Costa Rica - Day 4

My favorite day of the trip. Even more of a favorite day than our surprise day in the Buenos Aires area, our day at Caño Negro was 100% my favorite. Bright and early we needed to be at the boat ramp; 6:00 a.m. sharp to be exact. Common Pauraque and (much better views of) Russet-naped Wood Rails escorted us to a quick breakfast before we were off to the dock. Barred Antshrike and a Gray-headed Dove in the parking lot were quite nice, and right at 6 we were out on the Rio Frio on Chambita’s boat. (Seriously, if you go to Caño Negro, do a tour with “Chambita’s Boat Tours”. He will show you birds. All of them.) Now, this boat was quite nice, low to the water, great for photography, and perfect for us all to see everything as the roof was raised a good ways. This early morning tour was our first of the day, we had another planned for the evening. This one was focused on the floodplains, as the river was flooded up to 4 meters, or about 13 feet, meaning that what should’ve been large expanses of low grassy fields was just water. It was really cool to see the tops of oil palm trees almost submerged by the river, only with the fronds poking out above the fruits. 

We saw quite a few familiar birds in the first few minutes, a lot of herons, egrets, ibis, Yellow-throated Vireo, Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Chestnut-sided Warblers, (one of the most abundant passerines of the whole trip interestingly enough), and Northern Waterthrush. Chamba took us into a small cove where we heard Slaty-headed Tody Flycatcher, a Dusky Antbird, Greenish Elaenias, and saw a few Yellow Tyrannulets. Another cove gave us our first American Pygmy Kingfisher, which I want to say a brief word on: This bird is ridiculously small. For everyone reading this who hasn’t heard of it or seen a photo of it (which probably wouldn’t do it justice), I want you to think of an American Goldfinch, or a Black-capped Chickadee. Now turn that goldfinch or chickadee into a kingfisher (pictured above). That is how ridiculously small the American Pygmy Kingfisher is, it’s absolutely unbelievable. Back to the rest of the birds… This cove brought us that, a lovely Pied Puffbird, good looks at a Bare-throated Tiger-Heron, and a few other miscellaneous birds. Moving on, we headed into a small channel through the grasses along some dense trees where we ran into a small pocket of birds, containing a wonderful male White-collared Manakin, an Olivaceous Piculet (yet another ridiculously small bird, North America’s smallest woodpecker, also the size of a goldfinch or Red-breasted Nuthatch), Slaty Spinetail, Canebrake Wren, and a calling Great Antshrike. Continuing our boat ride, we got back out into a much more open area and saw a whole array of goodies: Bat Falcon, Black-crowned Tityra, Greenish Elaenia, Green Ibis, killer Anhinga views, a Great-crested Flycatcher, a Golden-olive Woodpecker, Southern Lapwings, more wood rails, a boatload of Northern Jacanas and Groove-billed Anis, and more. We got to a point where the boat started to slow down, and suddenly the boat was being driven straight into a floating mat of grasses… Jorge said that Chamba heard a Yellow-breasted Crake in there, and I suppose that *the* way to see them is to drive the boat in their direction. Now, these birds are good at what they do, they won’t fly if they don’t have to, so we got to get fantastic views of this scarce species right out in the open on this floating mat. 

Another channel took alongside a large stand of Reticulate Senna, where the Yellow-tailed Oriole resides. Sadly, we could not coax one out one on either trip. Moving on (I think there’s a common theme here, we had a lot of birds to see and only 3 hours on the boat to see them!), we visited a Black-collared Hawk nest containing only a baby at the time we stopped to check, and a dense channel after that was our first chance at Green-and-Rufous Kingfisher. There, we did not see one dart across, but it would not be our only chance on this day. Passing a house that only could be accessed by boat, we got into another open area and saw a large group of Boat-billed Herons, a really funky and cool looking night-heron relative with massive buggy eyes and a honkin’ bill. Rounding some corners and snaking through bends in these aquatic pathways, Mom and I saw a Shiny Cowbird pass by the boat, and soon enough we found ourselves in another large expanse of grass. Chamba said he had recently seen a Pinnated Bittern in there, which got us excited as we had dipped on it at the Medio Queso wetlands the previous day. Sure enough, there it was! If you think American Bitterns do a good job making themselves look like a blade of grass, the Pinnated Bittern does it better. It’s also always fun to see a bittern looking head on while they’re pointed straight up, their eyes looking at you from that angle is quite funny. 

We had to get back to the dock area via the channel of the river that was the first spot to look for Green-and-Rufous Kingfisher, but sadly did not get one of those again. We did in fact get crushing views of a Pale-billed Woodpecker, a Pileated relative with an even more impressive head. Some Spectacled Caimans and large flocks of Vaux’s Swifts escorted us back to the boat ramp, and by the time we were back on land, it was lunchtime, and we were hungry. For the record, we ended our first boat trip with 122 species, a seriously awesome number. Fogon, a restaurant chain gave me my first “that’s the best chicken I’ve ever had” moment of the trip, and gave us great views of Lesser Swallow-tailed Swifts. Link to 1st boat tour: https://ebird.org/checklist/S206429891

Soon enough it was time to head back to the boat and head in the other direction, downriver, to focus more on forest birding rather than the floodplains. It was sunny, warm, and beautiful birding conditions. We stopped at some open branches over the water to look for some Common Pauraques which were precisely there. It was strange to see them roosting in trees over water, but it makes sense as there was absolutely no open ground for them. Working our way downriver, we hung a right and saw more American Pygmy Kingfishers, heard Northern Bentbills, Bare-crowned Antbirds, Tropical Royal Flycatchers, Red-throated Ant-Tanagers, Great and Barred Antshrikes, Black-crowned Tityras, Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet, Yellow Tyrannulet, Spot-breasted Wrens, and more. Chamba turned the boat back around and spotted a lesser Yellow-headed Vulture soaring around, taking a dihedral way up. Backing out of this side-channel and continuing downriver, we picked up White-necked Puffbird, a Gray Catbird, Scarlet-rumped Caciques, Gray-headed Tanager, and Blue Dacnis. At a bend in the river where another channel shot off to our right, Jorge and Chamba spotted a Green-and-Rufous Kingfisher zipping past the boat, only to hang a left into the side channel we just passed. That bird meant that in one day, we observed every single North American species of kingfisher! We went up after it for a good ways, but sadly couldn’t find it. 

More waders foraged in the dense growth hanging over the river, and not too long after the Green-and-Rufous Kingfisher, Peter spotted a Sungrebe dipping and out of the water in some super dark overhanging branches!! Seriously, such a cool bird. Towards the turn-around point for us, we picked up Bronzy Hermit, Smoky-brown Woodpecker, nesting Green Ibis, Slaty-tailed and Black-headed Trogons, White-winged Becard, another White-necked Puffbird, and a few other goodies. Heading back upriver, we pulled off into a still portion of water where some grasses could anchor us, and we waited for something like a Snowy Cotinga to pop into the canopy in front of us. In this time, we heard Bright-rumped Attila, saw Short-tailed Nighthawks, and heard Little Tinamous giving their haunting whistles from deep in the forest. This just about wrapped up our second epic boat trip as it was getting dark, and we still managed to pull 115 species! Link to 2nd boat tour: https://ebird.org/checklist/S206460979

45 lifers on the day, and a very tall 168 species final count gave us our personal best day ever birding, and my personal favorite day of the trip. I just love high volumes of birds as I’ve mentioned before, so days like this leave me greatly satisfied. Trip report for the day:  https://ebird.org/tripreport/309085