We left the high altitude mountains and headed west for the Pacific Lowlands, the weather was bright and clear but it did cloud over and it rained.
As we dropped down towards the coast we stopped at two interesting places, the first had lots of bird feeder for hummers and the second was the nature reserve based around the home of the founder of Costa Rican birding, Alexander Skutch. It was there that we had our 'Tanager' day.
This speckled Tanger was one of 6 species visiting the bird table in Alexander Skutch's Garden! There was also Cherrie'sTanager, Blue and Grey Tanager, Palm Tanager, Western Tanager and the two shown below:
Golden-crowned Tanager
Bay-headed Tanger
The famous Fiery-billed Aracari - a must-see species of Costa Rica
We also had some great new species for our list found in the surrounding woodlands and garden:
Spotted-crowned Euphonia, Orange-collared manakin, Red-capped Manakin, Blue-crowned Manakinand Riverside Wren. We also saw the fantastic Turquoise Cotinga, Broad-winged Hawk and several more new hummers.
As we dropped down to sea level the humidity rose again and we felt as we stopped for short birding stints. We added Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Southern lapwing, Barn Swallow, Crested Caracara, Grey-breasted Martin and Roadside hawk.
Our first view of the Pacific Ocean was at Quepos where we scanned the bay on low tide, there we found: Willet, laughing Gull, Sandwich Tern, Royal Tern, Elegant Tern, Forster's Tern, Magnificent Frigate bird, Brown Pelican and Green Backed Heron.
Not a bad finsh to the day. We bade farewell to Roy our guide and checked into our next hotel. Later, as we sat on the terrace sipping a cold tinny we heard a Rufous-fronted Wood Rail calling and I knew I was going to enjoy this new venue!
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