Black Vultures – Okay, we’re not pretty…useful, not pretty.
White-throated Magpie Jay
American Crocodiles – Tempisque River
Orange-fronted Parakeet
Howler
Bananaquit
Rufous-naped Wrens
Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Oropendola Colony
Orchid
Clay-colored Thrush
Stick Insect
Variegated Squirrel
I’m Done…
Decades ago, some friends and I planned to drive the Pan-American Highway from Vancouver BC to Tierra Del Fuego. It never happened. The 1956 VW van I’d rebuilt and camperized never made it to Costa Rica — the government of that country took the time to us well. I finally got to the, for me, fabled highway. Not as glamorous as I thought, incidentally. More important, I got to experience Costa Rica’s wonderful wildlife.
Howler Monkey
Ferruginous Pygmy Owl
Red-legged Honeycreeper
Crested Currasow
Streak-backed Oriole
Black-cowled Oriole
Jabiru
Black-headed Trogon
Turquoise-browed Motmot
Yellowish Flycatcher
White-fronted Amazon
Monteverde Waterfall
We needed our down jackets up here. After a few nights of winds strong enough to move furniture, plus intermittent rain, we finally entered Monteverde’s Cloud Forest. Noisier than we expected. Three-wattled Bellbirds are the main culprits. Although they make, we think, some of the loudest bird calls anywhere, they are devilishly difficult to track down — even when they open their big mouths and bellow. But Bellbirds aren’t the only prizes. The Resplendent Quetzal tops the list of Cloud Forest must-sees. We get lucky. Gorgeous. So many more birds in this delightful country. I recorded over eighty lifers in Costa Rica and missed a few hundred more.
Three-wattled Bellbird
Crested Guan
Resplendent Quetzal
Violetear
Turquoise-browed Motmot
Hoffman’s Woodpecker
Palm Tanager
White-eared Ground Sparrow
Bird Noetz 