The Hallowed Honeymoon Hummingbird Hunt - Costa Rica - Part 5 - Arenal Day 2

Day 5 started off at the fruit feeders beside the restaurant. Lots of activity here, but much of the same species. A family of Coati and a family of Great Currasow were superb entertainment though.

Montezuma Orpendola

Baby Currasow

Female Great Currasow

Lake Arenal from the Observatory lodge

Green Hermit

Coati Family

Coati

Baby Coati - That tail

Baby Coati

Coati

Male Great Currasow

Male Great Currasow

Arenal Volcano




Palm Tanager


Cool cloud formation over the volcano

Black Striped Sparrow

From the restaurant we made our way towards some trails, however the weather decided to go against us as torrential rain showers came in. We had prepared for this, however, with purchasing some decent ponchos prior to the trip. These were invaluable over the course of the holiday, but even with these on, the rain was abysmal. A convenient shelter on the trail was availed of and we sat down to wait it out. 

"At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge." - Poncho birding at it's best

 Lake Arenal from our cabin

Poncho birding
Poncho Birding in amazing rain forest

Amazingly whilst sat here, a Jaguarundi ran out of the forest and crossed the trail in front of me. Amazing looking animal

With the rain having hampered things slightly uphill, it was time to make our way downwards and on to La Paz. We slowly worked downhill, seeing birds like Swallow Tailed Kites, White Hawk, Barred Hawk, Grey Crowned Flycatcher, Southern Rough Winged Swallow and Grey Breasted Martin.




A tatty Swallow Tailed Kite - Luckily most of these we saw were more handsome than this one, Incredible birds

Grey Capped Flycatcher




We then took a quick spin up along lake Arenal, seeing some nice wetland species such as Anhinga, Great White and Snowy Egrets and Pied Billed Grebes.

Great White Egret

Northern Jacana
Pied Billed Grebes

From Arenal it was a long drive to La Paz, nabbing birds such as Harris's Hawk and Grey Hawk en route. 

Vicious road works were present at the base of the hills which held us up the better part of an hour, but we made it to our hotel in time for a good meal and a nice couple of cold beers. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finnish Focus On...Taiga And Tundra Bean Geese

Image
Have been meaning to write a post on Tundra and Taiga Bean Goose identification for a while now. Wildfowl are my guilty pleasure. I've always enjoyed looking for them. The escape issue turns a lot of people off them. Grey geese can turn people off further still. Since moving to Finland, being able to spend long hours in the field watching both types of Bean Goose has been a joy, especially considering how rare they are in Ireland.  Tundra Bean Geese are the far commoner species to occur here, making them the easier to photograph and so a good place to start. Tundra Bean Goose Tundra Bean Goose - careful assessment of structure is most important when identifying bean geese. Whilst there are size differences between the smaller Tundra and larger Taiga, this plays out most obviously in their structure and shape. Both species, rear on, can be extremely difficult to pick apart without the structural clues visible. The head and bill structure are crucial in Bean Goose identification. Thi...
Read more

How To Be A Rarity Finder

Image
A recent statistic popped up in my various social media memories.  To date I've been birding on 4 continents, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, and found rare birds on each of them. Pretty happy with that. 😎 So thought a post on how to go about finding rarities and importantly, how to BE a rarity finder was worth throwing up. They may sound like the same thing, but I have different views on both. One is methodology. The other is an outlook. Combine the best of both and you will achieve your goals. First up, the Methodology . 1. KNOW YOUR BIRDS This is an obvious one (though people may have different perceptions on what this takes.)  It stands to reason though, that to find a Lesser Yellowlegs as a vagrant, you're going to have to know what a Redshank looks like (in all plumages)...and Greenshank ...and Wood Sandpiper ...and then...just to be really fecking sure... Greater Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpiper and Marsh Sandpiper too. Lesser Yellowlegs - I've found 6 Lesser...
Read more

Racism and Bigotry in Birding

Image
It's hard to pick up a newspaper these days and not read about something the new moniker "alt-right" are up to. The rise of racism to more mainstream levels is undeniable. Do we, as birders, need to have this discussion though? Do we know it's out there, among us? I'm pretty sure we do. It's tempting to believe the best about yourself, and this extrapolates to ourselves as a group; as birders. It's tempting to believe that the hobby of birding, taking place in nature, with a holistic, interconnected view of nature, would not harbour backwards, ignorant, scumbag neanderthals, that would discriminate on the basis of colour, creed, ethnicity, sex or sexual preference...over the past two years I've learned, sadly, that this temptation would lead you to the wrong conclusion. Birding, like any other microcosm of humanity, has it's share of these regrettable people. When I say over the past two years, I mean, perhaps, I have been just as ...
Read more