March 31: Rich Hoyer on the last half of his March tour to Costa Rica
Absolutely amazingly good weather continued for the latter half of the spectacular Costa Rica tour, which we just finished with about 450 species of birds and many other wonders of tropical natural history.
At Monteverde highlights were male Resplendent Quetzals sparring, Prong-billed Barbets building a nest, and lush cloud-forest vegetation, including this Prosthechea vespa, whose Necco-wafer perfume we stopped to imbibe twice – before and after seeing the barbets.
This Chiriqui Quail-Dove was surprisingly cooperative on our last morning at Monteverde.
Proof of the amazing weather was this view of Arenal Volcano, thankfully quiet during our visit.
At La Selva we were almost but not quite overwhelmed by the variety of birds starting with seven male Snowy Cotingas vying for the title of whitest white. This Rufous Motmot was the one of several additional species of big, showy birds we saw on our walks.
We ended up seeing three of these Eyelash Pit Vipers during the tour, quite amazing when you consider that I had only seen three others in all these years.
Any non-productive owling we spent was forgotten when we spotted our second Kinkajou and a Central American Woolly Opossum in the trees at our lodge, and the last-minute response from this Spectacled Owl was worth every minute of lost sleep.
One last birding walk at our lodge resulted in a memorable encounter with a pair of White Hawks, whose screams sounded like complaints to our ears but were probably the equivalent of sweet nothings to theirs.
A Green Basilisk warmed itself as we made our way to the bus for our departure back to San José.
One last birding stop at La Paz Waterfall Gardens for lunch had the added attraction of the hummingbird feeders, where we added two last species to the trip list amongst the seven jewels feeding here, including this female Green Thorntail.
Posted: March 31, 2015