10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 25, 2021

Winter birding can be fun, especially when you do it in a place with palms, parrots, and weather for wearing shorts. This is where the summer birds go, where those fall warblers went sometime after October. Similar to how this stream bird rolls at its summer home, in Costa Rica, this bird also frequents rushing forested waterways.

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2021

Birding in the Caribbean is about islands, beautiful beaches, extra special endemics, rum, and smiles. It could also be much more, maybe less, it all depends on how you want to rock an international birding trip. Go to Costa Rica and you will be looking at other birds but you can still get in some Caribbean slope birding.

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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

AUGUST 15, 2020

In the era of digital cameras and social media, images of birds are easy to come by. Even photos of the rarest of birds can be found, even heart-wrenching images of bird species that are no longer with us. In Costa Rica, lately, I have been enjoying the class and elegance of bird poster art produced by CaraCara.

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Costa Rica Birds Species Woodpeckers 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 15, 2022

Global Big Day has become an annual collective event in May that encourages thousands of people to watch birds on the same date. As far as promoting birding goes, the only thing better might be October Gobal Big Day ! In mountainous Costa Rica, that can translate to such disasters as flooding, landslides, and road closures.

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Costa Rica San Jose Falcons Owls 273

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 15, 2022

and I am taking my observation-sofa position next to a glass wall, overlooking bird feeders in the misty cloudforests of the Cordillera de Talamanca. I met Serge five years ago, when he invited me to a mad bird race all the way from the Caribbean to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It is 6.40

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Costa Rica Panama Squirrels Nicaragua 236

10,000 Birds

MAY 28, 2022

Today, along with teams in a few other parts of Costa Rica and elsewhere, I will be birding for a cause, watching birds to help one that only lives in Costa Rica, the Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrow. The Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrow is a bird in trouble. Carman, and Luis Sandoval.

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Costa Rica Sparrows Raised Birds 246

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

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

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

Costa Rica is a tropical country but it doesn’t have to be hot. To be honest, I shouldn’t downplay the lower temperatures of Costa Rica’s high elevations. The night was understandably cool, not quite freezing but cool enough to warrant a sweater and jacket at this high elevation birding hotspot.

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10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 23, 2019

It’s part of modern birding. Make a bird list for anywhere, anytime and on a hand held device! Note birds the old fashioned way (that would be writing on paper) and submit those observations back at the homestead or wherever you have a connection. Going birding in Hawaii? Don’t have a connection? No problem!

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Costa Rica Thailand Species Hawaii 309

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. A group (maybe 4-5 ex.) A group (maybe 4-5 ex.)

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Costa Rica Nicaragua 2019 Farming 244

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 16, 2021

Another October Big Day has come and gone and thus made its way into the sacred birding archives. Similar to 2020, more than 32,000 people participated, 78,000 checklists were submitted, and more than 7,200 bird species were identified. Nothing like getting as many people to bird at the same time as possible and see what they find!

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Costa Rica Species 2020 Falcons 260

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 24, 2022

December is not the ideal month for bird counts, at least not in Costa Rica. However, in Costa Rica, despite being wonderfully warm in December, the birding isn’t as straightforward as one might expect. One such event is the bird count at Arenal, a day typically replete with varying degrees of rain.

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Costa Rica Eagles Species Blackbirds 250

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 7, 2021

The adult males sport that look; a bird created with crayons and an imaginative mind. The female isn’t quite so unreal but is still a cool little bird in her own right. She also makes a mark with her small size, one of the smallest birds in Costa Rica. A Garden Planted for Birds.

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Costa Rica San Jose Birds Farming 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 13, 2021

According to the unwritten ancient rules of birding, whether your pelagic trip gets cancelled or not, as long as you go birding, there will always be highlights. It depends on what a birder wants to see and in Costa Rica, there’s always a lot to choose from. On both ferry trips, we had a few pelagic birds.

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Costa Rica ALA Peru Texas 212

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 4, 2020

For birders doing the year bird thing, the last day of the year is likely too late for most new additions but, luckily, those who don’t want to venture outside with optics in hand can always mark the end of the year by sharing tales of favorite sightings with favorite fellow birders. Bird counts. Three days, three hawk-eagles.

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Costa Rica 2019 San Jose Eagles 198

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

JULY 24, 2021

“Gamebirds” to some, cool, cryptic understory birds to the birding people, grouse crouch protected as unfettered winds sway the top of the tall prairie grass. Then there are the ones that live in PA , the state bird, “the grouse” that a great many non-birders are aware of, my Uncle Fred was one of them.

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Costa Rica Chickens Pennsylvania Litter 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2019

However, no matter how one enjoys or takes in interest in the avian side of life, an official list of the birds for a given area is of vital importance. With the rise in birding tourism, bird lists for entire countries have also become increasingly important. Not every list has Great Tinamou on it.

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Costa Rica Birds Owls South America 202

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 19, 2020

Thanks to steadfast advances in optics and digital cameras, bird photography has become quite the popular way to appreciate birds. The new style doesn’t erase the challenges of bird photography, nor does it delete the importance of learning tricks of the bird photo trade. Yellow-throated Toucan. Keel-billed Toucan.

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Costa Rica Parrots Birds Groups 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2019

For many folks who live in places with cold winters, toucans are the birds on cereal boxes. It was all too easy to look at that natural cartoon of a bird and leave it as that; some funny looking caricature of a supposed wild bird because really, how could such a strange thing exist? Yes, this bird acts like a jay.

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Costa Rica Panama Eating Eggs South America 182

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2019

Watching birds, birding, is inexorably tied to autonomous motivation. Maybe that’s why birders just might be obsessive about it or at least, very much into the hobby, the birding way of life. We get serious about quality optics and spend hours studying field guides about birds because we really really want to.

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Costa Rica Cooking Birds Chickens 215

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2019

The idea was to see how many birds could be collectively identified by folks anywhere and everywhere. Go birding, eBird the results and see what happens! Whatever the reason for getting involved with this massive day of birding, every GBD has been a success where literally thousands of species are found by thousands of birders.

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Costa Rica Species West Virginia New York 217

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

It’s an exciting time for birding in Costa Rica. Although the presence of accessible quetzals, Snowcaps , and glittering tanagers probably make that statement one for the Captain Obvious playbook, really, it is an exciting time to be birding up in here. I really love this bird. Such a lovely sight.

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Costa Rica South America Panama Morals 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 16, 2019

In Costa Rica, we have two coasts, a pair of shorelines that touch two oceans. However, in Costa Rica, we don’t usually refer to that body of water as the Atlantic, nor even as an ocean. I was recently reminded of the rich avifauna found in the Caribbean lowlands while guiding a small group of birders from Texas.

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Costa Rica Birds Woodpeckers Owls 169

10,000 Birds

MAY 12, 2018

When it comes to initiatives that promote birding, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is hard to beat. Numerous projects take place that monitor bird populations and help educate people of all ages about birds. Those who did so on May 5th automatically became part of the biggest day of collective birding in 2018; Global Big Day !

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10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 16, 2019

Barbets are odd, chunky birds with large beaks. There’s so much more that can be said about this group of birds but that’s the first description that comes to mind. Like many other barbets, both are clownish birds in terms of plumage and song; the Red-headed Barbet. and the Prong-billed Barbet.

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2017

It was already dark in mid-October when we arrived to the Costa Rican birding mecca of Rancho Naturalista to have dinner on the veranda but then were interrupted with a call: There’s a Mottled Owl at the other side! Lisa Erb, the manager and owner, but also a former bird guide, perfectly understood her guests.

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Costa Rica Woodpeckers Farming Owls 166

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2015

Birders head to Costa Rica to see stunners like Resplendent Quetzal , Three-wattled Bellbird , Orange-collared Manakin , fancy hummingbirds , tanagers, and literally hundreds of other birds. This bunch of possible Costa Rican crypto birds can be grouped into four main categories: (1). One of them quetzals.

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Costa Rica Species South America America 219

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 28, 2017

In Costa Rica, October is our May. Birds begin to filter down through this southern part of Central America by August but the biggest avian movement happens during the third and final weeks of October. Some of the Birding Club at Selva Bananito. or almost anything else, that’s the way the birding ball bounces.

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Costa Rica Birds Parrots Farming 166

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 27, 2014

Those woodpeckers are some smart-looking birds, and Costa Rica has her fair share with 16 species that head-bang from the dry forests of the northwest to the high-elevation rainforests of the mountains. A local, brownish subspecies of the Hairy Woodpecker is one of this avian clan that resides in Costa Rica.

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Costa Rica Woodpeckers Honduras Panama 200

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2019

Before leaving Olguita’s on the second day in Costa Rica, I spotted this migrant male Baltimore Oriole ( Icterus galbula ) pictured above, but I also enjoyed a resident Black-cowled Oriole ( Icterus prosthemelas ), both lifers! The sloths are a big draw in Costa Rica.

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Costa Rica Baltimore Turtles Groups 113

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. Habitat at Las Brisas.

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Costa Rica Species Belize New Jersey 188

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Even non-birders can appreciate the huge-billed and colorful birds. Costa Rica has more than its fair share of these charismatic creatures to the point where the first edition of The Birds of Costa Rica features an Emerald Toucanet and the second edition, just published, features the subject of this post, the Collared Aracari.

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Costa Rica Horses Farming Collecting 238

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 17, 2015

When people find out that I moved to Costa Rica from Niagara Falls, New York, one of the first things they ask is if I miss much from the City of the Cataracts. I tell them about DiCamillo’s bread, the expected things we tend to miss, and might also mention gulls and bird migration. Prothonotary Warbler.

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Costa Rica Goats South America New York 191

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2015

There are lots of great birding sites in Costa Rica. In fact, go anywhere with a good amount of natural forest and the birding is gonna be good. Although a straight fast road might not seem to be a big deal, it’s a rare, welcome occurrence in seriously mountainous Costa Rica.

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