Costa Rica Birding Holiday - February 21 to March 5, 2007

 

February 23

San José

We weren’t meeting the rest of the group until evening, so had a full day for activities. However, we decided to spend the day in San José sightseeing and birding.

Bill decided to try our GPS to see if a geocache we had found on the web was close enough to walk to. It took forever for the unit to figure out that it was not in Canada and home in on the satellites. It turned out that the geocache was too far away, so he put the GPS away, never to be used again.

 

Meanwhile, Barbara had found some interesting birds, right outside our hotel. So we decided to go for a walk around the block and bird. Within one block of our hotel, we came to a huge fence around a large park-like area that we took to be the zoo. The trumpeting of elephants soon confirmed our suspicions, so we decided to spend some time there. However, we found that it was closed for no apparent reason, so had to be content with birding around the perimeter.

 

Western Kingbird Western Kingbird

 

Great Kiskadee Common Ground-Dove


Then we decided to hike to the National Museum. It was a good choice, and only a few blocks away. There were interesting historical and natural exhibits around a garden courtyard full of birds! We spotted a brilliant red summer tanager, a clay-colored robin (the national bird of CR), and some white-winged doves. While looking for a washroom, Bill spotted a sign to a secret garden. We descended down below the old stone fortress of the museum and opened a huge screen door to discover a garden full of butterflies.

 

  Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

 

White-winged Dove Summer Tanager

 

White-winged Dove White-winged Dove

 

Clay-colored Robin Clay-colored Robin

 

On the hike through town returning to our hotel we stopped for a cold cerveza (beer is the word you quickly learn). The favourite brand is Imperial; refreshing.
We then went to a park and saw some parakeets, apparently mating, and great kiskadees, right in the middle of the city.

  Crimson-fronted Parakeets

 

 

San José Airport

After dinner, we took a taxi to the airport to meet our birding group. The airport security was such that we could not go inside, so were forced to wait on the sidewalk, with all our luggage, with everyone else, for a long long time. There was a monitor outside so we knew that the flight had finally arrived. Still no sign of our group! We started to worry because we had never met anyone in the group, and had no means of contacting them. We were also looking for our driver, José Vargas, among the sea of other drivers and hawkers offering taxis and other services. We asked several if they knew him, but none did. Finally, more than an hour after the flight arrived, we spotted a short guy holding a sign saying Dave Milson(sic) Group. He was not José, but rather Alvaro. What a relief. Soon after the group exited the airport and we met everyone. Their lateness was due to Carole’s luggage going astray in Houston.

 

We lugged our stuff to the parking area where Alvaro’s bus awaited us. We passed everything through the window to Alvaro, and set off, at almost midnight, for the two hour journey to the Pacific coast and our lodging for the next three days.