Escaping to Costa Rica for Xmas...

[birdboybowley]

Hey everyone, am off on a self-guided trip to CR for 3 weeks very soon and, having never been there before, would be grateful for any practical advice anyone has - be it travel tips or specific birding pointers. Anyone else gonna be visiting at the same time? Cheers, Ads

[AndyB]

Hi Ads, have come very close to going so had some info readily assembled. This was the first report by Jim Peterson (http://www.surfbirds.com/Trip%20Reports/costa%20rica.html) that spurred my interest and has some practical advice. There are obviously a ton of reports on the web and would recommend the usual resources, google, surfbirds, birdtours, travellingbirder, birdforum etc. There also seem to be a good number of tour operators who might do day trips if you want a break from trying to find stuff on your own. let us know if you need more info on them.

This website has a nice gallery (http://www.angelfire.com/bc/gonebirding/) to whet your appetite.

Sounds like it could be a very merry christmas!

[Graham Etherington]

Hi Ads,
Sorry that I can't help with any gen, but where was your AVTAR photo taken?
Lammington NP car park?
Cheers,
Graham

[birdboybowley]

Hi Graham

Yep, that was O'Reilly's alright - didn't notice the parrot til I looked back at the pictures...hahahaha! Great place - the bowerbirds looked even better!
Ads

Where was yours taken??!!
PS Thanks Andy for the above reply - I hope it will be a fab xmas as gonna be spending it at La Selva..!! Beats Sussex I can tell ya!

[Graham Etherington]

Mine was taken at Disneyland, California. Don't know who the weirdo in the England shirt is though ;-)

[forktail]

Hey everyone, am off on a self-guided trip to CR for 3 weeks very soon and, having never been there before, would be grateful for any practical advice anyone has - be it travel tips or specific birding pointers. Anyone else gonna be visiting at the same time? Cheers, Ads


Hi there BBB

you'll love it

the bus network is very good, cheap and reliable, accommodation is very cheap but food isn't the best. To see the best range of endems i'd go to the central highlands (Cerro de la Muerte), Monteverde, La Selva and the pacific lowlands (Carara). There are also a few decent birds on the Caribbean slope too.

Monteverde (Brolleybird, Bellbird etc) is a key area and well worth a visit. Robert Dean who illustrated the recently published new field guide lives there and is a lovely chap - well worth seeking out.

The birding is exciting without being overwhelming - but it's well worth investing in the Stiles and Skutch guide and getting as many sounds as you can.

PM me if you have more specific questions

F.

[birdboybowley]

Hi all and Happy New Year

I'm back from a great trip to Costa Rica, thanks to those few (where were the rest of ya??!!) who replied to the thread and big thanks to Mark Gurney's excellent Surfbirds trip report - this is how all trip reports should be written, full of practical advice such as times/distances, directions, places to stay, prices...not just a list of birds, which although mouth-watering is really of no practical use to anyone travelling under their own steam...
Stayed at Hotel Bougainvillea to start and finish - great place, beautiful gardens and both ground-sparrows active most of the day.
Mirador des Qutezales very nice and cold, quetzals easy, with zeledonia and the tapaculo both gotten. Morning visit to Cerro de la Muerte - access road to radar station is on the right at km89.5, but can get very wet and muddy. Juncos easy here but weather wasn't that good for much else.
B&W Owls still showing very well in Orotina - don't make the mistake of walking round the similar-looking park in nearby San Mateo like me.....doh!!!
Carara NP very good early am with a White-crested Coquette seen - you can pay on your way out so not a problem...stayed in the Hotel Carara in Tarcoles which wasn't anything great but did have constant Scarlet Macaw flocks around it so not all bad. A female Mangrove Hummer seen near the boardwalk here was a great surprise.
Stayed at La Selva Biological Station over Xmas thinking that this would be a great place to be at that time...wrong!! Researchers are basically another species I've come to realise, never have I met a more miserable bunch! No wonder they were there for xmas as I'm sure their families insisted upon it...!
And as for the rain.....well, if this is CR's dry season I'd hate to see the wet one!! The river rose about 4m on Xmas Day after 3 solid days of heavy rain which meant wading thigh-high across the bridge back to the cabins and knee-high back along the Tres Rios trail..!! Still managed to see some good stuff - Great Green Macaws, Bat Falcon, Great Curassow....but the weather really did out pay to finding a few of more retiring species.
Spent a morning in Palo Verde, but would've preferred longer. Monteverde was wet, but the hummer garden there is fab - 8 species easily seen.
Visited La Paz waterfall gardens - expensive at $29 each but was the only place we saw Black-bellied Hummer in their bustling hummer garden, and Prong-billed Barbets easy on the feeding station by the main reception.
Virgen del Socorro was excellent once the rain stopped, with a pair of Torrent Tyrannulets by the bridge and a good selection of species in the roadside forest. The restaurant at Cichona was good with great food, a cool tarantula and loadsa hummers. Braulio Carillo very good (and only 45mins from the Bougainvillea) - the Quebrada Gonzalez station has a great trail just behind it. Got a female bellbird here. El Tapir is about 1km further up the road on the right and is totally derelict but the purple-flowered bushes attract the hummers, most noticeable Rufous-tails, but Green Hermit, Green Thorntail, Violet-headed, Purple-crowned Fairy and a superb male Snowcap all came in but were all soon chased off again!
Ended with 366 species in 15days so well pleased. The road signs in CR are scarily non-existent, so bad in getting out of San Jose we had to get a taxi driver to show us the way to the Pan-American......! The signs often just stop completely but the locals were lovely and with our very limited Spanish managed to get to where we were going eventually. We hired a Daihatsu Terios from Adobecar and was quoted $930 for the duration and they agreed to drop off and pick up from the Hotel Bougainvillea. When the car arrived and we quoted the price, the guy 'ummed', got out his calculator and amazingly said '..i make it only $645..' Result!! Food was good almost everywhere as was the accommodation, so i can't recommend CR enough. Go there, especially at the moment with the dollar so weak!
If anybody wants any further info please PM me
Ads

[AndyB]

Hi Ads, glad you had such a great trip. Thanks for posting a follow up - this looks like very useful info for anyone about to go soon (I know I'll be bookmarking it). For future users who search for Costa Rica info and find this thread, thought I would add some more links. Here's Mark Gurney's trip report (http://www.surfbirds.com/trip_report.php?id=1133) that Ads mentions and here's a link to all the current Surfbirds CR reports (http://www.surfbirds.com/Trip%20Reports/costarica.php). I'm sure there are also many others on the usual trip report sites listed near the top of this thread.

[sue-o]

Thanks for the post, Ads. If we don't take a detour to Davey Jones' place, we will pass CR on the way home. Looking forward to getting there.
Sue
Edit: I was thinking your avatar might have been Bunya, QLD. I'm glad Graham asked what I was wondering.