The Hallowed Honeymoon Hummingbird Hunt - Costa Rica - Part 6 - La Paz dispenser

Dispensing so many birds.

In actuality we managed a few birds in late evening the previous day, at our hotel.
These included Slaty Flower Piercer, Rufous Collared Sparrow and Talamanca and Scintillant Hummingbirds.

Views and light were far superior the next morning, however, and we killed some time on the trails behind the hotel, whilst waiting for La Paz waterfall gardens to open.

Birds seen at the hotel grounds included, Lesser Goldfinch, Yellow Bellied Siskin, and a particularly enjoyable tick, Louisiana Waterthrush. It's nice when you come across some of the north American species you're "familiar" with.


 Talamanca Hummingbird - Another recent split. Formerly Magnificant Humingbird
 Rufous Collared Sparrow - A rather tasty looking, if tame and common species.

 Scintillant Hummingbird- The only scintillants we saw were in La Paz. Little gems

 Talamanca Hummingbird

 Slaty Flowerpiercer
 Buff Throated Foliage Gleaner

After Breakfast we made our way to the gardens, but were again somewhat hampered by poor weather.

Nonetheless the hummingbird feeders here were productive with our main target of Black Bellied Hummingbird seen immediately.



Slate Headed Whitestart


 Black Bellied Hummingbird
 Brown Violetear
 Brown Violetear
 Green Thorntail


 Purple Crowned Fairy - One of the most striking hummingbirds we saw on the trip and one of the shiest

 Brown Violetear
Brown Violetear - A great site for this species too. This was to be the last we saw of them. Drab, as hummingbirds go, but not without charm.

 Green Hermit - La Paz offered excellent views of these. Everywhere else this species seemed extremely shy

 Chestnut Capped Brush Finch
 Checking for American Dipper on the river

 And American Dipper scored

 Dark Pewee - an ominously named bird



 Black Bellied Hummingbird

 La Paz rainclouds come uphill from the Caribbean plain below. I would like to visit again in drier weather, but we still did well here, with various tanagers, flycatchers, Black and White Warbler and other goodies.

After lunch it was time to make a move. A long drive to Rancho Naturalista was on the cards.

Hindsight is a great thing. Should I ever return to Costa Rica, and I hope to, I will never again go anywhere near the capital of San Jose. What should have been, at most 20 minutes to get around the city on the ring road motorway, took 3 hours. And from there an additional 3 or so on bad roads to Turialba. Never again.

If you ever must travel south from La Paz, do so in the wee hours, or go the long way, east around the mountains. We arrived into Rancho Naturalista around 8 p.m and they were good enough to have kept dinner in the oven for us. An unidentified owl species on the road up was to be our only owl sighting of the trip, though we did hear several species.

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