Costa Rica: Rancho Naturalista

After Monteverde, we headed for the metropolis of San Jose and we planned 4 nights in this location as it would be an easy place to base any of our day trips.  We teamed up with one of Costa Rica's finest bird guides, Serge Arias.  He is based out of Cartago which is a short distance east of San Jose and he took us to a couple of spots south and east of Cartago where the list of birds were quite different from the northern part where we spent our first nine days.  If planning a trip to Costa Rica, Serge is sure to be an asset for your trip.  

The first day, we headed to Rancho Naturalista, which is might be the best spot in Costa Rica to find the Snowcap, a hummingbird that was high on our list.  If you plan a trip to Costa Rica, please check out Rancho Naturalista and consider making it a destination on your list.

Since the Snowcap was our target bird, we might as well start off this post with that special little hummingbird.  We not only had a nice adult put on a show for us, but a juvenile was visiting the flowers as well.  This is a stunning a beautiful hummingbird!

 Snowcap

 Snowcap

Snowcap - Juvenile

Here is a video of the adult as well as it was visiting flowers.  Yes, there are people talking in the video, but it was a lot of fun!!!

Of course there were other hummingbirds as well as other species of birds.  

 White-necked Jacobin - Male

 White-necked Jacobin - Male

White-necked Jacobin - Female

  Crowned Woodnymph

 Garden Emerald

 Green-breasted Mango - Male

 Green-breasted Mango - Female

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

 Blue-gray Tanager

 Brown Jay

 Chestnut-headed Oropendula

 Dusky-capped Flycatcher

 Keel-billed Toucan

Olive-backed Euphonia

Gray-headed Chachalaca

 Banded Peacock

 Green Basilisk Lizard - closeup

 Green Basilisk Lizard - Look at the length of that tail!!!!

 Doris Longwing - Blue Morph

 Doris Longwing - Blue Morph

Malachite

After leaving Rancho Naturalista, we headed back to the city of Cartago.  On the way, Serge stopped at a pond on one of the campuses of a university.  This was a great stop because we got to add the Boat-billed Heron to our life lists.  If it wasn't for that enormous bill, it would look a little similar to the Black-crowned Night Heron which is very common in parts of the United States.  What a great addition!

 Boat-billed Heron

What a great first day that we spent with Serge.  The next day took us to another fabulous spot for birds and that will be covered in the next blog post. 

  

Costa Rica: The Hummingbirds of Monteverde

We visited 2 spots in Montverde that had hummingbird feeders for people to watch and enjoy the various hummingbirds.  The first spot we visited was the feeders at the cafe/coffee shop just outside of the entrance to the Monteverde Preserve.  The second spot we visited was the feeders at Selvatura which is another great birding spot near Monteverde.  However, this location also caters to tourists and zip-lining was probably one of the more popular activities they offered.  Some of the hummingbirds at Selvatura were very friendly and showed no fear on landing on your fingers while feeding at the feeders.  That in itself, is worth the visit.  

 Green-crowned Brilliant - Male

 Green-crowned Brilliant - Male

 Green-crowned Brilliant - Male

Green-crowned Brilliant - Female

 Lesser Violetear

 Purple-throated Mountain-gem - Juvenile

 Purple-throated Mountain-gem - Female

 Purple-throated Mountain-gem - Male

Purple-throated Mountain-gem - Male

Purple-throated Mountain-gem - Female

 Violet Saberwing

 Violet Saberwing

Violet Saberwing

 Coppery-headed Emerald

 Coppery-headed Emerald

Coppery-headed Emerald

 Green Thorntail - Female

Green Thorntail - Male

Green Hermit

The hummingbirds are definitely friendly!

Here are a couple of videos that show how friendly and trustworthy these hummers can be at the feeders.  Definitely a highlight in my life to have hummingbirds perched on my hands!  Unfortunately, the zipliners occasionally passed overhead at these feeders, so there is some unwanted and distracting zipping sounds in these videos.

Monteverde is definitely a place to put on your list if you have any plans to visit Costa Rica in the future.  I will have more, but different, hummingbirds coming up in some later posts from some places we visited elsewhere in Costa Rica.   

Costa Rica: Arenal to Monteverde

Our third 3-night destination was Monteverde, which is reality not far from Arenal Lodge Observatory as the crow flies.  However, traveling there would have taken about 8 hours on a bus.  But we found that there is a method that can shorten that distance to about 3 hours or so.  At Arenal Lodge, we signed up for the Jeep-Boat-Jeep trip.  This was really a fun option as it took us from Arenal Lodge to a spot on the shore of Lake Arenal where we boarded a boat that took us across the lake to another makeshift landing spot on the other side of the lake and then another transport over land on some back roads that eventually led us to the small community of Monteverde which is situated in the mountain cloud forests of Costa Rica.

Monteverde is well known for its Resplendent Quetzal, a bird that has been on my wish list, since forever!  So this stop was a must for me and was the focal point for our visit to Monteverde.  Located in mountain cloud forest meant that clouds rolled in and out creating foggy conditions throughout the day.  Our first morning was a trip to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, a known location for the quetzal.  We took the trail that was recommended and we found many other birds of interest but not the quetzal.  Once we returned to the beginning, Chris visited with one of the security guards there and he generously took some time to take us back in the forest and sure enough, he helped us find the Resplendent Quetzal.  My photos are of a juvenile and not an adult and with poor lighting, I had to concede that calendar photos were not going to happen, but just seeing the bird was a big thrill!

Resplendent Quetzal

Here are a few other species that we found in the Monteverde area.

Common-Tody Flycatcher

 White-eared Ground-Sparrow

White-eared Ground-Sparrow

Gray-breasted Wood-Wren

 Yellowish Flycatcher

Slaty-backed Nightingale-Thrush

 Common Chlorospingus

 Costa Rican Warbler

Orange-bellied Trogon

Silver-throated Tanager - Juvenile

However, I did add one more life bird to my list on this Jeep-Boat-Jeep trip, the Swallow-tailed Kite.  Hope to eventually add this species to my United States and ABA list, but for now I will take it!

Swallow-tailed Kite

Was going to include the hummingbirds from Monteverde, but think I will have to do an exclusive post on just the hummingbirds.  That will be completed much faster than this last post. I got a bit side tracked with other commitments, so hope to do better in the future to get this trip completely posted.