LA SELVA MORNING WALKS – TRANSFER TO RANCHO NATURALISTA
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| Violet-crowned Woodnymph |
Our day started at the usual time of 5:45am to the sound of
the Common Paraque, we saw several of them as we drove along the track to the
start of our walk. For this first hour we walked through the forest back
towards the visitor’s centre, it was fairly quiet probably due to the fact that
a heavy rainstorm had come over an hour before we got up. It was the larger forest
birds that grabbed our attention for most of the time as we found a beautiful
male Great Currasow, then a Crested Guan and finally we had two sightings of
Great Tinamou, the second sighting was of an adult with chicks.
The smaller species began to appear but only the Ochre-bellied
Flycatcher was new for us, however we had excellent views of some species that
were only glimpses yesterday.
We ate breakfast at 7:30am before going out for another walk
and again it proved to be frustrating as not many birds were seen in the dense
primary forest where we walked. Usually you bump into a feeding flock or an ant
swarm but we found neither. A ‘lek’ was found of the Stripe-throated Hermit but
it only held one bird. We did get good views of White-breasted Wood-Wren and
later of a Stripe-breasted Wren and many of the species seen yesterday also showed
up.
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| CRESTED GUAN |
We then loaded up the bus and set off for our next venue –
Rancho Naturalista which sits at a higher elevation and offers a lot of new
species for us to find.
We stopped for lunch and to look for Nicaraguan Seed-Eater
which showed for some and not for others, however, as consolation a White-tailed
Hawk hovered in the background and then a Short-tailed Hawk flew right over the
top of us.
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| GOLDEN-HOODED TANAGER |
Our journey lasted 2 hours, we arrived at Rancho at 4pm and
after a very short settling-in period we were all found on the superb verandah
in the main building. It was chaotic at first as dozens of hummers were dashing
about, visiting the feeders and often perching very close to us. Several bird
tables held other species and 3 small pools held even more species.
Several really special species stand out in my memory: a male Golden-winged
Warbler bathed as a Swainson’s Thrush looked on. Both Orange-billed and
Black-striped Sparrows also visited the pools and then a Wood Thrush pop in!
But it was the hummers that stole the show with a beautiful
array of colour and agility that held us spellbound for a good hour or so. We
saw Snowcap, Violet-crowned Woodnymph, Brown Violetear and Green-breasted Mango
which were all new for us, in addition another 8 other species were identified.
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| EASTERN WOOD-PEWEE |
All in all we saw about 30 species in that short time, simple watching from the
verandah, how amazing is that?
Our dinner was early at 6pm, we completed the birdlog by 8pm
and everyone went off to bed in readiness for another early start tomorrow, can't wait.
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