Costa Rica - The North Pacific Coast

Perhaps this blog should be titled birding the RIU Palace.

Being based in one place for the second week made it easy to fall into a routine. Up at dawn, a few hours birding before breakfast, a cold beer in the shade during the heat of the day and another spell birding just before sunset.

The gardens, beach, and tracks leading along the coast offered great birding opportunities and we had a couple of trips out to see more of the area. First bird, the Spotted Sandpiper I had missed as we left Tortuguero. They were to become a regular sighting along the beach as were the Brown Pelicans and Royal Terns.

Spotted Sandpiper

Brown Pelican

Brown Pelican

Royal Tern

Also seen daily along the beach were the Black Vultures, a Crested Caracara, and a juvenile Bare-throated Tiger-Heron.

Black Vulture

Black Vulture

Juvenile Bare-throated Tiger-Heron

Crested Caracara

The parrots seemed to change every morning with  different families squabbling in the tops of the trees but at least they were easy to find.

Orange-chinned Parakeet

Orange-fronted Parakeet

There were a pair of Pacific Screech Owls owls sitting in a tree, about five metres above a busy beach area in front of the hotel. They even had a wedding and a band playing under the tree one day but the owls seemed happy to stay.

Pacific Screech Owl

Magnificent Frigatebird

Magnificent Frigatebird

Sanderling

Below, my only Gull of the trip. You are always on dangerous ground when trying to identify juvenile gulls. The most common gull in Costa Rica is the Laughing Gull but this, I think, is the very similar Franklin's Gull.

Franklin's Gull - I think!

The only problem with birding the beach and particularly with the Monkey Bar area, is that every time you point your camera into the trees you get a crowd of people carrying bananas asking where the monkeys are. Boring, greedy, little animals, haven't these people heard about the birds?


And even more birds in the lanes behind the beaches.

A distant tree with two Hoffman's Woodpeckers, a Streak-backed Oriole a Tyrant Flycatcher  and a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Heavy crop of the flycatcher below.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Common Black Hawk

Black-headed Trogan

Canivet's Emerald Hummingbird

Hoffman's Woodpecker

Melodious Blackbird

Stripe-headed Sparrow

Great-tailed Grackle

We also had a trip out on the Tempisque River where I picked up a few more good birds. I got pictures of most of them but missed out on the White Ibis. I keep telling myself - get the record shot before you try for the perfect picture - but I keep forgetting.

Roseate Spoonbill

Wood Stork

Wood Stork

Green Heron

A great selection of birds. I should be really happy and probably would be, if a few people had not shown me superb pictures of a Turquise-browed Motmot taken in the hotel grounds on phone cameras. I looked for it all week but without success.

One final blog in the Costa Rica series still to come, covering a day out with a birding expert.