Feb 15th – COSTA RICA - DAY 15

Palo Verde national Park

OUR FINAL BIRDING DAY OF THE TOUR

Palo Verde is an extensive seasonal wetland area, it sits on the edge of the Temisque River at the northern end of the Bay of Nicoya. Covering about 12 hectares (32,000 acres) and during the  wet season it is teaming with wildlife.

We arrived at a time when the amount of water was drastically and the concentration of  was at a maximum. The dirt track to the reserve entrance from the main highway is 20km long, we stopped many times along the way to look mainly at, raptors and flycatchers. We added the strange looking Scissor-tailed Flycatcher to our list there were many of these super little birds flitting about in the trees in the open meadows. We also found two beautifully marked Streak-backed Orioles, what a fabulous looking species that one is.

We eventually arrived at the wetlands, it was truly amazing the whole area was covered in thousands of birds. Herons, egrets, ducks, waders and swamphens to name but a few. We had close views of Roseate Spoonbills, White Ibis, Glossy Ibis, Common Gallinule,  Purple Gallinule and thousand of Black-bellied Whistling Duck.  We also saw our first Fulvous Whistling Duck, Limpkin, American Coot and American Wigeon.  Raptors appeared from time to time, a pair of Peregrine falcons swooped down over the ducks a couple of times, a Harriss Hawk perched on a tower and a Roadside Hawk perched along the track.

We drove around to another area of the marsh and just stood amazed at the shear number of birds. Hundreds of herons included Great-Blue, Little-Blue, Bare-throated, Green, Snowy, Cattle, Tricoloured and Black-crowned Night Herons were all present in good numbers. The open marshes held hundreds of Blue-winged Teal and to our great delight there were two adult Jabiru a 100 meters or so from the track. A great result and a much wanted species by the group.

It was now getting very hot so we retreated into the forested area and ate our picnic lunch in the shade of the trees. We spent some time watching other wildlife, Howler Monkey, Whoite-faced Capuchin and Spider Monkeys were all present in the trees above us. On the ground we watched family parties of the Coati, Small Red Squirrels and the occasional Agouti. Many Spiny-tailed Iguanas were crawled around the picnic area.

Back in the forest we followed a couple of trails and found a few new birds: Black-headed Trogon was a superb find and Scrub Euphonia was hard to get on to but we all managed it.

It get extremely hot in the afternoon so all we could do was rest in the shade, the birds did the same. Back at the marsh area on the return journey we spent some time watching the colourful mass of birds out there.

Our journey back to the Main road was taken as the sun was going down, we saw many Tropical Kingbirds sitting on top of the sugar cane, they were joined by Red-winged Blackbirds and small flocks of our last new bird of the trip – the Yellow-bellied Seedeater.

We arrived back at the hotel in the dark, the birding was over as we had to leave the hotel fairly early in the morning. We never reached our 400 target but we got very close, no-one was disappointed, the target was just a bit of fun, we enjoyed the 390 that we did see and have no regrets on missing the odd 10 that we missed.

484. Fulvous Whistling Duck

485. American Wigeon

486. Jabiru

487. Glossy Ibis

488. Harris’s Hawk

489. Common Gallinule

490. Limpkin

491. American Coot

492. Black-headed Trogon

493. Orange-fronted Parakeet

495. Brown-crested Flycatcher

496. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

497. White-lored Gnatcatcher

498. Yellow-bellied Seedeater

499. Streak-backed Oriole

500. Scrub Euphonia