FEB 5TH - COSTA RICA DAY 5

HOTEL SUENO AZUL  - GROUNDS AND FOREST WALKS


We spent all day in the hotel complex and surrounding forest, it was a bit of a rest day really before we head off into the cloud forest. on Friday.

The group on a very dodgy foot-bridge

Our day began at dawn when we met up in the hotel foyer at 6am. We then spent the next two hours walking along the approach road to the hotel watching many new birds and plenty of others. An egret roost was found over one of the pools and a host of Snowy Egrets, Great Whites and Little Blue Herons came streaming out of it.

10 Snowy egrets and a Little Blue Heron

We cross the river on the suspended road-bridge and walked the track which passed open pasture and clumps of forest. A White-collared Manankin was very nice to see as was a variety of Tanagers, the Black-faced Tanager was a new species for us.

Amazon Kingfishers

Along the approach track to the hotel on the other side of the foot-bridge was very good for birds. It took us an hour to walk 100 meters because there was so many birds to look at. Lots of Seedeaters and Grassquits were flitting in and out of the long grasses and plenty of flycatchers were seen in the trees. We added a new Tanager to our list when we found the Dusky-faced variety and not much later we also found a Plain Tanager. One of the highlights was finding the Barred Antshrike a beautifully marked little bird.

Anhinga  drying out its wings

We returned to the hotel for breakfast at 8am and decided to spend the rest of the morning relaxing. Some of the group went for a swim but most just sat on their terraces and watch the lake. A couple of good sightings were made in doing this, first a pair of Boat-billed Herons were found and then a single Green Ibis. Ringed and Amazon Kingfishers fished in the lake and a single Osprey flew over later in the morning.

Boat-billed heron taken from the terrace outside my room at the hotel

Pale-vented Doves

Green Kingfisher

We took an early lunch at 12 noon and then went for a birding walk at 1pm. The walk led through open meadows and into a forest passing a large pool of water and a stream. Before we even left the hotel complex we made a couple of exciting finds, first a Dusky-capped Flycatcher appeared then a beautiful Gartered Trogan.

Rufous-tailed Jacamar

Great-crested flycatcher

The large pool also held a lot of species and several of them were new for us, Northern Jacana, Purple Gallinule, Pied-billed Grebe and Grey Hawk were firsts for us. We also heard a White-throated Crake calling many times but we could not entice it out of the reeds.

Muscovy Duck - a real wild one!!!

Gartered Trogan

The forest was very quiet, we walked for an hour and spent a lot of the time looking for White-collared Manakins, their wing-clicking sounds were very close but for such a bright bird they were extremely hard to find. They eventually showed and all the group saw them. We also found a Broad-billed Motmot and the strangely named Bright-rumped Attila. The temperature wasn’t too bad all day but it was quite humid so we finished the walk at 4:30pm. Our last finds of the day were made back in the hotel grounds in the shape of a flock of 6 Black-billed Aracaris and a single Green Kingfisher perched on a branch over the lake.

NEW ADDITIONS TO THE COSTA RICA AND YEAR LIST

281. Boat-billed Heron

282. Green Ibis

283. Pied-billed Grebe

284. Osprey

285. Grey hawk

286. Purple Gallinule

287. Northern Jacana

288. Short-billed Pigeon

289. Purple-crowned fairy

290. Gartered Trogan

291. Green Kingfisher

292. Rufous-tail Jacamar

293. Black-mandibled Toucan

294. Barred Antshrike

295. Yellow Tyrannulet

296. Bright-rumped Attila

297. Dusky-capped Flycatcher

298. White-ringed Flycatcher

299. Grey-breasted Martin

300. Mangrove Swallow

301. Dusky-faced Tanager

302. Plain-coloured Tanager

303. Red-legged Honeycreeper

304. Grayish Saltator