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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hamhed" data-source="post: 1724284" data-attributes="member: 70825">We arose at 5, three hours of exhausted sleep later and packed for our travels by flashlight.  Breakfast at 6:15 allowed for just a few minutes of birding.  With Diego's help, we id'd a Spotted Woodcreeper and had an extended and close look at an Orange-billed Sparrow.  That was it for the birds at Rara Avis.  In the lurching, mud-splattering carnival ride that was our transportation, we sighted a Strawberry Poison Dart Frog just before the driver stopped to study a lopsided wheel on the trailer.  The bearings were apparently shot and needed immediate replacement to avoid losing the wheel altogether.  The two of us spent 45 minutes doing so, the driver  banging his shin sharply with a metal bar in the process.  He stopped again when we sighted a White Hawk perched in a far off tree.  At 10, we met the Unimog with a group heading up to Rara Avis.  As our driver once again surveyed two more wheels in danger of leaving the trailer, we threw our luggage in the Unimog, put our daypacks on and started hiking down the 4-5 km road to Horquetas.  The sky was partly sunny and it was comfortably warm as we made our way along,  passing mostly open pasture with only two or three homes visible from the road.  Except for Rough-winged Swallows, we saw few birds, (a Gray Hawk, 2 Red-lored Parrots, a few Blue-black Grassquits), even in the occasional patches of wooded areas.  It was, however, a peaceful and scenic walk that we'd like to repeat someday with intentions of camping at El Plastico, where we never got the chance to do any birding.  Henk picked us up at the Rara Avis office in Horquetas and brought us back to Heleconia Lodge, about 8 km away.  We settled back into the same room, noting other guests from Holland had arrived as well.  The time we had left in the day was split between cleaning and rearranging our clothing and wandering the Heleconia grounds for more of the same good birding we had found several days ago.  Bay Wrens, Bright-rumped Attila, Violeceous Trogon, Squirrel Cuckoo, Green Ibis, Black-cowled Oriole, Tanagers and  Honeycreepers at the feeder.  I found a foursome of Band-backed Wrens dust bathing in the road, a writhing ball white and chocolate colors.  As a pre-dinner show, we watched as Short-tailed Nighthawks zoomed low over the open lawn.  Then, we ate a delicious fish dinner with the other guests to the sound of a Bare-throated Tiger Heron going to sleep, Giant Toads along the river banks, Pauraques and the Spectacled Owl calling, and the House Geckos chirping overhead.  A beautiful tropical  serenade to begin the night.</blockquote>

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