HELICONIA ISLAND - SELVA VERDE - TAPANTI VIA SAN JOSEOur third day at Heliconia Island started just as the second one did, an early morning stroll around the beautiful gardens and nearby tracks. We were woken by the Howler Monkeys at 5am and as usual the air was full of bird song.
Blue-grey Tanager
Dawn stayed in bed whilst I went for walk, the usual array of colourful species greeted me as I walked the first few yards. A Northern Waterthrush walked around on the lawn, this was new for the list as was a Hawk that flew off carrying a large snake. Over the next hour and a half I must have seen over 40 species with Black Striped Sparrow, Black-cowled Oriole, Smooth-billed Ani, Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Southern Rough-winged Swallow, Black-faced Grosbeak, Blue Seedeater, Crested Caracara.
The rest of the morning was spent visitin
g a couple of Lodges and their associated nature trials in order to assess them for future use. During this recce we added Rufuous-winged Woodpecker, Yellow Warbler and a Summer Tanager (a nice male).
The long drive to the Cloud Forest at Tapanti was broken by a couple of roadside stops where we added: King Vulture, White-tailed Hawk, Green Thorntail, Voilet headed Hummingbird and Voilet-crowned Woodnymph.
As we approached the Tapanti Reserve we stopped to watch a
huge flock of Crimson-fronted Parrots, there must have over 100 of this semi-endemic. We found a House Wren taking a dust bath and a quick stop at a mounatin stream produced American Dipper and Black Phoebe.
The prospect for tomorrow was an exciting one, the terraine was totally different with mountain forest replacing that of tropical rain forest, with a different set of tree species. The temperature was much cooler, the air was drier, it had changed from 98% humidity in the tropical forest to 20% in the cloud forest and it wasn't raining every other hour!!! WOOD THRUSH
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