Costa Rica Day 7

This was a really fun day photographically speaking. We spent a couple of hours birding The Nest before we headed south again, saw the Sicklebill again, and picked up a really good looking Fasciated Tiger-Heron just a few minutes after leaving. This day was also Mom's birthday, so that's a pretty good first birthday lifer to pick up. We drove a couple of hours to Cinchona, a higher elevation restaurant with feeders. There we saw our first endemic species, the Coppery-headed Emerald, a really neat little hummer. With the emeralds, we saw Green Thorntails, Violet Sabrewings, and the absurdly black Black-bellied Hummingbird. I've genuinely never seen a black so utterly dark as that. We also saw our first Prong-billed Barbets here along with Red-headed Barbets. Crimson-collared Tanagers gave us great photo ops, and we also picked up some really beautifully colored Buff-fronted Quail doves here. 

Not too far down the road, we made a stop at a bridge and saw our first Torrent Tyrannulets, a Bicolored Hawk, Barred Hawks soared overhead, and we got to hear an Ornate Hawk-Eagle. Sadly we couldn't actually see it, but I kinda like the fact that we didn't because it's strengthening our excuse to go back. 

We drove another couple of hours up into the cloud forest to our next lodge, Bosque de Paz. We saw our first Green-crowned Brilliants and a really cool looking Magenta Throated Woodstar here, a really cool hummer that you could 100% pass off as a bumblebee if you weren't paying attention. After a quick lunch, we birded the trails around the lodge and picked up a lot of really good birds. Zeledon's Antbird, Red-faced Spinetail, Eye-ringed Flatbill, Costa Rican Warblers, Silvery-fronted Tapaculo, and more. Around the lodge itself we picked up Brown-capped Vireo, Collared Trogons, and (oddly enough, the bird I was most excited about) an American Dipper. I really don't know why, but out of all the shared species between CR and the US, I was ecstatic to see American Dippers, and rightfully so. They look very different and they sound different, and are just such a fun bird overall. 

Trip Report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/347545