Last Day in Paradise

Hispaniolan Parakeet

Our last day had finally arrived, and as our flight wasn’t until 8:45 pm, I got up early and went out birding before breakfast. I started at the beach, then walked the eastern-most path along the edge of the resort. I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary, and my only goal was to catch up with the cuckoo-like bird Doran and I had seen on our second day.

I didn’t see the cuckoo, but the Northern Parula was in the same tree where I’d seen it before. There was a second warbler in the same tree – brownish overall, with a necklace of dark streaks and a noticeable white wing patch. I thought it might be a Cape May Warbler, but wasn’t able to confirm it until I saw the photos showing the greenish rump and yellow patch behind the auriculars.

Costa Rica: Miravalles Volcano

Keel-billed Toucan

Birding wasn’t the only activity we did while we were in Costa Rica. For his excursion Doran chose a full-day outing to Miravalles Volcano, which included an 11-line zip-line down the volcano’s slope, a horse-back ride, a walk across a hanging bridge to visit Llanos de Cortez waterfall in the rainforest, and a visit to an active crater for a mud bath and a dip in the hot springs. Our meeting time was 7:30, which gave us a chance to sleep in after the previous day’s 12-hour birding extravaganza. We met Larry just outside the resort gate along with five other guests, a family of three and a couple on their honeymoon. We bundled into the van – the same type we had driven around in with Ollie – for the hour’s drive to Miravalles Volcano near Bagaces.

Costa Rica, Day 4: A Visit to the Rainforest

Thick-billed Seed-finch

The second part of our full-day outing with Olivier Esquivel consisted of a visit to the rainforest which promised fantastic, colorful birds like motmots, tanagers, euphonias and toucans. After leaving Santa Rosa National Park we drove east along Highway 917 and gradually gained elevation as we climbed the slope of what I took to be one of the two volcanos that our next destination was nestled between. The road started out paved, but eventually turned into a some sort of hard-packed earthen trail embedded with rocks. This slowed us down, but gave us time to take in the views of the fields and wind turbines outside the van’s windows with the volcanoes looming in the background. An Eastern Meadowlark was a familiar sight in the grassy fields; like the Red-winged Blackbird, I knew it lived in Costa Rica year-round, but it still seemed strange to see one so far from “home”.

Costa Rica, Day 3: An Early Morning Walk

Turquoise-browed Motmot

After our birdwatching excursion on Monday we spent Tuesday relaxing at the resort. Once again I awoke hideously early and slipped out just after dawn to go birding around the resort. I heard the chatter of the parakeets coming from behind our building and headed off in that direction instead of the hummingbird spot. The usual White-winged Doves and Great-tailed Grackles were around, and I heard a couple of Rufous-naped Wrens near the mango trees. In the dead tree by the pool I found about ten Orange-chinned Parakeets perching out in the open.

Arrival in Costa Rica

Orange-fronted Parakeet

Doran and I arrived in Costa Rica at 12:30pm on Saturday. We’d been planning this trip since February, and it was a thrill when we finally landed in Costa Rica after a 4:00am start that took us first to Toronto, then to Liberia after a five-hour flight down through Florida and across the Caribbean Sea. When we left Ottawa it had been cool and rainy, but the moment we stepped outside of the airport we were engulfed by the heat and humidity of the tropics. Although the humidity of the 30°C days seemed unbearable at first, we grew used to it by the end of the week – although any sort of exertion (such as hiking up the slopes of the volcanoes in the rainforest) was uncomfortably sticky. Still, we were thankful for the air-conditioning of the van that drove us to our resort, the Occidental Papagayo located on the Gulf of Papagayo in Guanacaste, about a 25-minute drive from the airport.