BIRDING COSTA RICA: The Jewel of Central America
2011
Saturday March 19 to Saturday April 2
Guided by Gary Rosenberg
Price: $3900
Two week tour that visits famous Cerro de la Muerte, Esquinas Lodge at the base of the Osa Peninsula, Carara National Park, the new and exciting Celeste Mountain Lodge, Arenal Volcano, and the La Selva Biological Station area in the Caribbean lowlands. About 500 species expected on this tour. Sensational birds such as Resplendent Quetzal and Three-wattled Bellbird. Wonderful hummingbird watching with as many as 40 species possible, including a visit to La Paz Waterfall Gardens. A visit to the Hanging Bridges at Arenal. Full days at La Selva and Braulio Carrillo National Park. Comfortable accommodations. Safe friendly country. Easy to get to. Great introduction to Neotropical birding.
There are few countries in Central and South America that are as easy to get to, and as safe to travel in as Costa Rica. Less than three hours from Miami, Costa Rica offers the birder a combination of fantastic birdwatching and introduction to the joys of Neotropical birds, while at the same time staying at very comfortable lodges and hotels in what is accepted as the most democratic country in the region. The scenery is stunning, and the birding even better! This comprehensive tour covers most of the country and stays at some of the most-exciting lodges in Costa Rica. The tour is designed to bird on both the Pacific and Caribbean slopes, visiting excellent national parks and private reserves. The birding in Costa Rica is amazing, with lots of hummingbird feeders to visit, and rich tropical rainforest with loads of toucans, parrots, and tanagers! Our accommodations and food will be excellent throughout, and Costa Rica is so clean, one can drink the water everywhere! The tour is designed to see more than 500 species.
We’ll begin the tour with a visit to lovely Tapanti National Park and continue up the Pan American Highway to Cerro de la Muerte and the San Gerardo de Dota area. Here we will stay in a beautiful mountain lodge with Resplendent Quetzals often breeding right on the property. Two nights here will insure multiple opportunities of seeing this unbelievable member of the Trogon family! The birding around the lodge will also be excellent, and we will surely see most of the regional endemics found in the mountains of Costa Rica and Panama, including a nice selection of hummingbirds coming to the feeders.
We’ll then travel to the Pacific lowlands for a two night stay at very comfortable Esquinas Lodge, located near Golfito at the base of the Osa Peninsula. The birding here is wonderful, and we hope to see the Costa Rican endemic, the Black-cheeked Ant-Tanager. The forest trails near the lodge, as well as the road, provide an excellent opportunity to see many of the “Southwest” Costa Rican specialties. After two nights at Esquinas, we’ll travel up the coast to near Carara National Park. This wonderful reserve is well-situated in the transition zone between the lush, wetter environments of southwest Costa Rica, and the very dry desert environments to the northwest. The result is an incredibly bird-rich environment, with more than 300 species possible within a very short distance. The forest trails at Carara are flat and easy to walk, and the birding there is some of the best tropical birding we have encountered – including Scarlet Macaws, five species of trogons, six species of wrens, two motmots, puffbirds, jacamars, great hummingbirds, and an amazing number of flycatchers. Our hotel has great birding right on the grounds.
The tour will next cross over to the Caribbean side of the country and the new Celeste Mountain Lodge. Our route will take us by way of the Guanacaste lowlands in the northwest portion of the country. This will be our chance to see a number of dry-country specialty birds that range from Mexico south to northern Panama. Celeste Mountain Lodge is a new lodge located on the slopes of Volcan Tenorio National Park, an area seldom visited by birding tours. Here we hope to see some incredible specialties such as both Today and Keel-billed Motmots, and a number of foothill specialties. At Arenal Volcano, we of course hope to see the volcano itself (a sight to behold), but the birding is excellent there, particularly at the Hanging Bridges, which offers stunning scenery as well! It will then be on to the lowlands, where we’ll spend an entire day at La Selva Biological Station, where the birding can be fantastic, another full day in Braulio Carrillo National Park looking for a variety of foothill specialties (including several mind-blowing tanagers), and will finish at the La Paz Waterfall Gardens, where more hummingbird feeders attract a very nice variety!
