Costa Rico, Part 2

Thursday, March 6: Another boat ride on the Rio Frio, this time heading upstream. We left before breakfast was served, only coffee ready, so they bagged up bananas and ham sandwiches made with really good bread. Even more caimen this morning including a couple of dead bodies which Jorge said were probably killed in fighting for territory. This trip we saw egrets, several green ibis, (which I’d never heard of), black-necked stilts, whistling ducks, and kingfishers (Amazon, American Pigmy, Green, Ringed, and Green-and-rufous). A black-collared hawk flew over. The goal was sungrebes. We found a female and a male carrying a baby. I didn’t even notice the caiman on shore as I watched the little sungrebe swim against the swift river current. Heading back back to the dock, one more female sungrebe.

A bumpy ride back out to the highway, looking for jabiru with no luck. Eventually, we reached the better paved road, and began wending our way out. Lunch, casado, this time including a fried egg, at Victorino’s in La Fortuna, then on to the Arenal Lodge. We had gotten a look at Arenal Volcano while on our boat trip. It unexpectedly erupted in 1968, killing 87 people, mostly from volcanic ash and gases, and destroyed 3 towns. It has been active off and on since then. Rest assured, no harm can get to us at the lodge, according to our room’s guidebook. The ease of the privileged.

What a place. Originally the site of a volcano observatory, (how did they miss predicting the eruption), every room faces the volcano. From our room’s deck, we look down on rows of blue porterweed. Rufous-tailed hummingbirds patrol the bushes and run off violet-headed ones, white-necked jacobins, and blacked-chested coquettes, the latter 2 species both hummers, but with different names which don’t come up in my CR bird app when I search “humming”. Annoying.

Happy hour at our deck, then a late dinner in the lodge. Thank goodness there is a van that will tote us back and forth.

Friday, March 7: Up early to see the umbrella bird at the lodge’s deck. No luck. Oropendola, black-crested guan, curassow, and chachalacas came when watermelon was added to the tall feeder, the birds making the feeder sway back and forth. One of the female curassow is all striped, rather than having a brown body. When the big birds have had their fill, black-cheeked woodpeckers, tanagers, orioles, and tanagers pick at what is left.

After breakfast, Kathy, Lee, and I walked the road back to our rooms, birding along the way. Mostly hummingbirds, enough so I’m getting better at identifying them, a magpie jay with a lovely crest which was run off by 2 social flycatchers (the bird, not the crest), a nesting caracara, oropendolas visiting their nests, a broad winged hawk. We saw a family/tribe of coati, which, like raccoons everywhere, will get into our rooms if we don’t lock our doors, and 1 agouti. 

We rested for a while, then walked the swing bridge path over to the lodge for lunch. The sign said “No bricar”(no bouncing), but what fun is a swing bridge if you don’t? I just flexed my knees a few times to get it to sway a little. I think my jumping days are over.

I spent the early afternoon on our balcony, peering at the blue porterweed patches, watching hummingbirds. I could spot the white-necked jacobins and the violet-headed ones, which keep lower on the bushes to avoid the marauding rufous-tailed. Eventually I saw the male black-crested coquette with his top feathers clearly visible. So cute. My favorite bird of the trip.

Late afternoon, Kathy, Lee and I birded with Jorge a little ways up the beginning of the trail to the waterfalls, getting sidetracked at a side road by a hawk. My find was shiny goo dripping down from a hole in a tall palm. At first I thought it was a Mylar balloon dragged in by a nesting bird. Grant and I think it’s either a fungus or a virus. I plan to follow up by asking an expert at Fairchild Gardens. We were looking at the holes in case a bird was using them as a nesting cavity. A pair of masked tityra were checking them out.

Saturday, March 8: The 3 hour bus ride from Arenal to San Jose was like an extended isometric exercise class, as I held on while being bounced back and forth, back and forth. Our driver Larry drives like a bat out of hell. Safely, but fast. I had said I wouldn’t ever take another helicopter ride, but about 2 hours into the bus trip, I wished one would appear.

We had been at the lodge deck at 6:00 again for the elusive umbrella bird. No luck, but no one else saw it while we were there. Should have been here last week. The kiskadees were courting, with the males calling, dancing, and lifting their yellow crests. Either it was for territory, or there was a hidden female enjoying the show.

After breakfast, Kathy, Lee and I walked down towards the Observation Tower and Frog Pond. Highlight was watching all sorts of birds having fits around the top of a tall tree fern, chirping  their alarm calls. We couldn’t see what the problem was, but the birds could. Jorge thought it was probably a snake under a couple of cecropia leaves that had fallen onto the crown of the fern. Warblers, tanagers, wrens, manakins, even hummers came in to harass. 

I wish I’d had someone to climb up the tower with me. I think I could have done it, but there was no way they would have left me on my own while they birded. Ah, well.

Dinner in the Park Inn, our hotel at the trip’s beginning. Our tour organizer Magda came with chocolate from her brother’s company. I guess my addition to Diana’s order got missed. Another ah well. Lee asked about a slow tour in Columbia. Perhaps next year. We left them to their reminiscing.

Sunday, March 9: Breakfast at the hotel. Since our bus doesn’t come until 11:00, I am using the time to catch up with my blog.

Easy flight, and poof, we are home. I’ve now caught up with accounting for the trip. Cost: $10,299 total, including airfare, tour, extra hotel night, city tour, non-included meals, drinking, tips, etc. Value: priceless.