably correct

We started and ended in the country's capital, San José, which is located pretty much smack in the middle of the country at an elevation of about 3,800 feet.

L: Fiery-billed Aracari, Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, Rufous-naped Wren, Spot-breasted Oriole; R: hotel

The next morning, we headed out towards the Central Pacific, where we would be staying in Tárcoles on the coast. On the way, we stopped at the home of a guide and walked down a path in the dry forest to view an incredible assortment of birds and some Mantled Howler Monkeys. Then, we birded along the way and did a late afternoon trip in Bijagual. More details later.

Mantled Howler Monkeys, Turquoise-browed Motmot, White-nosed Coati, Stripe-headed Sparrows

The next morning, we took a fantastic boat trip on the Río Tárcoles followed by an afternoon in Carara National Park (hot, sticky, birdy) and an evening looking for Owls.

Crocodile, Yellow-throated Toucan, Royal Flycatcher, Yellow-naped Parrot, Crested Guan

On the fourth day, we (well, some of us; some slept in) met early to bird on our hotel grounds and then we drove to Monteverde, birding along the way as we climbed back up to 4,300 feet (and cooler weather).

Female Scarlet-rumped Tanager on the hotel grounds

The next day was spent in the Monteverde Cloud Forest where the birds were astonishing. Then, we took an unexpected detour to Valle Escondido to see an Ornate Hawk-Eagle nest. Wow!

Stripe-tailed Hummingbird, Slate-throated Redstart, Ornate Hawk-Eagles

Day six took us out to San Luis Reserve early in the morning to see the Three-wattled Bellbird (one of the major targets for this tour), then past the Arenal Volcano and around Lake Arenal.

Three-wattled Bellbird, jungle path

The next day was more birding around Arenal, including going to a private reserve called Bogarin to see the White-throated Crake. We were successful and we saw two kinds of Sloths. Plus, we had another successful night of Owling.

CW: White-throated Crake, Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth, Hoffman's Two-toed Sloth

We started day eight early (surprise!) to look for another rare target bird (we'll talk about that later). We traveled on to a zipline resort called Canopy San Luis that has phenomenal bird feeders where we saw so many colorful birds. Then, we had a fairly long drive to the Sarapiquí area in the Caribbean lowlands (back to low elevation, heat and humidity).

An assortment of Tanagers and Honeycreepers

We spent the next morning at the La Selva Biological Station, where we had some jungle sightings. I'll say no more here, but we saw lots of cool things. Late that afternoon, four of us (the rest bowed out) went to a community park to see some Hummingbirds and look for a Central American Pygmy Owl (spoiler alert: we – well, Juan Diego – found it).

Strawberry Poison Dart Frog

On day ten, we did an early morning re-con at La Selva before heading north to the Nicaraguan border and the wetlands of Caño Negro. More cool stuff on the way. Plus a beautiful hotel in the middle of nowhere with great Costa Rican/Italian food.

Plumbeous Kite, Bat Falcon, Crested Caracara, Roadside Hawk

The next day was extraordinary with two boat trips on the Río Frío that included sighting several rare birds.

Spectacled Caimans, Agami Heron, Sungrebe

Day twelve started with a drive (through the rain) to Medio Queso (it means "half cheese" – whatever), another wetland. Then, we began a long drive back to San José to conclude or mainland tour. Our lunch stop a Soda Cinchona gave us another chance to see birds at feeders and it delivered!

Male Green-crowned Brilliant, female Green Hermit

We had a final evening with the full group back at the Hotel Robledal. Juan Diego gave us a presentation wrapping up this segment. He reported that we had seen and/or heard 339 species! I don't count heard birds in my eBird count, but some people do.

A great guide

This is where we said good-bye to Juan Diego, who was taking a day and a half to see his wife and three-month-old daughter, Ibis (yes, Ibis!) before starting another tour.

We also said good-bye to Conceicao, who was not continuing on to the Osa Peninsula.

The next morning, we departed for the airport and flew to Puerto Jimenez on the eastern side of the Osa Peninsula, which is juts into the Pacific off the southwest of Costa Rica.