Costa Rica - Jan/Feb 2014 (1 Viewer)

Hi all.

After excellent advise from this excellent forum, we went for a two week tour of CR booked through Holly Kennedy at Audley Travel who arranged accommodation, most tours and transport between sites/hotels. All in all an excellent trip and we will definitely be going back to CR and perhaps Columbia/Equador.

We stayed at Tortuguero, Sarapiqui/La Selva, Arenal, Monteverde, Tarcoles/Carara, and then Manuel Antonio.

I've attached links to 2 set of photos on Flickr, one being just the birds seen/photoed, the other being more general holiday photos with insects, mammals and scenery so anyone interested can get an idea of what you can see on a general natural history trip without too much specialist birding effort.

The one comment I would make is that the hotels that fed fruit to the birds at breakfast allowed close sight and photos of a number of species that I wouldn't have otherwise seen. Selvaverde at La Selva was amazing (excellent lodge but make sure, as we did, you get a room away from the busy road if you stay here !!). The hummingbird feeders at MonteVerde Cloud Forest and nearby Selvatura were also amazing.

Bird photos => http://www.flickr.com/photos/54189378@N02/sets/72157641477749334/
General photos inc some birds => http://www.flickr.com/photos/54189378@N02/sets/72157642035656403/with/12755122305/

There are many photos so, if you do have a butchers, best to scroll down the main pages, which show the photos side by side, rather than going photo by photo !

Glad you had a good trip and thanks for sharing the photos!

Thanks Patrick - love your blog !!

Thanks for sharing Tony - I fly out on Tuesday so your images have certainly got the juices flowing!

Great that you had a good time! I never got anything remotely like that photo quality when I was there... best blame the camera, I guess...

I see you were at "selvaverde" - is that Selva Verde Lodge in Chilimate? If so, we were there, over 20 years ago! I had read (much to my dismay, since it was one of the highlights of our trip) that it had gone downhill since, but apparently not. Is there still that excellent little woodlot across the river? Is that where the round stone table with all the birds coming to eat bananas was?

(We were, incidentally, one of the unfortunate pairs staying in the old lodge right by the highway... didn't matter, it was still great!)

Tony Knight said:

Hi all.

..if you do have a butchers, best to scroll down the main pages,...

Click to expand...

What's that? Rhyming slang? |8||

Peter C.

Yes that's the place. The feeding station was very well designed with creepers and branches for birds to perch on while waiting to feed. A little dark but amazing varieties of birds there, the best of the trip. I'd have happily sat watching over the feeding station all day and admit to stealing the odd banana to top up the table when the birds were running low !!

We had a tour across in the forest over the river and saw excellent views of trogon, white bats sleeping under folded leaves, white lined bats, various wrens etc.
Wouldn't say it was 5 star but we had a decent sized room overlooking the river but no aircon. We were offered a room with aircon nearer the road but were happy with the more scenic position and the heat was fine. They also had sunbittern on the river. I had a good look but saw none, only for a lady to sit on the next table and tell her guide she'd just seen two exactly where I'd been looking 10 minutes earlier !

Yes "butchers" = "butchers hook" = "look" !!

Tony