Costa Rica - Day 1

Day 1 - Robledal Hotel -> San Luis Canopy -> Roadside Wetland Birding -> Arenal Observatory Lodge

I should preface all of these write-ups by saying this: I had almost no expectations going into this adventure. I didn’t know how many species we would see (I was told that we’d see between 350-400), I didn’t know what the birding, food, day-to-day life would be like, I was just along for the ride and excited to be there. I was so along for the ride that I didn’t even look at what all of the places looked like that we’d be staying at, I didn’t even really look too hard at the itinerary, and I hardly studied any birds. I had a small base of knowledge of what the common and a few of the more charismatic rarer species would look like, but I was not prepared for the space at which we would be seeing birds. I had done a bunch of eBird photo quizzes to familiarize myself with common species, but I quickly learned that the quiz algorithm failed to show the actual most common species… Anyways, onto the rundown.

We landed in San Jose quite late at night, meaning we couldn’t do any birding on the short drive from the airport to the Robledal Hotel, or any at the hotel. That didn’t stop us from hearing a Wood Stork flying over as we were checking out the grounds briefly. As soon as we woke up in the morning (real day 1), we were bombarded with a seriously impressive dawn chorus for an urban area. I found ,myself slightly overwhelmed by new sounds, some of which were similar enough to birds I’m familiar with in the US, so I was able to quickly catch on to some things. That oriole singing over there has to be Spot-breasted, the thing that sounds like a Red-bellied Woodpecker has to be Hoffman’s, etc. It was nice to be able to quickly understand what the majority of the birds around the hotel were, and out of the 40ish species we had, around 20 were lifers. One of the most exciting for me was a Masked Tityra, one of the only birds that I’ve had the name of stuck in my head for forever. Link to Robledal Hotel list: https://ebird.org/checklist/S206074750

Shortly after breakfast, we met Jorge (our guide), and headed off to Arenal. We stopped after a little ways at the San Luis Canopy for some birding and lunch, but mostly birding. Even after we were done birding a Green Hermit managed to fly straight into the restaurant and keep us on our toes. Anyways, we hopped out of the van into the rain and ducked under the awning of this roadside shorefront area, then Jorge led us through a doorway into a little slice of paradise. A covered deck on the backside of this place had feeder station absolutely teeming with birds. Emerald Tanagers, Silver-throated Tanagers, a Speckled Tanager(!!!), Scarlet-rumped Tanagers, Palm Tanagers, Blue-gray Tanagers, and more all flitted around at point blank range, giving incredible photo opportunities. Shortly after arriving, two Blue-and-Gold Tanagers joined the frenzy, which was our first really good bird of the trip. Crimson-collared Tanagers, Common Chlorospingus, Golden-hooded Tanager, Buff-throated Saltators, Tawny-capped Euphonias, Chestnut-capped Brushfinch, Bay-headed Tanager, and Black-cheeked Woodpeckers milled around the feeders, giving us fantastic photo ops. This stop taught me me three things that would carry through the trip: one being that I was incredibly thankful to have the 400 f2.8, the second being that random roadside sodas (restaurants) were gonna be the best food we would eat, and third, that I really knew nothing about Costa Rican birding. Link to San Luis Canopy List: https://ebird.org/checklist/S206152342

Another little ways down the road, Jorge stopped just before a large wetland and pasture area, which turned out to hold a great deal of good birds. Southern lapwing and Northern Jacana right out of the van, followed by Red-breasted Meadowlarks, a quick flyover Gray-rumped Swift, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, and after picking through a large swallow flock, Jorge pulled two Tree Swallows, a local rarity. Right as we were going to get some digiscope doc shots, a Peregrine Falcon ripped through the flock and flushed everything, and the swallows were not to be seen again. We asked Jorge if we were gonna have a hard time getting the swallows confirmed on eBird without documentation, and if the reviewers would accept it, to which he said “Oh no it’s alright, I am the reviewer, I’ll just confirm it”. I think that was the moment that Dad knew he could start to let loose with more jokes (I think his favorite part of the whole trip). Heading back to the van, I heard a few chip notes coming from the banana plantation behind us, and a short walk down the road into the plantation produced a Northern Tropical Pewee, Yellow-crowned Euphonia, Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Common Tody Flycatcher, and more. Link to list: https://ebird.org/checklist/S206152346

In retrospect, I think that the 68 lifers and easy 100+ species we saw on day 1 was a bit eye-opening to me, especially considering what I said above. I was not prepared even in the slightest for the pace at which we’d be seeing birds, and I wasn’t prepared for the birds themselves. What I was prepared for was getting a lot of photos, and making sure I was always photographing things I’d never even heard of. With that ability and Jorge there to help ID stuff, I was able to learn faster connecting the dots from what I saw, to photo, to name.