Subject: [Tweeters] trip to Costa Rica (long)
Date: Apr 27 08:30:37 2005
From: Denny Granstrand - dgranstrand at charter.net


Hi Tweeters,

My wife, Chris, and I went to Costa Rica from April 8 through April 16. We
took the advice of George Gertz and stayed at the Trogon Lodge which is
about 70 kilometers south of San Jose in the cloud forest, Laguna Lodge
which is on the Caribbean coast near Tortuguero National Park and Hotel
Villa Lapas which is next door to Carrara National Park on the Pacific
coast. I bought a new camera for the trip -- a Panasonic DCM-FZ20 digital
with a 12X zoom. It certainly came in handy, though I did struggle with
the focus. Photos of some of the birds and other animals I saw in Costa
Rica are in the Costa Rica folder on my website (link is in the signature line)

Trogon Lodge was in an incredible setting. The road to it was on the crest
of the continental divide and dropped down about 2000 feet, with Trogon
Lodge being at the bottom of the hill and at the top of the Savegre
Valley. The grounds of the lodge were incredible. There were birds all
over the place. We joined a group the first morning to see Resplendent
Quetzals, the most beautiful bird in the Western Hemisphere. They are an
amazing green color, with the male having very long upper tail covert
feathers and a very cute crest on its head. There was a nest close to the
road about three km down the valley. A good-sized group was standing in
audience waiting for the male and female to change places on the
nest. When we got there, the male's long upper tail covert feather was
sticking out of the nest hole. We wandered up the hill from the nest a
ways and were treated to a female Collared Trogon that sat still so that we
got a great view. Shortly after, the female quetzal returned to the nest
and the male flew out. Both birds were in view at the same time, though
the male had flown to a tree about 100 feet away.

Leo, the manager of the lodge, was the leader of that trip. After we
returned for breakfast, he took me out for two hours of birding in a park
near the lodge. He was one of those great people you meet far too
infrequently. He would see a bird and call to me, "My friend, I have a
fantastico bird!" And he found lots of fantastico birds! I had taken one
of Yakima Valley Audubon's shade grown coffee t-shirts with me. When we
checked out to leave Trogon Lodge, I gave it to me and insisted he put it
on for a photo. He seemed excited to be treated with it.

We then drove back to San Jose and searched for the Presidente Hotel, where
we were to be picked up by a bus the next morning. I had wanted to get
there before dark, but we didn't make. San Jose has more than one million
people but only about three street signs. It is a very difficult place to
get around and find the place for which you are searching. After asking
directions many times, thank goodness for Chris's Spanish skills, we
finally got to the hotel. They graciously let us park our rental car in
their secure parking lot for the next two days.

We went by bus to the Caribbean coast, then got on a boat for the trip to
Laguna Lodge. Many birds were seen on the way. We stopped for breakfast,
which I ate quickly and then went out back to try to find some birds. The
restaurant had a butterfly garden, which along with many incredible
butterflies, had Blue-jeans Frogs. They are little red frogs with blue
legs. I think they are among the poisonous frogs of Central America.

The first morning at Laguna Lodge, I hired a private guide to take me into
Tortuguero National Park. The main, possibly the only way, to see the park
is in a boat. Darryl was from Toronto. He lived with his Tico (as Costa
Ricans are called) wife in the village of Tortuguero. The park was
incredible, with huge trees in the rain forest and birds calling and
singing all of the time. Chris went with Wendy, our guide for that portion
of the trip, and the rest of her group. I thought that I would see more
birds with a private guide and I was right. Darryl showed me lots of birds
and other animals that Wendy's group didn't see. She did find, though, a
Nicaraguan Grackle, which I missed on the trip.

In the afternoon, Chris and I went with Wendy's group on another boat trip
and saw lots that I didn't see in the morning. We found monkeys working
their way through the trees right by the canal. In a ten minute span, we
got great looks at Mantled Howler Monkeys, Central American Spider Monkeys,
and White-faced Monkeys.

We flew back to San Jose, took a taxi to get our car, and headed to Hotel
Villa Lapas on the Pacific Coast next door to Carrara National Park. The
hotel grounds covered over 400 acres of wonderful rain forest. The first
evening, I drove down to the bridge over the Tarcoles River and watched
Scarlet Macaws flying past from the rain forest to the mangroves where they
roost for the night. I saw between 20 and 25 fly past, several of the
right overhead.

On our first morning there, we went on a Jungle Crocodile boat tour on the
Tarcoles River. The Tarcoles River has American Crocodiles, which can be
seen from the highway bridge over the river. The guide on the boat was a
very good birder and bird spotter. We got great looks at lots of birds
including Mangrove Black Hawks and Torquise-browed Motmots, which Chris
spotted in the middle of a bush beside the river.

The highlight was when the boat pilot got out on a small island to feed a
plucked chicken to a crocodile named Fidel Castro. They had named other
crocs Saddam Hussien and Osama Bin Ladin. Chris asked if they had one
named George Bush. The guide said they had to many American tourists to do
that. Chris told him she still thought it was a great idea. So, the pilot
got out on the island, the crocodile walked up to him and he dropped the
chicken in its wide-open mouth. I wondered why the croc didn't try for a
larger meal. It seemed to be pretty crazy to get within five feet of
something that had two-inch long teeth.

That afternoon, we were taken by Mario, a guide at Villa Lapas, on their
skywalk, a trail down the mountainside with suspension bridges over four
ravines. We were joined by two waiters from the restaurant who hadn't been
on the skywalk before. The bridges were up in the middle of the canopy,
anywhere from 100 to 150 feet above the bottom of the ravine. It was
incredible to be that high up in the canopy. We saw two Kinkajous, a
member of the raccoon family and about the size of a large raccoon,
sleeping in a tree. They were as cute as can be!

As we got onto the third of the four bridges, Mario spotted four or five
Scarlet Macaws perched in a tree across the ravine. I took a couple of
photos and then hurried ahead to see if I could see them through the trees
on the other side. I got great views, and many photos of them. Chris and
the others joined me and we passed our binoculars around for all to see
these magnificent birds. After a while, from the other side of a thick
tree, we heard a loud "whuump, . . . whuump (I can't think of any other way
to describe it), which turned out to be the wingbeats of a King
Vulture. Mario looked up and spotted one overhead, which Chris saw but I
missed. I ran back to the suspension bridge and soon saw one soaring
overhead with many Turkey and Black Vultures. Chris said she saw three
soaring. While I was taking photos of one of them, Mario spotted one
perched in a tree across the ravine. It was a pretty intense ten minutes,
with Scarlet Macaws in one tree and a King Vulture in another.

That night, on a tip from a birding guide staying with an English couple at
the hotel, I drove a short distance away and found two Black and White Owls
perched on a power wire. Both were within 15 feet of street lights, which
I thought was unusual.

The next morning we went to Carrara National Park with Mario. That turned
out, I think, to be a mistake. I wish I had hired a guide from the park,
since I think he (or she) would have found more birds than Mario. We did
see many wonderful birds, though.

We checked out of Hotel Villa Lapas and headed north into the Guanacaste
section of Costa Rica, the northwest Pacific area. I wanted to drive until
I saw a White-throated Magpie-Jay. We saw some beautiful country, drove
through the worse potholes I have ever seen (the pavement was so potholed,
some cars were driving on the shoulder!) and finally found two
White-throated Magpie-Jays. They are an incredibly beautiful bird that
really doesn't get the publicity they deserve.

I ended up with about 185 species and 115 lifers in eight days. I missed
enough of my target birds that I am already dreaming about our next trip to
Costa Rica. Here are the highlights:

At Trogon Lodge and the Savegre Valley:

Black Guan
Resplendent Quetzal
Collared Trogon
Emerald Toucanet
White-throated Mountain Gem
Magnificent Hummingbird
Long-tailed Silky-Flycatcher
Tufted Flycatcher
Black-capped Flycatcher
Ochraceous Wren (one of the "fantastico" birds)
Yellow-thighed Finch
Sooty Robin
Mountain Robin
Collared Redstart
Flame-colored Tanager
Silver-throated Tanager
Spangled-cheeked Tanager
Blue-gray Tanager




At Laguna Lodge and Tortuguero National Park:

Boat-billed Heron
Bare-throated Tiger-Heron
Sungrebe
Great Black Hawk
Chestnut-billed Toucan
Collared Aracari
Mealy Parrot
Brown-hooded Parrot
White-crowned Parrot
Red-lored Parrot
Great Potoo
Mangrove Cuckoo
Amazon Kingfisher
Green Kingfisher
Ringed Kingfisher
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Long-tailed Tyrant (at the breakfast stop with the frogs)
Montezuma Oropendola


At Hotel Villa Lapas and Carrara National Park:

Magnificent Frigatebird
King Vulture
Mangrove Black Hawk -- adult and immature
Plumbeous Kite
American Swallow-tailed Kite
Gray Hawk
Roadside Hawk -- only saw one the entire trip, which surprised me
Scarlet Macaw
Squirrel Cuckoo
Striped Cuckoo
Black and White Owl
Scaly-breasted Hummingbird
Steely-vented Hummingbird
Baird's Trogon
Slaty-tailed Trogon
Lattice-tailed Trogon
Torquoise-browed Motmot
Rufous-tailed Jacamar
Royal Flycatcher
Rose-throated Becard
Orange-throated Mamakin

Of the neo-tropical migrants that would have soon been on their way north,
I saw:

Swainson's Thrush
Wilson's Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Prothonotory Warbler

It was a wonderful trip!

Denny




* Yakima, WA *
* dgranstrand at charter.net *
* Denny's bird photos can be seen online at: *
http://granstrand.net/gallery/