My fiance and I got back from 2 weeks in Costa Rica on Christmas Eve.
We saw 271 bird species, in different areas north, west and near San
Jose. Enjoy...

First, let me just state the obvious; birding was good anywhere except
San Jose. We had the good luck to stay in a B&B in the San Jose suburb
of Moravia, and I spotted 17 species on the first day, just from the
balcony (including Rufous-collared Sparrows, Palm and Blue-gray
Tanagers, Baltimore Orioles, a female Hoffmann's Woodpecker, Inca Doves,
Tropical Kingbirds, Great Kiskadees, Clay-colored Robins, Cattle Egrets
and Crimson-fronted Parakeets overhead, Great-tailed Grackles, Montezuma
Oropendolas). However, when we tried (per a guidebook of questionable
value) to 'bird' in some of the city parks which supposedly had motmots
and oropendolas, we came up with the extremely common Great-tailed
Grackle, a Great Kiskadee, a Wilson's Warbler, and some pigeons. A
daytrip to the Irazu Volcano and the historic capital Cartago was a
little better. We got a Bat Falcon perched on a powerline, a Volcano
Hummingbird roadside on the slopes of Irazu, and a Dusky-capped
Flycatcher, a White-breasted Wood-wren and a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
in a botanical garden in Cartago.

The best birding of the trip (140 species in 3 days) was in a beautiful
location on southeast Lake Arenal, where the Pacific and Caribbean
slopes come together, where the rainforest is preserved in pockets
between cattle grazing land. The lodge (Linda Vista) had an incredible
view of the volcano and lake from atop a bluff. They also had a private
rainforest preserve in back with one very birdy trail that ended up at
some native trees that seemed to be the roosting or feeding area for
every parakeet, toucan and hummingbird in the area. There were
disappointingly few draws to Lake Arenal itself (1 Great Egret, 1 Snowy
Egret, 1 Little Blue Heron and 1 Spotted Sandpiper on the east end, some
Olivaceous Cormorants and a few Anhingas elsewhere, and some
pathetically feral Muscovy Ducks), but in the woods behind the hotel,
there were Great Curassow, Crested Guan, Squirrel Cuckoos, Keel-billed
Toucans and Collared Aracaris, Orange-chinned and Orange-fronted
Parakeets, Mealy Amazons, a Long-tailed Hermit, Green Hermits,
Pale-billed and Black-cheeked Woodpeckers, as well as many, many
Thraupids (Green and Shining Honeycreepers, Red-legged Dacnis,
Golden-hooded, Crimson-collared, Blue-gray, Palm and Scarlet-rumped
Tanagers, Black-headed Saltators, etc.) There were even Capuchin
monkeys out there one morning, and you could always hear Howlers. The
surrounding area supported many migrant warblers (mostly Tennessee and
Wilson's), several kinds of Orioles (mostly Baltimore), and we saw
Common Pauraques, a Scaly-throated Foliage-gleaner, a Barred
Forest-Falcon, an adult and a juv. Great Black Hawk, 2 Long-tailed
Tyrants, a Yellow-billed Cacique, Sulphur-rumped Flycatchers, Masked
Tityras, Yellow-faced Grassquits, Blue and Variable Seedeaters, Northern
Rough-winged and Blue-and-white Swallows, a Common Tody-flycatcher, a
Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, and a parade of the ubiquitous Black and
Turkey Vultures circling the dining room at eye-level. (That was pretty
cool, if somewhat disconcerting.)

A daytrip to Carara N.P. (70 species) yielded quite a bit too, including
the incredible Scarlet Macaws (for whom the park was founded), Red-lored
Amazons, Chestnut-mandibled Toucans, Band-rumped Swifts, and a Baird's
Trogon. At Rio Tarcoles we pulled off the road to view the crocodiles
in this exceptionally polluted river, and between the old tires, beer
bottles and an old truck, saw a variety of wading birds (Roseate
Spoonbills, a Tricolored Heron, Snowy and Great Egrets, Black-necked
Stilts and Wood Storks). In the afternoon we took a trail to a much
cleaner lake/pond to see more crocodiles, and it also contained a colony
of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, some Green-backed Herons, a Northern
Jacana, some Least Grebes, a pair of Amazon Kingfishers and an Anhinga.
(By the list I was making, this was beginning to get deja vu of Santa
Ana NWR in Texas.) Roadside in the area, we also spotted a Mangrove
Cuckoo, a Striped Cuckoo, and a Boat-billed Heron. Other species
trailside included a Roadside Hawk, a Buff-rumped Warbler, a Northern
Waterthrush, a Dot-winged Antwren, a Chestnut-backed Antthrush, a
Riverside Wren, Tropical Gnatcatchers, Streaked Xenops, and a
Pale-billed Woodpecker.

Monteverde was of course fantastic. The experience was probably all the
better for us since we stayed at a biological station just below the
cloud forest, that also served as an Ecolodge, and had an onsite
ornithologist who took us up to find the Resplendent Quetzal. We were
fortunate in getting a good view of a female. Later he helped us seek
out the Long-tailed Manakin and Blue-crowned Motmot (and an accidental
sloth) at lower elevations. The famous "Skywalk" didn't produce too
much aside from a Gray Hawk, Emerald Toucanets, a Gray-breasted
Wood-wren and a Ruddy Treerunner. (And possibly the sound of
Three-wattled Bellbirds, but ever-respectful of the 'Stay on Trail'
signs, we couldn't find them through the canopy.) Monteverde had a
Hummingbird garden which attracted the pesky little things to eye-level
en masse. That was great to watch, especially the sheer numbers of
birds that were visiting these 5 or 6 feeders. For hummingbirds (that I
got pictures of), there were Violet Sabrewings, Green-crowned
Brilliants, Purple-throated Mountaingems, Magenta-throated Woodstars,
Fiery-throated and Stripe-tailed Hummingbirds, and Green Violetears.
For non-hummingbirds the feeder also attracted Bananaquits and Common
Bush-tanagers. Some of the other birds in the area were:
San Luis: Green Hermit, Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Mottled Owl,
Streak-headed Woodcreeper, Yellow-throated Euphonia, Slate-throated
Redstart, Boat-billed Flycatcher, Rufous-and-white Wren, Brown Jay
Monteverde: Azure-hooded Jay, Black Guan, Yellowish Flycatcher,
Gray-throated Leaftosser, Black-faced Solitaire, Three-striped Warbler,
Ruddy Pigeon

We stayed on a beach in Tamarindo for a few days to recover a little.
The area around Tamarindo itself had some good stuff - Inland we spotted
Double-striped Thick-knees and Ruddy Quail-doves (plus Scissor-tailed
Flycatchers, Groove-billed Anis and American Kestrels) in the farmland.
In town there were White-breasted Magpie Jays, a White-collared
Puffbird, Stripe-headed Sparrows and Rufous-collared Wrens, and even
once a pair of White-fronted Amazons that flew into the tree by the
pool. On the coast (on the beach immediately around the corner to the
south of Tamarindo), there was a pair of Collared Plovers, some Ruddy
Turnstones, 6 Sanderlings, 2 Surfbirds, 2 American Oystercatchers and a
Whimbrel. On the sandy beach at Tamarindo there were many Brown
Pelicans, many, many Black Terns, Sandwich Terns, Elegant Terns,
Magnificent Frigatebirds, a Royal Tern, an Osprey, a Crested Caracara,
and an immature Common Black Hawk.

I had listened to 3 separate (ornithological) sources which recommended
a Palo Verde "birdwatching" tour. (The field guide also makes the
Tempisque basin sound compelling, so I had good reason to believe
them.) This tour, at least as conducted out of Tamarindo, was not worth
it all (this was $85/person!!). We were driven all the way out there to
get only about 40 minutes in the boat, and worse, the guides clearly
knew very little about the wildlife we were seeing (aside from their
names). They barrelled right at a poor croc who was sitting on a sand
bank, and then when it got scared and started to move, they yelled at us
to 'take a picture before it goes back in the water'. (Not that I'm an
expert, but having been on a Mary River tour in the Northern Territory
of Australia, I knew that they're instinctively threatened by anything
bigger than them. It is possible to 'coast' a boat parallel to a croc
so that you can get very close without inciting it to flee, but you have
to cut the motor which these guys wouldn't do. Our Aussie guide
grounded the boat right next to one of the crocs, and then after we
(very apprehensively) took the photos, he asked "Want to see how fast
they move?...", jumped on the bow of the boat, spread his arms to look
like a giant croc head, and then suddenly banged them together like a
croc snapping his jaws. That poor reptile took off so fast you couldn't
even see it. That guy KNEW something about crocodiles. These
gentlemen, on the other hand... But I digress.) We were pretty
disgusted, and thanks to this, the entire day trip yielded less in terms
of photo ops or bird counts than the 5 minutes we had at polluted Rio
Tarcoles! The only bright spot was that the tour leader spotted a
Jabiru circling over the park headquarters. The other species? 3 or 4
Snowy Egrets (which our guide amusingly kept calling "Cattle Egrets"),
big flocks of Cattle Egrets, 1 or 2 Great Egrets, maybe 4 Wood Storks,
many Olivaceous Cormorants, 2 or 3 Anhingas, 1 Little Blue Heron, 2
adult and 1 imm. Yellow-crowned Night Herons, around 6 White Ibis, a
Lesser Yellowlegs, a few Spotted Sandpipers, and a flock of what I
supposed were Least Sandpipers (my binocs had been soaked by our Miami
Vice-type croc chase by that point).

Whenever we return to Costa Rica, I think we would go to Tortuguero and
Cano Negro National Parks in the northeast (despite their reputed
over-crowdedness, just for lowland Caribbean species, the Great Green
Macaw, lowland tanagers, and the Nicaraguan Grackle). Then there's also
Corcovado National Park for the Pacific slope species that we missed
(including the King Vulture).

All-in-all, it was an excellent trip.

As a footnote, after entering my sightings for the 2 weeks into my
birding database and running some reports, I noticed that my global
lifelist just passed 1,000 (1037) and my North America list (which I
hadn't run in years) is now at 503. Cool! (People down there had
been asking me what my NA count was and I was guessing - oh, y'know 300
to 400...) I should run that query more often.

Good birding and Happy New Year!

Christine Vadai
Mill Creek, WA