Day 7: Last Full Day at Rancho Naturalista!

Hey! Ethan writing. This morning, we started off getting a Tawny-chested Flycatcher, which is a really cool looking bird! After an amazing breakfast, we headed to a local spot to see Sunbittern. We arrived and almost instantly we had an Amazon Kingfisher. Soon afterwards, we had good views of Torrent Tyrannulets and a Buff-rumped Warbler. As we headed on, a Sunbittern was spotted, but dense foliage made those of us who are shorter (me) unable to see the bird. Only Rob Ripma, Tyler, and Harry saw the bird. As we moved along, we spotted many field birds, such as Yellow-faced Grassquit, Blue-and-Black Grosbeaks, and an Olive-crowned Yellowthroat. We never again saw a Sunbittern, but I ended the trip with an additional 15 life birds. On the way home, we had great looks at Crimson-collared Tanagers and a Bronzed Cowbird. During lunch, I spotted a nearby armadillo. Carlos asked, "Can I catch it?". Thinking he was joking, we all said sure. Well:

Amazon Kingfisher

Tarantula Carlos caught
(not one I liked)

Tyler's Sunbittern shot

Day 5 and 6: Travel Day and Rancho Naturalista - Day 1

Day 5: Travel Day

Hola! It's Ethan. Early morning on day 5, we woke up at the CEDCAS Clinic super excited for the birding half of the trip. By 9:30, we had arrived at Rob's Hotel. From there we drove towards Rancho Naturalista, making two stops. The first was to a lookout area from which we saw a river, which held 4 Neotropic Cormorants and about 40 Wood Storks! We also viewed around 30 Black Vultures, plus a Short Tailed Hawk and a Swallow Tailed Kite. Afterwards, we drove to a park visible from the overlook. The park was very active, with many nesting birds and tons of life birds. Close views of Crimson Fronted Parakeets, as well as Montezuma Oropendola, Blue Crowned Motmot, breeding Palm Tanagers, and Common Tody-Flycatchers. Our best birds were probably two Prevost's Ground Sparrows, which we have good pictures of because they are uncommon. A few hours later, we arrived at our last stop, which gave us very hard to find birds including Red-breasted Blackbird, Yellow-faced Grassquit, Southern Lapwing,   Keel-billed Toucan, and 3 Green Ibis! We also had good looks at Groove-billed Ani and Cattle Egrets. Finally, as we were driving into Rancho, we saw 3 Keel-billed Toucans. The hummingbird feeders were alive with Jacobins, which we've learned is constant. On to the next section!

Blue-crowned Motmot (Tyler)

Day 6: Rancho Naturalista Day 1

Hey Tyler here! Today was our first day at Rancho Naturalista. Last night, as we were going through pictures, we heard a Common Paraque calling in the distance. Today we began early at 5:30 am to get in a full day of birding. When we woke up, it was pouring rain which was the perfect reason to sit on the deck and watch the feeders for a while. This quickly proved to be a great idea where we got some of the amazing feeder birds here such as Bay-headed Tanager, Montezuma Oropendola, Grey-headed Chachalaca, and Passerini's tanager. After breakfast, the rain let up and we went with a guide from Rancho Naturalista, Harry. We no more than left the parking lot and Harry had pointed out a Black-crested Coquette, a very small and amazing looking hummingbird. As we continued on our walk, we added many tanager species, wren species, flycatcher species, and more. We did happen to come across 3 Collared Aracari along with several Keel-billed Toucan. One of the best birds was we were able to find the very elusive Long-billed Gnatwren. From there, we went up into the forest and immediately noticed a change in species. We were able to see more of the dense wooded birds such
as Buff-throated Folliage-gleaner, slaty spinetail, several species of woodcreepers, and deep forest flycatchers. We then headed back to go to lunch and after lunch, headed right back where we left off. This time, we climbed much higher and found even more great birds! We heard then saw 3 Crested Guan, a bird we didn't really expect to actually see. When we reached the highest point we were going to go to, we got excellent looks at a White-crowned Manakin, a bird that usually doesn't stay still for more than a second. We went back down to the lodge and went to the hummingbird ponds, a series of ponds from a stream where the hummingbirds all come to bathe for the night. Our target birds here were Snowcap and Dull-mantled Antbird. After watching the hummingbirds for a while, our target showed up. A male Snowcap showed up! We had watched females flying around hoping to get a glimpse of this amazing purple and white hummingbird, and we did. While watching him, Harry noticed a black bird walking on the found in the back of the ponds. It was the Dull-mantled Anitbird! We successfully got our target species for the day and then some, ending with an amazing 121 species for the day and about 150 for the trip.

Grey-headed Chachalaca

Long-billed Gnatwren

Bananaquit (Ethan)

Crowned Woodnymph 

Day 4: Poás Volcano and La Paz Waterfall Gardens

Hi it's Ethan. Today we went to Poás, an active volcano located about an hour north of San Jose. Unfortunately, the rain was so bad that we made it to the crater, and couldn't see anything but mist. Despite the disappointment there, we were able to see several good birds, two of which still cannot be identified but we do have good photos to help us identify when we meet up with Rob Ripma tomorrow morning. From there, we went to La Paz Waterfall Gardens, after being stuck in traffic for over an hour. Upon arrival, we were greeted by a very friendly Coati:

 When we walked down to the area we were going to be eating at, we couldn't believe what we saw. The 8 hummingbird feeders located in the gardens attracted 10 species of hummingbirds and usually a bananaquit at any given time. It was like nothing we had ever seen! 30-40 individual birds were constantly buzzing around our heads and landing on our fingers. The species we saw were:

1. Violet Sabrewing

2. Green Violetear

3. Brown Violetear

4. Green Crowned Brilliant

5. Coppery Headed Emerald (our favorite)

6. Green Hermit

7. Black Bellied hummingbird

8. White Bellied Mountain Gem

9. Purple Throated Mountain Gem

10. Green Thorntail

This is what the feeders looked like at any given moment: (Video by Tyler)

Brown Violetear (photo by Tyler)

 Coppery Headed Emerald (photo by Tyler)

 Female Green Crowned Brilliant (photo by Tyler)

 Prong Billed Barbet (photo by Tyler)

 A Sooty Robin that was not happy to be in the rain (photo by Tyler)

 Female Green Thorntail (photo by Tyler)

 Violet Sabrewing (photo by Tyler)

After Viewing the hummingbirds, we went to the indoor aviary briefly to see if the rumors about being able to hold captive toucans was true... I think it was true! The keel-billed toucan we held was fiery friendly and weighed a lot less than we expected!

Ethan With Toucan

 Tyler With Toucan

 Josh With Tocan

 From there, we headed on to the waterfalls, it was a nice walk through the rainforest with a nice reward:

(this is actually not the biggest one there, the biggest was so big, Tyler couldn't get a good picture because his 300mm lens was too close!)

Day 3: Final Work Day

Hi it's Tyler! Today was our final work day here in Costa Rica. We returned to the same village today that we distributed shoes in yesterday. Today, as we arrived, the pathway to the building we would be in was so crowded with kids, we could hardly get into the building! Today was spent playing with the kids in the area while some of the members continued to do shoe distribution. We played a very fun game of Costa Ricans vs. Americans soccer in the little concrete plaza at the center of the town. The problem was, the village is built over a huge ravine that is washed out due to constant flooding of the area. The ball would fall down there constantly because the fence around the plaza was in bad condition. After lunch, we retuned to the village and continued what we had been doing when we left, but this time, we had brought meals for some of the families and went to their homes to deliver them.

Here is a view of the village from the top of the hill. The yellow buildings in the back were built up on top of the hill so that people driving along the road would not be able to see the poor village behind it. About 450-500 families live in the area in the picture.  

This is the ravine that runs throughout the entire village. On several occasions, families have lost their houses due to erosion and the houses collapsing. 

Here is Ethan, Hugo (pronounced with a silent H), and Me. Hugo is an amazing man who after having an extremely rough childhood, was able to found Sonrias con Esperanza, or Smiles with hope. Hugo has made such a difference in the lives of the people in the village. While walking through the village with him, I couldn't even count the number of times a kid would come up to him calling him dad. He was always just as excited to see the kids as they were to see him. Everywhere we went, every kid would drop what they were doing and run to him, stick their heads out a window to see him, or would yell from inside the house to tell him hi. He loves every kid in that village so much and is able to provide them with a safe play to play everyday. 

Now about the birding. Today was getting a little better as Ethan and I are now familiar with the common species and are able to notice more of the ones that seem different from the common inca dove, white wing dove, blue grey tanager, and social flycatcher. Today we were able to add 8 species to our trip count, putting us at 39 for the trip, (This number is about to drastically increase as the birding portion of the trip begins friday. The habitat nearby the clinic is not what we expected and 36 is actually more than we initially thought we would see here.) During breakfast, Ethan and I were able to get good looks at a band tailed pigeon that was flying around the clinic. In the village, we were able to see both Rose Throated Becard and the similar White Winged Becard. During one of the shoe distributions, my dad came in to grab Ethan and I because of a strange woodpecker outside. After getting a good look, we were able to identify it as a Rufous Winged Woodpecker. We had been seeing several Great Kiskadees and one of them looked different, but not smaller like the social flycatcher. We noticed the bird was Kiskadee size, but lacked the bright rufous coloring in the wings and tail the Kiskadee would have. It turned out to be a boat billed flycatcher! Throughout the day, Ethan and I had been seeing many White Crowned Parrots and Crimson Fronted Parakeets, both of which are absolutely beautiful birds. In the van heading back to the clinic, Ethan and I talked about how we had been here 3 days without seeing any raptors! We thought we would have a competition, first to find a raptor wins. When we got back the clinic, Ethan and I both ran to the top floor balcony which had become our birding deck. After about 40 minutes Ethan excitedly says "Raptor flying over the clock tower!" The bird was very distant but he was able to pull of a photo just good enough to see that the bird was a White Tailed Kite!

Tomorrow will be a day for the whole group to travel to Poás, a volcano that is north of San Jose. This place is supposedly very good for hummingbirds and other tropical species. We will be there all day tomorrow and are hoping for a very good day to bring that 39 species count even higher!

Thats all we got for today! Hoping for another great day tomorrow!

Day 2: First Distribution

Hi! Ethan writing. Today we did our first shoe distribution to the kids in Costa Rica. We distributed 530 pairs of shoes, from size 10 to size 4. Kids came from all around to the distribution area, which was located here:

It was a bit complicated starting off, but we eventually got into a nice constant flow and we went pretty fast. It was fun seeing the kids as the shoe came onto the foot, that they had their own shoes. We were told that for about every three kids, there was one pair of shoes. This was definitely an improvement to the crocs-with-huge-holes. Birding wise, that place was as good as downtown San Jose. We saw a few Smoky-Brown Woodpeckers, tons of Clay Colored Thrushes,  and Melodious Blackbirds. I got two life birds there, the Woodpecker and the Blackbird. Back at the Clinic, I got another few life birds: the Stripe throated Hermit, Red billed Pigeon, Blue Gray Tanager, and 4 flyover Orange fronted Parakeets. Tyler also got a few life birds, but he's higher up than I am (320-504). Here are a few pics from the day:

Good Morning!

 Ink!

 View from distribution view!

 Pick-up Game!

 Making Bracelets for the kids!

 Just like the...

(Ethan)

 Social Flycatcher

(Tyler)

 Rufous Collared Sparrow

(Tyler)

 Blue Gray Tanager

(Ethan)

 Clay colored Thrush

(Ethan)

 Rufous Collared Sparrow

(Ethan)

Day 1: We Have Arrived! (Safely)

Hey it's Tyler! This is going to be a short post for two reasons, the first being spotty internet. The second being that it is 10:30 which feels like 12:30 and we had to be up and ready to go at 4am. Today involved about 5 and a half long hours of flying. Upon arrival to Costa Rica, we were so excited to get birding, we had our binoculars out while walking through the customs line, where we each got our first life bird of the trip! A single Blue and White swallow was flying around the runway. While the group was waiting on the van, Ethan spotted a single squirrel cuckoo perched in a palm tree. As we began to travel towards the clinic, the rain began to pick up and made it hard for us to see much. Ethan did find a pond with 7 Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks. At the hotel, we were greeted with many rufous collared sparrows (which are amazing looking!), great kiskadees, social flycatchers, and tropical kingbirds, along with Ethan finding an inca dove, (which unfortunately I missed). I did find a Sulphur bellied flycatcher, which was a nice consolation to the inca dove, (Ethan didn't see this one). When we went downtown to see the city, my dad found that there were 2 Orange Chinned Parakeets on someones roof. This was my 500th life bird! When we got back to the clinic, we were swarmed by southern rough wing swallows. Here are a few pictures from the day:

Boeing 757 We took from Atlanta to San Jose

Ethan Taking a Selfie with a sleeping passenger (We have no clue who this guy is)

View of Latin America (Don't know exact location)

Costa Rica!!!!

San Jose!

Local Market we visited downtown

Ethan's Bird Pictures from the day:

Social Flycatcher

Inca Dove

Rufous Collared Sparrow

Tropical Kingbird

Hopefully day 2 brings many more birds!

Overview Of The Trip

On July 14, 2014, we will be departing on our mission trip/birding trip. Through Ethan's church, Kenwood Baptist Church, we will be serving with Soles4Souls, which will involve us distributing shoes to the people in the capital city of Costa Rica, San Jose. This portion of the trip will be July 14-July 16.

As the majority of the people on the tip will be heading home, we will be meeting up with Rob Ripma from Sabrewing Tours and we will be heading to Rancho Naturalista for four days to bird in the lowland tropical rainforest habitat where we should expect to see many types of amazing species including the Snowcap Hummingbird, a species which is difficult to find anywhere except can be seen frequently at the feeders at Rancho. From Rancho, we will be heading to Savegre Mountain Lodge where we will be birding in the higher elevation mountain habitat. Here we will be searching for some of the higher elevation species which can be difficult to see elsewhere such as the Volcano Junco, Volcano Hummingbird, and the amazing Resplendent Quetzal.

With only 11 days until the trip, we are getting extremely excited and will be updating this blog throughout the trip.