John's Hong Kong Birding

6 Apr 2014

Monteverde's Flying Quetzals

Resplendent Quetzal

Zoned as "The Mountains" in Barratt Lawson's "Where to watch Birds in Costa Rica", the area around Santa Elena provided the highest elevation birding that we did, at around 1,300 metres.

Why go there ? Well, 39 out of Costa Rica's 89 endemics occur in the central chain of mountains. Including, of course, Resplendent Quetzal, a bird I'd lusted after since seeing Michael Fogden's photos of them in BBC Wildlife Magazine some time in the 1980s. (Edit - Read "AND" for "Including".)

We stayed at the "Cloud Forest Lodge". It was a nice place with no TV in the rooms, which I regard as a sign of discerning management. Website here: https://www.monteverdecloudforestlodge.com

We tried Bosque Nuboso ("cloud forest") de Santa Elena first, and found it, well, cloudy. Just imagine that.

But the following day dawned with views from the hotel all the way down to the Pacific Ocean. Our pre-breakfast birding from the restaurant window was enlivened by an Emerald Toucanet posing in a tree at eye-level.

Emerald Toucanet

As the bird on the cover of our field guide, we took this as a good omen and bashed off to Monte Verde Cloud Forest Reserve. Like Santa Elena, the site is not part of the National Parks system, it is privately owned. We paid our admission fee and hired a guide named Sergio. It was money well spent.

We had not been long on the Sendero El Camino ("The Road Path") before Sergio heard the calls of Resplendent Quetzal. There turned out to be three of them, all males, and we had prolonged views.

Resplendent Quetzal

Later we saw a fourth bird on a different trail.

Opposite the entrance to Monteverde reserve is a snack-and-souvenir shop called "Colibri Coffee". To get over our post-quetzal depression, we went over there for hot drinks and sticky buns.

The place has a fine array of hummingbird feeders, attended by a fine array of hummingbirds, some of which are shown below.

Magenta-throated Woodstar

Violet Sabrewing

Green Hermit

Purple-throated Mountain Gem (female)

White-tailed Emerald

Green-crowned Brilliant (female)

Hummingbirds, - you've got to love those names !

3 Apr 2014

Under the Volcano

Before arriving in Costa Rica we had decided on four places to base ourselves for a two-week stay, based in part on Barrett Lawson's site guide to the country "Where to watch birds in Costa Rica" (Helm, 2009).

Lawson's book is very thorough, and what comes across well is the notion that moving a short distance to a new site can produce lots of new birds. Different elevations and different habitat types can hold differing sets of species, even though Costa Rica is not a big country.

So we moved from "Caribbean Middle-Elevations" (Rancho Naturalista) to another part of the same zone, Arenal Volcano National Park. While Rancho is a former coffee plantation in a fairly rustic corner of the country, the volcano at Arenal and the nearby town of Fortuna have become the centerpieces of some fairly intense tourist activity. Hiking, horse riding, zip-lining and white-water

rafting are all industries that got kick-started when tourists came to gawp at Arenal Volcano, which was active between 1968 and 2010.

We stayed at Arenal Observatory Lodge.

Website: http://www.arenalobservatorylodge.com/index.php

Lodge reception

Observation deck at the Lodge

Oropendolas in control - apart from two Brown Jays

The hotel was busy and well-run, but not exclusively for birders. The much-vaunted view of the volcano was obscured by mist for most of our stay, but the birds were more than adequate compensation. The deck at the front of the restaurant had a fine view of the bird-feeding set-up, which was usually dominated by Montezuma Oropendolas.

Montezuma Oropendola

Red-legged Honeycreeper

Arenal Volcano - we could almost see the top !

And, of course, many of the other birds we saw were new to us, both on the trails and along the access road.

Orange-bellied Trogon

Hoffman's Woodpecker

Although we had seen one rather mangy Coati at our previous site, at Arenal they went around in large groups, and were obviously well used to cadging scraps of food from visitors.

Coati

Shall we be friends ?

Here's one who thinks Jemi is going to give it some food. Wrong ! Obviously, we had no intention of feeding any animals that should be "wild".

Don't think we'll try this in the Hire Car

Finally, photographed from the car at a small bridge, another member of the "Green Kingfishers of Central America" set !

Amazon Kingfisher

1 Apr 2014

"Home of the Snowcap"

Snowcap

It's a good thing that no-one reads this blog for its' timeliness, for it was back in mid January that Jemi and I met our old HK friends Nigel Croft and Andie Greco at the arrivals hall of Costa Rica's San Jose Airport.

After missing the ring road turnoff, our hire car made an unscheduled city tour of the Costa Rican capital. Yes, I was navigating.

But things perked up pretty quickly once we arrived at our first stop, Rancho Naturalista, which their own T-shirts proclaim as "Home of the Snowcap", a hummer endemic to Caribbean-facing mountain slopes in a small section of central America.

It was the only place we saw them, so it must be true.

Website here: http://ranchonaturalista.net

The people who run the place have a great deal of experience meeting the needs of birders. In-house guides are available or visitors can bird around the area by themselves. We did a little of both.

Bay-headed Tanager

The main guesthouse was anticipating the arrival of a large group, so we were accommodated at Rancho Bajo, a few hundred metres down the road. Althougher "Bajo" is Spanish for "lower" we were looked after in high style.

This was a trip where my hummingbird life-list went from one species to about sixty; - just the names of the birds conjure up images of superlative beauty..."Sapphire", "Brilliant","Jewelfront" to name but three.

A day trip to a site called Silent Mountain brought views of a sought-after species...

Sunbittern

There were far too many birds for a recitation of them here, so I'll let some photos do the talking.

Did I mention hummingbirds ?

Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer

Violet-crowned Woodnymph (male)

Violet-crowned Woodnymph (female)

Black-crested Coquette

Green Thorntail

Green-breasted Mango

White-necked Jacobin

Snowcap

And the first of our central American green kingfishers, called, surprisingly enough, -

Green Kingfisher

28 Mar 2014

Last rays of winter sunshine

Just back to Hong Kong and here's another one "I made before the programme started..."

I'll post this before all these winter visitors disappear and head north for their breeding seasons. The weather here is humid today, and the Large Hawk Cuckoo's "Brain Fever !" is being drowned by Asian Koels going, well, "KO _ EL !"

Over Ponds 16/17 at Mai Po..

Eastern Marsh Harrier - Circus spilonotus

Eastern Marsh Harrier - Circus spilonotus (same bird as above)

At Nam Sang Wai....

Common Greenshank - Tringa nebularia

Grey Heron - Ardea cinerea

Northern Pintail - Anas acuta

Eurasian Teal - Anas crecca

And from the boardwalk hides at Mai Po...

Saunders's Gull - Chroicocephalus saundersi

And I think I've done the BIFs enough for now....

7 Mar 2014

An ABC of BIFs

Well the world of photography is full of these odd abbreviations. BIF - of course - is "Birds in Flight" but, despite the post title, you'll be pleased to know that there is no instructional aspect to this post !

"ABC" refers to the names of the birds themselves...