Over the past couple of months I’ve been sharing pics from our May, 2024 Costa Rican birding trip through Costa Rica Focus. Karen and I along with three other birding buddies spent 10 wonderful days there and I came back with lots of great shots of the birds we saw. Although I’ll drop some more pictures from Costa Rica on the site (where you will find them in the Latest Pics section) today is the last Monday I’ll be featuring them. One reason I’m moving on is that since May we did a birding trip to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and I’m eager to share some pictures from that trip.
A quick question for you – on past birding trips I provide a travelogue that was a chronological accounting of where we stayed and what we saw. For this Costa Rican trip I presented groupings of species (i.e. Tanagers, Motmots, Hummingbirds) each week. Which do you prefer – travelogue or species-specific reports? Please reply to the email or put your response in the comments section of the post.
Below are some more of my favorites shots from Costa Rica.
While hiking a trail through Carara National Park we came upon the end of an ant army marching through the forest. There were a number of birds there, cleaning up after the ants. The birds don’t eat the ants; they eat the insects the ants scare up during their insistent travel through the vegetation. This was a Chestnut-backed Antbird, which perched awhile and gave us great looks.
This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. A Collared Aracari was feeding on berries on the grounds of Arenal Observatory Lodge. It would snap up a berry with the end of its bill, toss the berry up in the air, and then swallow it whole. I was lucky enough to time this shot just right.
After flying up from the fence it was perched on the Turquoise-browed Motmot landed in a nearby tree. From this angle you get a great look at the turquoise brow and dangling tail feathers.
One of the best birding locations was in the backyard of a private residence. A natural stream came through and a pair of Russet-naped Wood-Rails foraged down the shallow waters.
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