10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 26, 2020

It was when I searched for migrant birds on gorgeous days of September, usually near the Niagara Gorge, sometimes while fishing for salmon in the powerful green waters. After moving to Costa Rica in 2007, my fall migration took on a different approach. In Costa Rica, they become another sort of animal.

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10,000 Birds

MAY 14, 2022

The macaws of the sandpiper clan, these long-billed, long-legged, loud calling birds are large and in charge. In Costa Rica, we enjoy healthy numbers of Whimbrels , a few annual wintering Long-billed Curlews that choose to lord over the flats of the Gulf of Nicoya, and good numbers of an equally impressive prairie bird, the Marbled Godwit.

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2022

On that glorious day, I observed ten critically endangered birds, representing 8% of their Costa Rican, or 2% of their global population!! In my previous post , I dealt with Rancho Naturalista Lodge itself and birding within their private reserve. But, let’s start at the beginning.

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10,000 Birds

APRIL 24, 2021

“That bird! That bird, chase it! Shearwaters scattered at our approach and the wind howled in our ears but it couldn’t dampen Wilfredo’s focus, nor his vocal insistence to “follow those birds”! As the prop motor revved and ocean spray flew by, I wondered, “Which birds”?

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2021

It takes a detour to reach Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica but oh how the trip is worth it. Fortunately, the waters have long since subsided and I was able to make the trip this past weekend to participate in the Cano Negro Bird Count. 171 Species. What can I say but go to Cano Negro when visiting Costa Rica.

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 12, 2019

Bird migration! In October, it’s what’s happening in Costa Rica. Our big month of bird movements in Costa Rica, the 10th month of the year, is when most of the swallows, Scarlet Tanagers , thrushes, and other species on the South American express push through. What do they eat?

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10,000 Birds

MARCH 28, 2020

A month ago, I was helping fellow birders see their first Emerald Tanagers , their lifer Sunbittern , and wondering where Mary and I could go next, which birds we could chase during the upcoming weekends. As the pandemic suddenly gained speed and we saw our first cases in Costa Rica, we realized that we were in for some big changes.

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10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2020

The annual parade of birds is happening and the feathered participants are dressed in their best breeding suits. Now is when we can venture into the closest park and see birds of the deep woods, species that breed far from town. It’s a living festival and for the birds, 2020 is no different.

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2021

Migrant birds make an incredibly perilous journey, twice per year. On the breeding grounds of the north, a small bird flies into the night, takes a bearing for the south, gains altitude and flies onward. During this incredible DIY survival trip, patches of light tempt the small bird to a lethal, unnatural end.

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10,000 Birds

MAY 11, 2019

In the birding world, May is the beautiful time. With birds bedecked in their breeding best and filling the air with song, this is migration at its loveliest. A wonderful variety of bird species are waiting to be seen and among them are many a birder’s favorite avian group, the wood-warblers.

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Costa Rica Species Belize New Jersey 191

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2019

However, for those of us living the birding life, Spring is more than just the transition between the cold and the warm. It’s also a big time for bird movements, a period punctuated by waves of migrants, first the early ones, then a time of many species, and finally, those last “late” migrants moving north.

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10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 17, 2016

Are all birds created equal? Nothing against the Rocky Pigeon but let’s be honest, if a breeding plumaged Blackburnian Warbler hops into view, It’s pretty easy to forget about that pigeon, Warbling Vireo , or even a Pine Warbler when you can treat the good old retinas to a striking combination of red-orange, black, and white.

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10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 14, 2019

Even if we couldn’t find time to raise the bins at a favorite patch, it only takes momentary glances into the sky and hearing chip notes from the trees to remind us that birds are on the move. Although this elegant raptor is regular in many parts of Costa Rica, it doesn’t usually visit the Central Valley.

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Costa Rica South America Tennessee 2019 158

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2018

These are the summer months of the northern hemisphere and yet this time of year in Costa Rica is known as the “invierno”, Spanish for “winter” However, no matter how adapted I become to the local culture, I just can’t use that word in Costa Rica. Bird there now and it’s fine!

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10,000 Birds

MAY 10, 2024

There are 154 species of cuckoos in the world, and they’re all a fascinating bunch. I have encountered a few of the more quirky members of the family, including the brilliant and aptly-named African Emerald Cuckoo, India’s ultra-shy Sirkeer Malkoha, and the fascinating Lesser Ground Cuckoo in Costa Rica.

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10,000 Birds

MAY 23, 2020

For myself and surely thousands of other birders, May is when I saw my first of many birds. In Costa Rica, well…not so much. Yes, the birding is truly exciting but we just don’t have the annual parade of breeding plumaged, singing warblers, grosbeaks, and orioles. Slate-throated Redstart.

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Costa Rica Panama Nashville Baltimore 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2015

I started birding in what must have been 1978. Each new bird has been and still is a major personal achievement, another goal made, and always cause for unquestionable personal celebration. Two weeks ago, one of those oceanic birds became my latest and second lifer of the year. Why visit the beaches of Costa Rica now?

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10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 19, 2015

A rare bird is one we don’t see very often. However, that doesn’t mean that the bird species in question is necessarily endangered. None of these are rare in their normal haunts but seeing them in Costa Rica would be a major birding event. Oh, how that would be a nice year bird.

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Costa Rica Birds Panama Sparrows 162

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 30, 2017

Costa Rica? How can a remote archipelago made famous for Darwin, a bunch of finches, and other cool endemic birds be related to the land of quetzals and “gallo pinto” (that would be the local version of rice and beans)? Among them were two target year birds I was hoping for; Bridled Tern , and one flyby Brown Noddy.

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10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2022

Every place has its common birds, the species that do very well in a given habitat. As we like to say, these are species that are “hard to miss”, birds that, if you are watching, will be seen. As one might expect, signature birds take many forms. Birding in a local park? What about urban sites?

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10,000 Birds

APRIL 14, 2018

It eventually warms up but in the meantime, it’s good birding anyways. “Good” in this case means lots of birds on the move. In Costa Rica, April is much more stable. The birds also need it because this is when they build nests and breed. It’s a good time to be in Costa Rica.

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 24, 2017

Yep, come to Costa Rica to cool off! Plant as many trees as you can, support organic, locally produced food, don’t buy products associated with deforestation, and feel good about coming down to Costa Rica. Bird way up there to watch endemic Volcano Juncos and Timberline Wrens while wearing a jacket.

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10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2017

Shorebirds are part of the avian scene in Costa Rica, pretty much all year long. During the winter months, thousands of small wading birds frequent the mud flats of the Gulf of Nicoya as well as estuaries on both coasts. Those birds are out there, even in Costa Rica, and I bet more are waiting to be found.

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Costa Rica Morals Breeders Sparrows 101

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2016

In Costa Rica, June is breeding bird count season. That said, I wish we had more counts because so much of the country needs to be surveyed for birds. Protected area or not, there has been change in the air, and we need to see how the birds are responding. Finch a la yellow thighs.

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Breeding Costa Rica Birds Panama 101

10,000 Birds

MAY 14, 2016

Last year, the Cornell Lab Of Ornithology had this really cool idea to get as many people counting as many birds as they could, in as many places as possible. This call to massive birding was known as the Global Big Day and it was meant to be the first of many GBDs to come. No, everyone should be out birding.

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 6, 2016

Birds know habitat. They don’t read treaties or draw maps or build walls and, as far as we can tell (since we can’t talk to birds, yet), they have no concept of political boundaries. Robert Gallardo’s self-published Guide to the Birds of Honduras came out in 2015, and is the first bird field guide dedicated to that country.

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10,000 Birds

JANUARY 9, 2019

Over-all there were almost 80,000 photos taken, nearly 50 story’s posted on this website, and 10 countries, all with some amazing birds. In the end, I truly did set out to reduce the number of birds that I feature here from 1302, my years total species, down to 10-12. I present to you, my favorite birds of 2018.

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 10, 2022

A birding trip is more than arriving to your destination and watching birds. A successful birding trip is a process, one that requires a fair degree of planning and as much studying as you want (or can handle). Your preparations will also reveal when someone is actually a pseudo birding guide. Right, say what?!

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Costa Rica Birds Panama Rights 259

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 23, 2014

2014 has been a good year for us at 10,000 Birds. We’ve traveled to lots of places, seen lots of great birds, and met lots of great birders. So, as we’ve done for the last several years we thought we would share our Best Birds of the Year with you. Below are our Best Birds of the Year. What was yours?

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10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2014

In September, I had the fantastic opportunity to travel to an increasingly popular destination for birding: Honduras. Chris Lotz, the owner of the international bird tour company Birding Ecotours , invited me to join him on a familiarization trip that included several highland sites as well as Pico Bonito Lodge.

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10,000 Birds

MARCH 8, 2017

Spring is in the air, and all around the Baja desert I am seeing a plethora of species, all looking for love, in what appears to the right places. A member of the small Ptiliogonatidae family of silky-flycatchers, of which there are only three other species besides our local Phainopepla , Phainopepl nitens.

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Costa Rica Panama Nevada Guatemala 107

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 26, 2016

Snow has touched down in some places up north, up there on the breeding grounds of Mourning Warblers , Baltimore Orioles , and Sharp-shinned Hawks. A lot of them came down to Costa Rica, especially the orioles. I’m glad that they insisted because they weren’t the only bird in the backyard.

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Costa Rica Baltimore Illinois Honduras 136

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

The Durango Highway is arguably one of North America’s great birding roads due to the great variety of habitats, the spectacular mountain scenery of the Sierra Madre Occidental, and the numerous Mexican endemics one can target. Think Arizona meets Costa Rica with a Mexican twist. Photo by Andrew Spencer.

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Mexico Costa Rica Arizona Birds 201

10,000 Birds

JULY 27, 2013

And while the birds that we in the western hemisphere refer to as blackbirds in their common names are from several different genera it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that if a bird is in the same genus as the North American meadowlarks that it would also be called a meadowlark. If only naming birds were so simple!

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10,000 Birds

AUGUST 20, 2015

And where all those birds are? This map shows the distribution of the World’s bird species, based on overlying the breeding and wintering ranges of all known species. And it raises a question: if all the birds are having a party over there, am I in the wrong spot? I am talking 600 or 700+ bird species.

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10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

When Costa Rica becomes a topic of conversation, we don’t usually hear the word “extinction” being thrown around. But how about when the Costa Rica conversation involves a birder? It’s easy to bedazzle the bins with this one when birding in Costa Rica. Must be a joke, right?

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Costa Rica Species Panama Birds 228

10,000 Birds

MAY 10, 2017

This is a bird blog, and my beat is New Zealand, so let me talk about a fish I saw in Australia. My recent trip was fantastic, and really re-kindled my love of diving, so much so that I’ve started planning and saving for a diving (and birding) trip to Costa Rica in 2019. I’ll have to try and find out.

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