Costa Rica - Day 2

Arenal Trails eBird list: https://ebird.org/checklist/S206267742​​​​​​​

Day 1 was epic, a proper taste, maybe actually just a half lick, of what the rest of the adventure would be like… Yes, we did see almost 70 lifers, but we were brand-spankin new in the country. I had a sneaking suspicion that we would have few days with as many lifers, but I was wrong. Day 2, our full day to spend hiking the Arenal trails was epic. Seriously epic. Bright and early, right at sunrise, we met up on the lodge deck to watch the feeders, skies, and surrounding forest for new species. I’ve always been a huge fan of visible migration (VisMig), especially high volume VisMig. It’s part of what hurt so bad about missing last fall’s Chicago migration fallout. I love field extrapolation, counting massive numbers of birds, and experiencing spectacles of a lot of birds. This morning, we experienced a very large flight of Band-tailed Pigeons, with thousands of birds streaming over and along the lakeshore in large flocks heading towards the volcano. Jorge said they were heading in the masses to Southern Wax Myrtle trees to feed on the fruits. It was pretty amazing to see so many flocks of hundreds streaming by at all times. In atypical fashion, I didn’t spend all of my time sitting counting flocks, I was preoccupied. Black-striped Sparrows, Violet-headed Hummingbirds, Crowned Woodnymphs, Carmiol’s Tanagers, Black-and-Yellow Tanagers, and more were all needing my attention as the pigeons poured over. I’m sure that I missed out on a lot of large flocks, but according to the many photos I took, I was able to count 2,973 individual Band-tailed Pigeons (plus a few hundred I didn’t photograph), meaning we secured the new Costa Rica high count for the species! 

Now, enough about Band-tailed Pigeons, onto the *real fun* birding of the day. We took a quick breakfast break and were shortly off on foot to explore the trails, gardens, and surrounding area of the lodge. As soon as we left the deck area, we checked the Honduran Pine stand for anything, and I spotted a warbler zipping around in the crowns of the trees, which turned out to be a perfect adult male Townsend’s Warbler, an uncommon winter bird in the area. Making our way over to the small museum the lodge has, we picked up Wedge-billed and Spotted Woodcreepers and Golden-hooded Tanagers. Once in the parking lot for the small museum, we were greeted by a Black-faced Solitaire, White-collared Manakin, one of many Mistletoe Tyrannulets (a bird I would mis-identify about a thousand times over the next two weeks), some Southern House Wrens, a Buff-rumped Warbler, and a pair of Broad-billed Motmots. While poking around after that initial frenzy of birds, some other tourists in the parking lot shouted something along the lines of “Look at that egret flying!”. It was not an egret, and when I turned around, I was surprised to see a very white hawk perched not too far away. Now, like I’ve said, I did not know much about Costa Rican birds, but I did know that one. White Hawk is indeed a white hawk. We left that parking lot with not too much else, a Rufous Mourner and Orange-billed Sparrow were darting around in the Rainbow Eucalyptus trees, and a Dusky-capped Flycatcher caught bugs way overhead. Moving on to a butterfly garden area, we picked up Scaly-breasted Hummingbird, Bananaquit, some more Black-faced Solitaires, Stripe-breasted Wren, and a Green Hermit. I spent some time photographing the Scaly-breasted and Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, producing a few of my cleanest hummingbird photos I’ve ever gotten. 

Jorge led us down another road into a small clearing, pulled out the speaker, and played for the Semiplumbeous Hawk. In typical Jorge fashion (i.e. conjuring up fantastic birds out of thin air), two Semiplumbeous Hawks blasted in a tall tree at the edge of the clearing. Peter and Mom’s lifer Tropical Parula poked around some trees, and White-breasted Wood Wrens babbled from some deep part of the jungle. Continuing along this road, Melodious Blackbirds, Yellow-faced Grassquits, Southern Rough-winged Swallows, Collared Aracaris, and more White-ruffed Manakins were the sights and sounds. 

Yeah, all of that is a lot of birds, but that doesn’t compare to the trail we were about to start hiking. Descending into quite thick rainforest, we began to rack up the goodies. Nightingale Wren, Song Wren, Thicket Antpitta, White-throated Shrike-Tanager, Long-billed and Tawny-faced Gnatwrens, Scale-crested Pygmy Tyrants, Tawny-capped and Lesser Greenlets, Yellow-olive Flatbill, and a whole lot of other birds bombarded us in both vocalizations and views in just a few short minutes. Continuing along, Red-headed Barbet, Western Woodhaunter, Spotted Barbital, and a Rufous-tailed Jacamar were a few more species to add to our swiftly rising day list. Over the next few miles, we got great views of a gorgeous White-throated Shrike-Tanager, Black-throated Wren, Russet Antshrike, Rufous Motmot, Streak-crowned Antvireo, Slaty Antwerp, Slaty-capped Flycatchers, Sulphur-rumped Flycatcher, Black-thighed Grosbeak, and more. One of the last trails we birded on took back into another dense bit of forest, and all in the span of 5 minutes, we had Dull-mantled, Spotted, Bicolored, and Dusky Antbirds, 4 of the species all in one bush!

Before we knew it, 5 hours had passed and we had hiked quite a few miles. We had also seen a whopping 119 species(!!) in those 5 hours, and still had the entire afternoon to bird! We sat down for lunch back at the lodge, scrolled through photos from the morning, talked about what we wanted to do for the afternoon, and settled on leaving the Arenal trails to do some roadside birding nearby. Dad hung back at the lodge, so Jorge, Mom, Peter, and I rolled out and drove for a few minutes to check out some roadside pulloffs Jorge had in mind. Leaving the lodge, we saw a Black Phoebe which surprised me with its striking lack of white feathers, Green Kingfisher, and the same Keel-billed Motmot as the evening before. 

Our first roadside stop was fantastic, I spotted a Northern Emerald Toucanet, we picked up Gray-capped Flycatcher, White-shouldered Tanager, Black-headed Saltator, a Yellow-olive Flatbill, and more. Continuing along the road, Peter spotted a gorgeous Gartered Trogon, we had some brown-hooded Parrots fly by, and eventually we reached the end of the road, where we saw a continuing 2nd cycle Laughing Gull, another local rarity. All of that was good and fun, but the best stop along the road was entirely unexpected. I saw a small flycatcher I suspected to be an elaenia sitting on a fence line, and because I wasn’t sure of anything, I want to stop and check it out. I’m quite glad we stopped to look for the flycatcher had disappeared, because as soon as we stepped out of the car, two Yellow-eared Toucanets(!!!) flew across the road in front of us, a Short-billed Pigeon passed overhead, and a Streak-headed Woodcreeper poked around a bare tree trunk uphill. Celebrating the toucanets, I decided to actually go down the road to check out the flycatcher I had seen a few minutes before, which was also a good idea. One of the first birds Jorge pointed out when we stopped at this bend in the road was a Tawny-chested Flycatcher, sorry, make that two Tawny-chested Flycatchers, yet another fantastic and locally hard to find species! Peter and I got fantastic photos of them as well which was nice, as the existing photos for the species on eBird aren’t quite awesome. Standing at this bend in the road, the birds started to mob in. Cinnamon Becard, Fawn-throated Foliage-Gleaner, Red-throated Ant-Tanager, Violet Sabrewing, Rufous Motmot, Yellow-bellied Elaenia, Black-throated and Bay Wrens, Chestnut-headed Oropendolas, Black-cowled Oriole, Blue Dacnis, and more kept us occupied for almost an hour. Link to roadside stops: https://ebird.org/tripreport/318731

Back at the lodge for dinner, the last owl we needed reasonably for the area was Black-and-White, which we lucked out with while leaving dinner. Another group there just happened to be spotlighting a pair in the trees above the restaurant, so that was a nice and easy one to tick off, and it meant we got to get some extra sleep (actually download and cull photos…). Before that, we took a short walk around the grounds to look one last time for an Eyelash Viper, one of the "Christmas" patterned individuals. 

This was a crazy good day. 153 species on the day, 71 of which were lifers. This stacks two days of birding up to a towering 137 lifers, and 209 species. In my book, those are some good stats, and even more impressive that we were halfway (or more than) to the number I’d heard multiple people mention we’d see across the entire trip. That night, Peter and I talked about how much we’d see, completely unaware of the crazy numbers we’d put up by the end of the trip.