Whether due to excitement for waking up my first morning in Costa Rica, or perhaps because we'd spent most of the day traveling the day before, I found myself awake at 4:30am on our first morning. Knowing that we had a full day ahead of us, I decided not to get up and explore the gardens in the dark, but instead to lie in bed and listen to see what I could hear and possibly identify. The Hotel Bougainvilla is not far away enough from residential areas to minimize the noise of people starting their cars, trucks and motorcycles going down the street, even though when you are in the gardens, you feel like you are miles away. Interestingly, the first "heard" bird that I could identify was a Grey-necked Wood Rail doing it's crazy "cartoon walk" call in the distance. (Well, that's what I think of when I hear it - judge for yourself here. Xeno-canto is such a great site for stuff like this!) Next up were the ubiquitous Clay-colored Thrush and then many sounds I could not identify. I understand that Clay-colored Thrush actually has quite a repertoire, so I might have been hearing more of them than I recognized. Something that I seemed to forget from the last time I was about this far south, is how fast the light seems to change. Daylight and night are almost the same length of time, but it seems like the transition between the two go very quickly. Soon after it was light, we headed out to the gardens again for a few hours birding before breakfast and transferring to our next location - my hopes were high for seeing Prevost's and White-eared Ground Sparrows, which are not common, but are seen here. We started the day with a Blue-crowned Motmot in the shadows that didn't have any tail rackets. (And I have just learned that the Blue-crowned Motmot complex has just been split into six species - so to be taxonomically correct, I should say that we say a Blue-diademed Motmot.) Throughout the few hours that we wandered the garden, we watched a young Clay-colored Thrush ignoring food on a feeder just a few feet away while trying to subdue a butterfly deep in a hedge, and Pamela spotted a Squirrel Cuckoo while I chased around a Rufous-collared Sparrow hoping to improve on the photos that attempted in the previous day's waning light. IAfter a wonderful breakfast buffet that included the freshest of fruits, pinto y gallo, and some excellent coffee, we went up to grab our bags and then meet our driver.
The gentleman that was to take us from Hotel Bougainvilla to Selva Verde was named Eric Campos - and every minute of the ride from one place to the next was great with him. We stopped along the way to pick-up bug repellent and water, and he joined us to make sure everything went smoothly, as my Spanish is poor at best (something I am hoping to remedy over the next few years). For no reason other than generosity and hospitality, he also picked out and bought us a ripe mango, which was amazingly delicious! For the few hours trip through Braulio Carrillo National Park and the cloud forest, we talked about everything from the areas we traveled through, to the few years he and his wife spent working in NYC. It was obvious that he loved his country - something that we would experience regardless of where we were. Everyone seemed to be an ambassador for Costa Rica, talking about the wonderful food and land and weather and parks and flora and fauna, and they are very proud of the preservation work that the country has done, and they understand how much tourism - and especially eco-tourism - can be good for the country and it's economy.
When we arrived at Selva Verde in the early afternoon, we discovered that our room wasn't quite ready yet, but they were happy to store our bags if we wanted to explore the grounds a bit, which we happily did. The first bird that Pamela spotted, right along one of the side trails from the main boardwalk was a Grey-necked Wood Rail.
We then headed back to the reception desk to learn that our room was ready, and brought our luggage to the room. I knew from the moment that we'd arrived that I was going to love this place. There are well marked, covered pathways (that are surprisingly unobtrusive) that lead from the different buildings -so even if it is raining (which it often seems to do on our vacations) you could still be outdoors and immersed in nature without really getting wet. Thankfully, that was not the case for this vacation for us. The rooms are basic, clean and comfortable, and I was very comfortable there. Meals are served buffet style and again were always very good with a nice variety for each of the three days and nights that we spent there. As with many other eco-lodges, they do have bird feeding stations set-up, though they didn't seem to get as much action as others I've seen - probably because we were there at a time when there was plenty of food to be found in the nearby forest. Not that the feeders didn't attract any nice birds - future posts will show that simply is not the case!
That afternoon/evening, we participated in an evening bird walk, and learned about some of the other areas of the property, and were treated to looks at some species there that are common there like Orange-billed Sparrows more Chestnut-mandibled Toucans, Social Flycatchers, Olive-backed and Yellow-crowned Euphonias, and my first (of many) Black-cheeked Woodpeckers. We'd also spotted Silver-throated Tangers which I'd been hoping to see. The best birds of the day though had to be three Great Green Macaws the flew over us. No photos unfortunately - I was too busy admiring these big, beautiful (loud!) members of the Psittacidae family, to try to take any late evening in-flight photos. (Which I'm not good at to begin with)
The day wasn't over yet though. After dinner that evening, they also had a night walk which I was very excited for. There were so many people attending, they had to break it up into two groups! We didn't encounter any night birds, but really, that's not what this walk was about...
Just before wrapping it up for the night, I did find one last creepy crawly, a rather large centipede that I've not got an ID on yet, but maybe that's just as well:
