Birding sites in Costa Rica off the regular tour circuit (1 Viewer)

Most birders who come to Cost Rica visit the same set of sites and stay at the same hotels as those used by organized birding tours. Given the logistics, quality of the hotels, and abundance of trip reports detailing such sites, it is easy to set up trips that follow those routes. However, as with any country visited by birders, there are plenty of other sites that are well worth a visit. Some require detours away from the main route and are thus left off of itineraries but others are just unknown.

The most heavily visited sites on the main route I refer to include:
Hotel Bougainvillea in the Central Valley
La Selva Biological Station
Savegre Mountain Lodge
Rancho Naturalista
Carara
Monteverde

There are a bunch of other sites that are also included on tours and visited by birders but the above rank among the most commonly frequented sites. Each offers great birding but I am opening this thread to discuss sites that are little known yet well worth a visit. Some may be included in Lawson but I am pretty sure that most arent. For example, most sites in southeastern Costa Rica were left out of the book (I suspect due to space issues) yet that part of the country has some of the best Caribbean lowland birding (on par with or better than La Selva).

So, if you have any sites in mind, please mention them in this thread.

I will start off by mentioning the El Cocora Cloud Forest near San Ramon. This site is easy to get to (located 15-20 minutes from San Ramon on the main road to La Fortuna), has a nice hummingbird garden with feeders and flowering bushes that have attracted 15 species, and a short trail through middle elevation forest. This small family operation charges $6 to visit, has a small cafe, and could turn up a bunch of good species. Main downside is opening times of 9 am and noon on Sundays but hummingbirds are active most of the day.

It is especially good for Coppery-headed Emerald (most common species) and usually turns up White-bellied Mountain-Gem. The trail is only 200 meters and the forest is a narrow strip but it could turn up some good species given its old growth appearance and connection to more extensive forests.

I recently wrote a post about it at my blog.

Road to Golfito and Playa Cacao

Last weekend, I guided a trip to Esquinas Rainforest Lodge. Birding there is excellent (easy to see Great Currasow but expensive) but I wont talk about that here because it is covered in the recent site guide and is visited by tours.

What I do want to mention is the road that goes to Golfito from near the lodge. This is known as the "old road to Golfito" and requires four wheel drive but it is well worth a visit. The road is about 4-5 ks in length and mostly passes through primary rainforest. We didnt get a chance to properly explore the birding there since we checked it out after the early morning hours but still got nice looks at Black-cheeked Ant-Tanager, Charming Hummingbird, Shining Honeycreeper, and other expected species. I also heard one Streak-chested Antpittta, a pretty uncommon species around there. We thought we would see more raptors but no dice there. Nevertheless, that road should be good at the right time of day and could turn up some great stuff given the quality of the habitat and its connection to more extensive forests in the Osa.

Also, just as one reaches Golfito, the road to Playa Cacao also offers up some good possibilities. 4 wheel drive is also needed for this road that passes through rainforest, some mangroves that probably hold Mangrove Hummingbird and maybe Yellow-billed Cotinga, and interesting, dense marshes that could harbor bitterns and rails. I only heard Gray-breasted Crake but wasnt there at the right time of day for Rallidae. Several species could occur there including Black Rail. Dont discount Spotted Rail either because even though it isnt shown as occurring in that area in Garrigues and Dean, I heard one in rice fields on the Osa some years ago so it may be around Golfito. At Playa Cacao, there is a nice seaside restaurant and Scarlet Macaws forage in the trees.

Nice thread Patrick, I have made a link here from the Opus page on Costa Rica.

Niels

Thanks for that Niels. I will be adding more sites now and then.

Finca Ecoturistico Salto del Calvo

Hi Patrick,

I'd like to add a site that I came across by accident while on holiday in CR if that's OK.

El Salto del Calvo is a small privately-owned reserve in the canton of Hojancha (Nicoya peninsula) (http://www.montealtohojancha.com/socios.html). It consists of 200 ha of primary and secondary dry forest, along with some gallery forest, at an elevation of around 200 m. From the farm on the main road there is a 3 km trail along a small stream down to a nice waterfall. Initially you have to cross some farmland, but most of the trail is through forest. It's steep and muddy in places, and not signposted, but easy enough to follow.
The reserve has a good selection of dry forest and gallery forest birds, and is a good place to look for Thicket Tinamou (Crypturellus cinnamomeus praepes).

The reserve is about 2 km east of the hamlet San Isidro de Hojancha (http://www.maplandia.com/costa-rica/guanacaste/hojancha/san-isidro/). To get there, take the small road southeast from Hojancha (not the main one that goes to Playa Carrillo & Playa Camaronal). There are some nice stands of primary forest west of the road that may be worth exploring. After about 7 km at a fork in the road go right (heading due south). The farm is on the left hand side of the road after about 2.5 km. There was a sign saying "Cataratas" (may have changed now) and you will probably be charged some $$ entrance fee.

It's a good walk with nice scenery and well worth a few hours if you're in the area.

Nohatch said:

Hi Patrick,

I'd like to add a site that I came across by accident while on holiday in CR if that's OK.

Click to expand...

Yes, please do! This thread is of course open to anyone who would like to contribute information about lesser known birding sites in Costa Rica. Your post is particularly helpful since the Nicoya Peninsula is rather underbirded.

Other sites I was thinking of are Las Cruces biological station, Suital Lodge in the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve, and the Gandoca-Manzanillo reserve. I'm not familiar with Lawson though, so are any of these in there (and thus worth adding)?

Great thread for a great country!

Heliconias lodge near Bijagua.
Good mix of Caribbean slope species intermixed with some North-west specials eg Long-tailed Manakin, Tody Motmot, various Antbirds and one of the few places to yield periodic sightings of Rufous-vented Ground-cuckoo. Also not bad for raptors including King Vulture and Ornate Hawk Eagle.

Steve G said:

Heliconias lodge near Bijagua.
Good mix of Caribbean slope species intermixed with some North-west specials eg Long-tailed Manakin, Tody Motmot, various Antbirds and one of the few places to yield periodic sightings of Rufous-vented Ground-cuckoo. Also not bad for raptors including King Vulture and Ornate Hawk Eagle.

Click to expand...

Here's a link to their website (http://www.heliconiaslodge.com/). Ornate Hawk-Eagle now breeds locally.

Nohatch said:

Other sites I was thinking of are Las Cruces biological station, Suital Lodge in the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve, and the Gandoca-Manzanillo reserve. I'm not familiar with Lawson though, so are any of these in there (and thus worth adding)?

Great thread for a great country!

Click to expand...

Las Cruces is visited by some tours, is fairly well known as a birding site, and is well covered by Lawson but it's always nice to talk about the birding there anyways!

Suital and Gandoca-Manzanillo, though, are rarely visited by birders and covered in few trip reports. Both are great for birding, I hope to get down to the Manzanillo area in October. Southeastern CR in particular is great for lowland forest birding and in my opinion, has some sites that are better than La Selva in some ways.

As the great possibilities at Heliconias have been realized, several tours include it on itineraries, and it is treated in several trip reports but since it's one of the best birding sites in the country and off the beaten track, it's still good to mention the place.

Yes, Ornate Hawk-Eagle breeds there every year or so and they try to keep track of the nest. The site is probably so good for uncommon species because it provides access to quality habitat in the form of extensive, primary forest. In being an ecotone for foothill and middle elevations forests as well as the Pacific and Caribbean slopes, the place has stunning levels of biodiversity. In addition to what Rainbirder mentioned, it's probably the best site in the country for owls (lodge usually has Crested and or Black and white staked out and 10-11 species have been recorded in the general area). Every motmot and tinamou species in CR has been found at or near Heliconias, Slaty-backed Forest-Falcon has shown up, Black-eared Wood-Quail is sometimes seen, most foothill specialties occur, it's a great site for Black-crested Coquette, and they have walkways across forested canyons that act as canopy-viewing platforms. Weather is often bad but the site is always exciting for birds (and herps too!). I think it would be well worth it to do a birding trip that spends a week there, a couple of days in dry habitats, and a couple days at Cano Negro. That would probably turn up 400 plus species, many of them being quality, uncommon birds.

Suital Lodge

Nohatch said:

Other sites I was thinking of are Las Cruces biological station, Suital Lodge in the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve, and the Gandoca-Manzanillo reserve. I'm not familiar with Lawson though, so are any of these in there (and thus worth adding)?

Click to expand...

During February I was with a group that spent 6 nights at Suital Lodge. We spent much of that time at other locations in the northeastern Osa (ranging as far south as Bosque del Rio Tigre) but we did find the time spent birding around the lodge profitable. Highlights included Scarlet Macaws (daily), Long-billed & Stripe-throated Hermits, White-crested Coquette, Charming Hummingbird, Baird's Trogon, Black-hooded Antshrike, 3 manakins (Orange-collared, Blue-crowned, & Red-capped), Thick-billed Seed-Finch, & White-vented Euphonia. Some members of the group found Bare-crowned Antbird. We could have easily spent many hours on the trails. I suspect that little of the surrounding forest is primary, but much of it is tall secondary.

Gary Hunter

Birdingcraft said:

Most birders who come to Cost Rica visit the same set of sites and stay at the same hotels as those used by organized birding tours. Given the logistics, quality of the hotels, and abundance of trip reports detailing such sites, it is easy to set up trips that follow those routes. However, as with any country visited by birders, there are plenty of other sites that are well worth a visit. Some require detours away from the main route and are thus left off of itineraries but others are just unknown.

Click to expand...

Today, I'm sitting in a hotel at Malpais, Costa Rica. But tomorrow I'm going to check out Cabo Blanco Reserve at the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula.

We skirted the entrance today (the park was closed today because of a recent storm), and I was greatly impressed by the habitat. Tomorrow I'll be specifically looking for Ivory-billed Woodcreeper, but it's clearly good for any rainforest birding. I had both Striped Cuckoo and Lesser Ground-Cuckoo in pastureland on the dirt road going towards the park, but the habitat in the park is entirely different.

This park is definitely not on anyone's quick-hit list of birding spots. But the park isn't hard to reach if you're in the general vicinity. It's getting to the southern tip of Nicoya that's problematic.

I'll be reporting on that park in this thread in a couple of days.

JJP said:

Today, I'm sitting in a hotel at Malpais, Costa Rica. But tomorrow I'm going to check out Cabo Blanco Reserve at the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula.

We skirted the entrance today (the park was closed today because of a recent storm), and I was greatly impressed by the habitat. Tomorrow I'll be specifically looking for Ivory-billed Woodcreeper, but it's clearly good for any rainforest birding. I had both Striped Cuckoo and Lesser Ground-Cuckoo in pastureland on the dirt road going towards the park, but the habitat in the park is entirely different.

This park is definitely not on anyone's quick-hit list of birding spots. But the park isn't hard to reach if you're in the general vicinity. It's getting to the southern tip of Nicoya that's problematic.

I'll be reporting on that park in this thread in a couple of days.

Click to expand...

Looking forward to your report! Yes, Cabo Blanco is one of those underbirded spots with a good amount of habitat. I have always wanted to seawatch right from the tip during stormy weather.

Cabo Blanco Reserve sits near the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. It's the oldest protected park in Costa Rica. Much of the pastureland that was there has now grown back to a more mature state. It feels more like Carara National Park than in any place in Guanacaste.

I needed Ivory-billed Woodcreeper and Stub-tailed Spadebill, and I thought that park would give me the best shot. I saw both species.

The short loop walk takes about 2.5 hours and is probably all you need for birding. A longer walk goes all the way to the tip, but it's a very long hike and more strenuous hike. Probably 4-5 hours long with some elevation up and down.

The short loop hike produced a crazy group of about 6 woodcreepers chasing each other actively just about 20 meters into the trail. I believe at least 4 of them were Streak-headed and there was at least one Ivory-billed - possibly two. An Ivory-billed and Streak-headed posed nicely together in a tree for almost a full minute. Both species eventually vocalized.

The trail was also full of vocalizing Rufous-and-white Wrens, Plain Wrens, Thicket Tinamous, and at least one Little Tinamou. A few more of the usual suspects were around... Lesser Greenlets, Barred Antshrike, Squirrel Cuckoo, etc. Two Stub-tailed Spadebills were active toward the end of the loop.

The entrance to the park has a nice parking lot on the edge of the ocean. I saw one pelagic bird skimming the water far out to sea, but you would have need a scope for that. It would be easy to bring a scope and bird from the parking lot. I wouldn't bother with taking the scope any trail though.

The park opens at 8:00, and unlike many CR parks, there's no way to get into this park until they open officially at 8. The gate is locked until they open it. That's a bit of a pain as it means you only have about 1.5 hours of good birding until things get kind of quiet.

This a very nice and well-managed park with very good habitat.... but you need to be in either Montezuma or Malpais the night before since it's such a bitch to get to.

Birdingcraft said:

As the great possibilities at Heliconias have been realized, several tours include it on itineraries, and it is treated in several trip reports but since it's one of the best birding sites in the country and off the beaten track, it's still good to mention the place.

Yes, Ornate Hawk-Eagle breeds there every year or so and they try to keep track of the nest. The site is probably so good for uncommon species because it provides access to quality habitat in the form of extensive, primary forest. In being an ecotone for foothill and middle elevations forests as well as the Pacific and Caribbean slopes, the place has stunning levels of biodiversity. In addition to what Rainbirder mentioned, it's probably the best site in the country for owls (lodge usually has Crested and or Black and white staked out and 10-11 species have been recorded in the general area). Every motmot and tinamou species in CR has been found at or near Heliconias, Slaty-backed Forest-Falcon has shown up, Black-eared Wood-Quail is sometimes seen, most foothill specialties occur, it's a great site for Black-crested Coquette, and they have walkways across forested canyons that act as canopy-viewing platforms. Weather is often bad but the site is always exciting for birds (and herps too!). I think it would be well worth it to do a birding trip that spends a week there, a couple of days in dry habitats, and a couple days at Cano Negro. That would probably turn up 400 plus species, many of them being quality, uncommon birds.

Click to expand...

On our trip to CR we visited Heliconias Lodge, we were advised of stake outs for some of the birds mentioned. The problem was there were no guides there or anyone who could have assisted and we were willing to pay for guiding. The only person there was a young man who was minding the till and he informed us all the guides were away leading tours. It was not possible to get accurate information on the stake outs for us to find them ourselves. Very good area no doubt of that but we felt there should have been someone there to help visitors especially as this is supposed to be a community run project.

Robert

JJP said:

The short loop hike produced a crazy group of about 6 woodcreepers chasing each other actively just about 20 meters into the trail. I believe at least 4 of them were Streak-headed and there was at least one Ivory-billed - possibly two. An Ivory-billed and Streak-headed posed nicely together in a tree for almost a full minute. Both species eventually vocalized.

Click to expand...

Sounds like one of those great birding moments :t:

OK so a little info on the Suital Lodge.

This small lodge is located on the entrance road [245] to the Osa peninsula, about two-thirds along the way between Chacarita and Rincón. It's in the middle of the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve, which forms a corridor between Corcovado and Piedras Blancas Esquinas National Parks (http://www.moon.com/files/map-images/ctr_08_The-Osa-Peninsula.jpg).

The lodge is run by a Swiss/Costa Rican couple (she used to be a herpetologist) and consists of a few cabins around a clearing surrounded by tall secondary forest. Attached to the lodge is a 28 ha private reserve with a mixture of lowland primary and tall secondary forest, a small stream and a small beach. There is a dense network of trails, allowing you to spend a surprising amount of time in such a small reserve. The lodge also rents out kayaks to explore the Golfo Dulce coastline.

gdhunter already mentioned some of the more exciting species that can be seen at Suital. Highlights for me were the parrots: Scarlet Macaw while swimming at the beach, and Red-lored and Mealy Parrots daily behind the owner's house. However, due to its corridor location a large number of southern Pacific lowland species can be seen. There's also plenty of mammals (monkeys, sloths), reptiles and invertebrates.

The lodge provides a good, easily-acessible accessible alternative to the more expensive lodges in Drake Bay or trekking Corcovado NP, and the lovely little beach and kayaks may appeal to non-birding partners/kids

Lodge website: http://www.suital.com/

Robert L Jarvis said:

On our trip to CR we visited Heliconias Lodge, we were advised of stake outs for some of the birds mentioned. The problem was there were no guides there or anyone who could have assisted and we were willing to pay for guiding. The only person there was a young man who was minding the till and he informed us all the guides were away leading tours. It was not possible to get accurate information on the stake outs for us to find them ourselves. Very good area no doubt of that but we felt there should have been someone there to help visitors especially as this is supposed to be a community run project.

Robert

Click to expand...

What a shame. One of the guys who does maintenance on the trails knows where the owls are and is usually there but the place definitely needs better organization. He must not have been there at that time because he typically asks birder guests if they would like to see owls, snakes, or whatever. On another note, Heliconias has had a problem with management whereby at least one of the main managers honestly doesnt seem to do any amount of work (like not responding to emails, not having anything ready when you get there, spending his time on Facebook instead of attending to guests) while other people run around and pick up the slack. Hopefully, they will replace the slacker with someone more deserving of the position. With that in mind, it is a good idea to set up ones stay and guiding at Heliconias well in advance and keep sending emails until you gt straight answers. Usually, the slacker eventually passes your emails off to one of the people who actually does a good job and then you will be taken care of!

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca and Manzanillo area

This area is kind of too big to cover in detail in just one post but I mention it because despite being left out of the latest bird finding guide and being situated off the regular birding circuit, the area has lots of potential and has been excellent birding every time I have visited. There is a good amount of forested habitat and most of it can be birded from public roads and trails.

To give an idea of the quality of birding, some of the highlights from a trip there this past weekend were:
Tiny Hawk
Kettles of migrating raptors
Purple-throated Fruitcrow
Checker-throated and White-flanked Antwrens
Great, Fasciated, Western Slaty, and Barred Antshrikes
Chestnut-colored Woodpecker
Pied and White-whiskered Puffbirds
Blue-chested Hummingbird
and a Crested Owl perched right out in the open! (also heard Spectacled and Mottled Owls)

It is an easy area to bird, is always very birdy (especially during migration), has tourism infrastructure, and is located within striking distance of high quality lowland forest at Hitoy Cerere and the Veragua area.

Birdingcraft said:

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca and Manzanillo area

This area is kind of too big to cover in detail in just one post but I mention it because despite being left out of the latest bird finding guide and being situated off the regular birding circuit, the area has lots of potential and has been excellent birding every time I have visited. There is a good amount of forested habitat and most of it can be birded from public roads and trails.

To give an idea of the quality of birding, some of the highlights from a trip there this past weekend were:
Tiny Hawk
Kettles of migrating raptors
Purple-throated Fruitcrow
Checker-throated and White-flanked Antwrens
Great, Fasciated, Western Slaty, and Barred Antshrikes
Chestnut-colored Woodpecker
Pied and White-whiskered Puffbirds
Blue-chested Hummingbird
and a Crested Owl perched right out in the open! (also heard Spectacled and Mottled Owls)

It is an easy area to bird, is always very birdy (especially during migration), has tourism infrastructure, and is located within striking distance of high quality lowland forest at Hitoy Cerere and the Veragua area.

Click to expand...

Patrick

I may be picking your brain soon about that. We may shoot for a week in March.