La Selva
We spent all day at La Selva, we had a tremendous time
and saw a lot of species. It was dry all day with a lot cloud which keep the
heat of the afternoon down to a bearable temperature.
We met at the restaurant at 6:30am and took an early
breakfast and by 7:30am we were on the road to make the short journey to La Selva. We connected with our guide for the day once we had assembled at the
reception area.
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| Cinnamon Becard |
La Selva is a Biological Station founded in 1968 and
covers over 1600 hectares, it consists of primary forest, secondary forest and
areas of open grassland. Our morning was spent around the visitor’s centre and
walking some of the trails nearby.
We had many memorable sightings throughout the day but
the morning’s highlights consisted of sightings of: Pied Puffbird, Crested Owl,
Slaty-tailed Trogan, Cinnamon Becard, Black-headed Tody, Great Tinamou,
Stripe-throated Hermit and many others. We also saw our first Pecary, Howler
Monkeys, Jesus Christ Lizard, Brown-wood turtle and Black River Turtle and plenty
of new butterflies.
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| Sunbittern |
We ate lunch at the ‘stations’ restaurant and went at
1pm for a second walk. This time we stayed in the secondary forest on wide
trails. This proved very successful with plenty of new sightings in the forest.
However some of the best highlights including a short stop by the river, where
within a couple of minutes, we found a
Sunbittern and a Sungrebe. What a great find, the Bittern was standing within 3
meters of us and when it finally flew across the river we all had views of
‘sun’ on each wing, fantastic!
We left La Selva at 4pm but stopped just outside the
boundary fence to look over some open fields which support some mature trees.
We looked for the Great Green Macaw in the high canopy and after a few minutes
3 of these gems flew over us and landed not too far away. The light was bad and
gave us only silhouettes so we drove around to another track where we could
scope the birds in great light, wow, what a superbly coloured bird.
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| Add caption |
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| BASILISK LIZARD (JESUS CHRIST LIZARD) |
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| COLLARED PECARY |
Before we returned to our hotel we made a stop along
the way at a small hotel complex which is well known for having Spectacled Owls
in the garden. Sure enough there were two of them showing well. We sat on the
terrace of the restaurant and watched over the river where we saw lots of
Cattle Egrets flying off to roost. We also saw a Wedge-billed Woodcreeper (our
fourth woodcreeper of the day) and we heard a Common Pauraque (nightjar). We
drove back in the dark hoping to see a nightjar and as we approached the hotel
we saw two common Pauraques, a great find to end the day.
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| The group looking at a Brown Wood-Turtle |
We saw 85 species in all today.
ADDITIONS TO THE COSTA RICA LIST AND MY YEAR LIST
305. Great Curassow
306. Sungrebe
307. Ruddy Ground-Dove
308. Squirrel Cuckoo
309. Crested Owl
310. Spectacled Owl
311. Commonb Pauraque
312. Grey-rumped swift
313. Stripe-throated Hermit
314. Violet-headed hummingbird
315. Blue-chested hummingbird
316. Pied Puffbird
317. Chestnut-coloured Woodpecker
318. Pale-billed woodpecker
319. Olive-throated parakeet
320. Great Green Macaw
321. Fasciated Antshrike
322. Wedge-billed Woodcreeper
323. Northern-barred Woodcreeper
324. Cocoa Woodcreeper
325. Yellow-olive Flycatcher
326. Black-headed Tody
327. Cinnamon Becard
328. Black-throated Wren
329. Worm-eating Warbler
330. Red-throated Ant-Tanager
331. Black-faced Grosbeak
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