San Jose Related Topics 
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 16, 2016
For me, the southernmost end of the Baja, is all about the estuary in nearby San Jose Del Cabo. I am old enough now, that the wild parties, and crazy Cabo bar scene hold very little appeal for me.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 7, 2021
However, if you have time for some birding much closer to San Jose, this choice hummingbird is also regular at one of the newest Costa Rica birding spots on the block; the intriguing Nectar and Pollen reserve. Located on the main highway between San Jose and Limon, Nectar and Pollen is easy to visit by car or even public bus.
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10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 3, 2022
After 14 hours of flight / 20 h spent travelling to reach Costa Rica from Eastern Europe, I landed in San Jose in the rain. It was close to 5 a.m., the best time for city traffic to eat me alive. I naively trusted Google Maps’ claim that it takes a little over two hours to drive the next 100 km.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 4, 2018
Even if you had to spend a few frustrating days stuck in the urban wonderland of San Jose and surroundings, you still share the streets and parks with screeching Crimson-fronted Parakeets. Proximity – Although this area is fairly close to San Jose, the nearness in this case is all about the birds.
10,000 Birds
FEBRUARY 18, 2023
The Road to Irazu – An easy road that passes through cultivated fields before eventually reaching patches of good forest past San Juan de Chicua. Higher up, it also accesses paramo with Volcano Junco and Timberline Wrens. Dry Forest Costa Rica has plenty of good dry forest birding.
10,000 Birds
OCTOBER 4, 2014
As soon as you leave the airport near San Jose, unless you are coming from the southeastern states during the summer months, you won’t help but notice the higher level of humidity. San Jose Traffic : Ouch! Most birding time in Costa Rica is spent away from San Jose so no problem there.
Critter News
AUGUST 6, 2009
From the San Jose Mercury News. Fascinating spotlight on an activist known for freeing imprisoned animals. He was himself eventually imprisoned for two years as a result.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 6, 2022
Arrive at the airport near San Jose in the day and you could easily see them fly overhead. Take a closer look and you will probably see some leaves in motion, leaves that become parakeets carefully moving through the foliage as they feed on flowers, fruits, and seeds.
10,000 Birds
JUNE 23, 2022
San Francisco averages two-tenths of an inch for the month, while San Jose only averages half that much. I had set aside the morning of Sunday, June 10th to cross the San Francisco Peninsula to the Pacific Ocean town of Half Moon Bay, a mere 25 minute drive away, for a few hours of birding.
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 2, 2017
The following are twelve such species of hummingbirds easily seen after an hour or so drive from the San Jose area: Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. We need to travel a bit lower in elevation for this little beauty but it’s still quite accessible with an hour or so drive from San Jose. Coppery-headed Emerald.
10,000 Birds
FEBRUARY 2, 2021
Getting to our lodge is easy from either San Jose or Liberia, and once here you can take advantage of our extensive trails, multiple birding observation platforms, two feeding stations, and a 35-foot high bamboo canopy tower (seen above), where you can easily observe and photograph colorful toucans, euphonias, honeycreepers, and hundreds more.
10,000 Birds
OCTOBER 15, 2022
This can be a long drive from San Jose, especially with road construction and slow and seemingly eternal truck traffic, but once you get there, the voyage is worth it.
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 15, 2017
That gave me Sunday morning off to re-visit the estuary at San Jose Del Cabo for the first time since Hurricane Lidia struck the area. Last weekend, my work had me driving to the very southern end of the Baja.
Critter News
JULY 29, 2009
The defense demanded that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) be struck down as unconstitutional before Judge Ronald Whyte of the United States District Court, Northern District of California in San Jose. Here's a summary.
10,000 Birds
JUNE 20, 2020
The most common urban parakeet, this is the one that has become adapted to nesting on buildings, including the center of San Jose. These are the species that call or fly within my sphere of birding nearly every day: Crimson-fronted Parakeet.
Critter News
NOVEMBER 23, 2010
From the San Jose Mercury News. If the incident is insignificant, then why deny access? A Menlo Park research facility Monday refused to allow a humane society representative to check up on a monkey that bit a female lab worker the day before.
10,000 Birds
JULY 21, 2018
Located in the mountains that overlook crowded San Jose, this beautiful site acts as a welcome green escape for anyone interested in a cloud forest experience, and for the birder, you could hardly ask for more exciting birding so close to the capital.
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 24, 2018
This is how we saw 300 plus species in three days on day trips out of the San Jose area and it’s only one of several options: High and middle elevations. Only an hour and a half drive from San Jose, this major intersection of bio-craziness never fails to deliver. A day in the Carara area.
10,000 Birds
MAY 4, 2016
The wet lands around San Jose Del Cabo and Todos Santos are the primary areas for the population, but I have seen them in Agua Caliente and as far north as La Purisima. I have no doubt that they could also be seen in the extensive marsh areas of Magdalena Bay, Puerto Lopez Mateo and even up to San Ignacio.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 7, 2019
I began the trip with a rather long drive from the airport hotel in San Jose to Punta Uva on the southern Caribbean coast for a couple of “free” days before joining the actual tour. I recently returned from a twelve day birding tour of Costa Rica with Lifer Tours guided by an incredible birder, David Rodriquez.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 19, 2017
Instead of freaking out the doves in farm fields up north, our bird flew over San Jose to make house just outside Cartago, one of the main cities in Costa Rica! Unlike San Jose, the inter-montane valley where Cartago is located has a more humid environment including open areas with marshes and fields of sedge.
10,000 Birds
JULY 4, 2014
Meanwhile, in San Jose, Calif., ., obsessing over World Cup matches), here’s some bird news to peruse: Loss of suitable habitat , instead of insecticides, seems to be the culprit in declining numbers of grassland birds. Know what else kills grassland birds? Ill-timed mowing … which a petition aims to stop in New York’s Hudson Valley.
10,000 Birds
JANUARY 4, 2020
The Ornate Hawk-Eagle was noticed at the last minute on our drive towards San Jose through the dense rainforests of Braulio Carrillo National Park. An Ornate from another day. Buff-fronted Quail-Dove on a feeder. Not a rare bird but like all quail-doves, a professional skulker and thus typically glimpsed as it scurries into hiding.
10,000 Birds
OCTOBER 23, 2011
Zamora Estate protects acres of unspoiled habitat within one of the fastest growing sections of San Jose, a holding that has sustained four generations of the Zamora family. Zamora Estate offers the ideal launching pad for adventures in the Central Valley and both the Pacific and Caribbean slopes.
10,000 Birds
OCTOBER 29, 2016
In Costa Rica, that would mean the Sarapiqui area because this is where we find the closest Caribbean lowland forests to San Jose. It takes about four or four and a half hours to drive to Casa Calateas from the San Jose area. The Scarlet Tanagers in fall have shed their scarlet appearance.
10,000 Birds
OCTOBER 26, 2017
And in the late afternoon of Wednesday, October 11th, I landed at the Juan Santamaria airport of the capital San Jose (I’ll be honest with you – before I was invited to the country, I didn’t know the name of its capital).
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 12, 2019
At some stage, almost standing still in a traffic jam on the highway towards San Jose, I was calling a fellow 10K beat writer Pat O’Donnell, enquiring about the chances to meet in my hotel. .), he annoyed me by ignoring my verbal and hand-spoken “Stop” while he was phoning again – stop has to be an international word, doesn’t it?
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 1, 2018
I sample birding on Poas more often than at other sites in Costa Rica because it’s close to home and makes for a worthwhile guided day trip from the San Jose area. The Poas area offers up some easy, excellent birding, especially for birders staying in the San Jose area with just one or two free days.
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 8, 2018
One involves a windy, leisurely ride through mountains south of San Jose, the road eventually becoming gravel with occasional pot holes as it descends to Mastatal, the main village next to the park. Cangreja sees rather few visitors for a good reason, it lies well off the beaten track.
10,000 Birds
JULY 22, 2017
Although a lot of beautiful rainforest was replaced by bananas, cattle pasture, and other ag-lands many years ago, at least we can still enjoy great birding at a number of sites, most of which are easily accessible including Sarapiqui, the most visited site in the lowlands north of San Jose.
10,000 Birds
APRIL 4, 2015
It’s sort of stuck between San Jose and Cartago and since it’s a volcano, it doesn’t stop at dominating the skyline. Irazu is the name of a volcano in Costa Rica. In fitting with proper volcanic decorum, it must loom or lord over a nearby populace with either a hint or a fistful of menace.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 7, 2015
The original idea involved a roundabout trip that went from the San Jose area to the wet foothills and lowlands of the Caribbean slope, then back up to cloud forest, high-elevation forest, way back down to the hot habitats of the Pacific coast, and then up to San Jose.
10,000 Birds
JUNE 9, 2018
This beauty is fairly common in cloud forest, even on the volcanic slopes that overlook the urban conglomeration known as San Jose. In Costa Rica, most of the six toucan species are fairly common, and one of those is the green, blue, and chestnut Northern Emerald Toucanet. Some call it the Blue-throated Toucanet.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 18, 2017
Located less than an hour’s drive from San Jose, this latter spot also offers some of the most exciting and accessible birding near the capital of Costa Rica.
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 11, 2017
That’s where most of Costa Rica’s population resides and because of that, it’s also why we headed out around dawn, happily leaving the long line of vehicles on their way to San Jose in the rear view mirror. of Ornithology being in our vehicle, eBird lists were a constant.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 17, 2016
These Ruddy Ground Doves were found in the saltwater lagoon near San Jose Del Cabo. Very similar to the Common Ground Dove, but with out the obvious scaling on the breast. They are slightly larger, and have a somewhat longer tail. The dramatically longer tail is the first point of recognition.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 31, 2018
Some other insider questions to think about before birding in Costa Rica include things like, “How can I avoid traffic in San Jose?”, If not, don’t worry, you won’t be alone in wondering if the bird is actually a myth. ”, “How can I tell Barred Hawks from Black Vultures ?”,
10,000 Birds
JUNE 27, 2015
If you want to go the relaxed route, don’t worry, there’s still plenty to see in hotel gardens in and near San Jose. Introductory birding or happy madness : Do you want to ease into birding in the tropics or leap into the bio-craziness with binoculars at the ready?
10,000 Birds
JANUARY 9, 2016
Well, it is around San Jose and on the Pacific slope but not on the Caribbean side of the mountains. Ask for an early entrance the day before and you might be able to get into the forest at dawn. Dry season, schmy season : Yes, it is the dry season, and no, it is not the dry season.
10,000 Birds
MAY 30, 2015
From San Jose, it takes four to four and a half hours but given the excellent birding opps on the way, you might want to allocate a bit more time. Although a straight fast road might not seem to be a big deal, it’s a rare, welcome occurrence in seriously mountainous Costa Rica.
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 6, 2014
This foot-shaped piece of land in southern Costa Rica is just about as far from San Jose as you can go without leaving the country. In Costa Rica, one of the best “end of the road” places for birding and getting crazy with biodiversity is the Osa Peninsula.
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 21, 2018
We wrapped up the trip with our last day birding, sadly on our way to San Jose and the airport, with stops that Susana helped us to coordinate, at Paraiso Quetzal Lodge, and at the newly created Casa Tangara Dowii Reserve. For more information you can find their website here.
10,000 Birds
JANUARY 28, 2014
For years I heard the estero at San Jose del Cabo was the place to go to see Belding’s Yellowthroat, another Baja endemic. The thrashers are very fond of native desert scrub and thorn forest and are not afraid to perch out in the open.
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