Birding Results

We are cyclists, that happen to keep an eye out for birds that are visible as we pass by. But on this trip our bikes didn't come and we mixed in with some expert birders sporting powerful binoculars. We often found this frustrating, as they were seeing things that were invisible to us. Also, because we are oriented to blogs, just seeing or hearing a bird doesn't cut it - we need a photo. These facts explain the difference in our results, compared to those of the group overall. 

During the approximately 13 days of the trip, the group spotted 258 species! By contrast, we came up with 129, but each with a photo. That's in fact a higher proportion than it felt like at the time. 

We only started really tracking our bird sightings for 2024, and for that we have 330 species. In our few days in Costa Rica not all the 129 species were new to us in the year, since we had seen some in Yucatan the previous January. Still, these Costa Rican days provided over 1/3 of our 2024 life list! It was quite remarkable. There was lot new for us on every single day.

Another feature of this trip was that although to be sure many Costa Rican birds are dull, like the Clay Colored Thrush, so many are bright and multi-colored. We loved seeing these attractive birds, and we'll end here with a few of our favourites:


 Bare Throated Tiger Heron


Bay Headed Tanager

Red Legged Honeycreeper


Crimson Collared Tanager

Lesson's Motmot


Fiery Billed Aracari

Flame Colored Tanager

Golden Hooded Tanager

Green Honey Creeper


Lesser Violetear



Northern Emerald Toucanet

Red Headed Barbet

Red Headed Barbet - a real favourite!

Red Legged Honeycreeper





Ringed Kingfisher

Roufous Backed Wren - we had many emails from eBird complaining about our ID, because they recently changed the name from Roufous Naped Wren. Big deal!

Scarlet Macaw

They seem so tame!

Scarlet Rumped Tanager (male, the females are all different!)

Silver Throated Tanager

The whole Silver Throated Tanager

Speckled Tanager

Squirrel Cuckoo



White Throated Magpie Jay

White Throated Mountain Gem

Yellow Throated Euphonia

Yellow Throated Toucan

That's it for this trip!

Next stop, Valencia, Spain. Watch for us on Cycleblaze!


Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 22, 2024 at 12:27 AM

    Pretty good bird haul and the new camera seems like it was the right amount of oomph for what you wanted yeah? Or are you going to graduate to one of those monster cameras like Erhard or the Big Birders were carrying?

    -Laurie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ShadybrookDecember 23, 2024 at 3:14 PM

      Actually one bino lady had the Canon SX70 (65x zoom) in her purse, though not using it. It is smaller than my Nikon P950 (83x zoom) and larger than what is now Dodie's Canon SX 740 (40x zoom). I almost tried to buy it from her, since it would then leave room for chocolate bars in my handlebar bag, a major consideration. But no, going larger than the P950 would spell the eviction of stuff like underwear, which seems inadvisable.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousDecember 24, 2024 at 5:10 AM

    What a great collection, Steve and Dodie! I would give them all a heart! -Suzanne G.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ShadybrookDecember 25, 2024 at 8:13 PM

      Thanks Suzanne. The super colourful birds really are part of that vibrant tropical environment.

      Delete
  3. Scott AndersonDecember 24, 2024 at 11:50 AM

    All terrific, but that amazing speckled tanager is still my favorite. If it were me I’d include a page for these as part of the intro to your Valencia to Leipzig jaunt.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ShadybrookDecember 25, 2024 at 8:16 PM

      Yes, I am planning to sneak them in. Also, more comments on how the cycle around, eat from grocery stores, see stuff including birds model does not seem viable for Costa Rica.

      Delete

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