Category Archives: Ecology

Arenal for Antbirds: Birding Costa Rica, Part 2

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After our surprising morning birding near San Jose’s Juan Santamaría International Airport (see our previous post), Braden and I wasted no time heading into the heart of the region where we would spend the next nine days—the northern Caribbean slope of Costa Rica. Our first destination? The flanks of Arenal Volcano.

Despite having spent more than two months in Costa Rica back in 1994 (when I was writing my books The Forest in the Clouds and Monteverde: Science and Scientists in a Costa Rican Cloud Forest), I had never before explored this region. During his semester abroad here, however, Braden had thoroughly scoured the country for birds and had put together an itinerary that would give us the most bang for our birding buck. The Arenal area—near the bustling tourist town of La Fortuna—held many avian riches, but Braden and I had one group of birds we especially wanted to see: antbirds.

**The area around Arenal Volcano was the first major destination of our nine-day itinerary. Unfortunately, heavy rains greeted us during this supposed dry season!**

If you’re unfamiliar with them, antbirds are a group of birds that shadow army ant swarms—not to eat them, but to snag the many other invertebrates that the swarms dislodge during their ravenous raiding parties. I had seen many ant swarms during my time in Costa Rica, but again (and tragically), that was before I became a birder and if any antbirds were around, I had cluelessly overlooked them. Braden had, of course, been more alert and seen several kinds of antbirds—but never in the classic “insect-palooza” situation one reads about in scientific narratives.

**Braden and I looked forward to finding an antbird flock as much as any other birds on our trip. Note the army ants below the leaf upon which this Bicolored Antbird stands.**

We got our first shot at antbirds on our second morning in the country when we birded the internationally famous Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails, a rather pricey destination with a fabulous sweep of nature to offer visitors. Fortunately, you don’t have to book a room to bird the place, but can simply pay a fee to spend the day. Unfortunately, waves of heavy rain greeted Braden and me when we arrived. Don’t get me wrong. We still had an incredible day here, including bird lists totaling more than 100 species and a fantastic sighting of a northern tamandua, a small, incredibly shy species of anteater—a first for both of us. Alas, we got only a brief glimpse of a single antbird—a Spotted Antbird—and encountered no army ant swarms where more antbirds might be plying their trade.

**On our first day of antbird searching, we saw only a single Spotted Antbird that didn’t happen to be following any army ants. Still, a gorgeous creature, verdad?** **(Note: the featured image at the beginning of this post shows a female Spotted Antbird!)**

Still hopeful, the next morning we headed to another nearby spot, a combo nature area and zip-lining destination called Sky Adventures. And guess what? It was again pouring down rain! After spending the previous day pretty much soaked, neither of us looked forward to another day of damp garments and soggy boots. A ray of hope was that one of the Sky Adventures guides told us that he had seen antbirds only the day before and even told us where to look.

**Braden wondered if he would see any life birds on this Costa Rican adventures, but quickly spotted this Black-headed Tody-flycatcher, the first of FOUR lifers he would collect this day!**

In this kind of weather, we had the trails pretty much to ourselves, and we realized that there was no shortage of birds around us. I should backtrack a bit and explain that while more than a third of the Costa Rican birds I was seeing were lifers, Braden had already seen so many birds in the country that he wondered if he’d get any lifers on our entire trip. That question got answered pretty quickly as we began crossing a spectacular hanging bridge over a lush ravine. Almost immediately, Braden said, “Black-headed Tody-Flycatcher!” Sure enough, on a branch hanging over the bridge, we spotted one of the cutest birds in the tropics—and a lifer for both of us! In fact, a huge variety of amazing birds seemed to be hanging out around the bridge, and before long a yellow and black bird landed just below us. Braden got even more excited by this one. “Black-thighed Grosbeak!” he exclaimed. Ka-ching! His second lifer in ten minutes!

Braden’s second life bird of the day, a Black-thighed Grosbeak, put in a leisurely appearance just below the hanging bridge. Look closely and you can even see the black thighs—though this is still one of the worst bird names ever!

Still, we hadn’t forgotten the antbirds and pressed across the bridge and up a winding trail. And at a sharp left, suddenly, there they were. Antbirds!

I confess that it took both of us a few minutes to embrace exactly what we were looking at. Columns of army ants marched along both sides of the trail, and the antbirds skittered and skaddled all about us.

**Braden, looking happily in shock at finding his best antbird mixed-flock ever!**

According to Vallely’s and Dyer’s Birds of Central America, Costa Rica hosts nine species of antbirds and we recognized four working the ant columns around us. These included Bicolored, Spotted, and Zelodon’s. It also included the one we both most wanted to see. “I’ve got an Ocellated!” Braden shouted with glee—his third lifer of the day.

**One of our top targets of our entire trip, Ocellated Antbirds gave us extensive, if very quick, looks for our full ant swarm visit.**

Why were we so excited about this bird? All antbirds are subtly beautiful, but Ocellated has the most distinct patterns of any Costa Rican species. It sports gorgeous blue, black, and rufous colors around the face and eye, and a remarkable scalloped pattern of feathers down its back and chest. As thrilled as we were to find it, we were even more thrilled to watch what the antbirds were doing.

**Only a single female Zeladon’s Antbird joined the ant swarm, and apparently these do not usually follow mixed flocks, and are not obligate ant swarm feeders. Males are black instead of brown.**

Back and forth they darted snagging insects, spiders, and other arthropods that were startled by or fleeing from the army ants. Braden and I paced back and forth, mesmerized by this performance. At least fifteen or twenty antbirds surrounded us, the most abundant being the Bicolored, who were also the least shy. WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW!

Antbirds, though, aren’t the only birds that join in on following army ant columns. As we watched, we also saw Wedge-billed Woodcreepers, Northern Barred-Woodcreepers, and Fawn-throated Foliage Gleaners. As a bonus, the rain had let up by now, letting us fully enjoy what might be for me a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. In fact, we spent at least half an hour with these remarkable birds, trying to grasp exactly what they were doing and just appreciating that things like this could still happen in the world. Finally, as the trail’s foot traffic increased, we moved on.

**Woodcreepers can be intimidating birds to identify, so I relished spending time with several species at the ant swarm, including this Northern Barred-Woodcreeper.**

We, of course, saw many more species on this outing—including Braden’s fourth lifer of the day, a White-throated Shrike-Tanager—but it was the antbirds that would stay with us as we headed to our next, equally spectacular destination, Caño Negro wetlands.

Our Sky Adventures checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S303092147

The Birds in the Oaks (Book Review by Scott Callow)

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Braden and I head to Costa Rica next week, but before we go I am delighted—yes, delighted—to share the following guest book review by my buddy, Scott Callow. I predict you’ll enjoy his passionate, humorous review as much as the book itself! We challenge you to read it before our next post. And now, heeeeeeeeere’s SCOTT!

Sneed asked me to write a review of The Birds in the Oaks: Secret Voices of the Western Woods by Jack Gedney (HeyDey Press, 2024) before I completed reading it. Consequently, It was impossible for me to finish the last chapter without constant rereading because I became anxious and distracted, wondering how to share all the great things about it. For those of you who only read headlines or first paragraphs of news stories, let me present a few crafted comments that summarize my experiences, being careful not to exaggerate.

**Order Jack Gedney’s *The Birds in the Oaks* by clicking here or on the above image.**

* If you live near oak woodlands, you have no claim to being “interested in birds” if you do not read this book.

* The Birds in the Oaks is overflowing with interesting ecological details that will keep me rereading chapters, and I expect I will mark the pages with notes like a seeker underlining sections of the Bible on the journey to become a better person.

* The Birds in the Oaks is a superb example of well-crafted nature writing that mixes extensive and accurate observations with poetic prose, and mixes personal experiences with quotes from historical bird authors.

Last fall, I was fortunate enough to accompany Scott to one of his favorite “oaky birdy” locations, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma County, where we saw a great variety of classic oak woodland species including Oak Titmouse, Golden-crowned Sparrow, and Nuttall’s Woodpecker. **(See post World Series Birds in the Golden State.)**

This book, admittedly, is personal for me. I live within walking distance of California oak woodlands. I volunteer at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park which is dominated by oak woodlands and mentioned in the book. The author’s former Wild Birds Unlimited store lies only 24 miles from me. Most importantly, I know these birds. I have learned so much about each of them from Gedney’s book that they have become even more familiar (emphasis in “family”). I will admit only here, amongst birders, that I sometimes say “Hey, buddy!” when I see my first Oak Titmouse of the day, and “Hey-hey-hey” when I see a White-breasted Nuthatch.

**Scott apparently has been known to converse with White-breasted Nuthatches. I can’t blame him as I talk to these guys myself!**

Each curiously titled chapter is organized around a species. Each begins with key characteristics. Many chapters start with song and call, which I appreciate since I’m late in life to learning bird sounds. (Thank you Merlin.) Example:

“I still hear the bird, steadily whit-whiting away as if mocking my inability to follow.” (A Bird at Our Level – Bewick’s Wren) (“whit-whit bew-wick” – record to memory)

As someone who seeks to be entertained by bird behavior and science, I enjoyed how Gedney explains bird ecology.

“… to learn all the secrets of the woods, one must know … the birds beneath the oaks.” (Discontented Shadows – Spotted Towhee) (Cool we’re on a treasure hunt, I tell myself.)

The ecological details too elaborate to be found in a guide have already enriched my birding. Even if you don’t regularly see Acorn Woodpeckers, every birder should learn about their unique extended family groups and their cooperative food hoarding strategies. I also believe every birder should wonder how the Bushtit, weighing as light as a nickel, can engineer such an elaborate sock-shaped nest, insulate it, camouflage it, and then use it for such a short nesting cycle, all on a diet of insects too tiny to see, even with the help of binoculars.

The ultimate oak woodland bird, the Acorn Woodpecker, deservedly attracts abundant attention from birders, both for its stunning good looks and fascinating behavior that features cooperative breeding and storage of thousands of acorns. Isn’t that, ahem, nuts?

But this book is not written by or for the scientist. Gedney is not afraid to add his own appreciation of a bird or personal experiences or poetic descriptions. This at first raised my anthropomorphic alarms since I was trained to reject human sentimentality by my vertebrate bio prof, surprisingly an ornithologist who once said “birds are stupid; their behaviors are mostly determined by genetics; they have small brains.” (These prejudices were spoken decades before contradictory scientific information was shared in The Genius of Birds and several other books on bird intelligence.)

The Birds in the Oaks is very accessible, humanly so. It is so well written that you just might re-imagine your own feelings about birds and get all warm-like inside. You just might be heard saying “Wow” when learning something new about one of the birds. You might just slow down and spend “an inordinate amount of time” observing a bird in one location. Maybe, maybe not. But I will risk one bold prediction: If you get this book, several times you will imagine walking through the woods with the author himself.

No oak trees were harmed in the writing and publishing of this review.

The Social Lives of Birds (Book Review)

Giving Back to Birds—with Great Breaking News! (FSB Holiday Shopping Guide, Part 3)

Books for the Happy Holiday Birder (FSB Shopping Guide, Part 2)

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If you’re like me, you never read quite as many books as you’d like. This year, though, I was very fortunate to read and review some outstanding bird-related titles that you’re going to want to consider for your holiday buying. Most—but not all—of these were published in 2025 or late 2024. I’ve also included a few books that aren’t solely about birds—but give great insights into how to protect them. Of course, you will want to begin your shopping with eight or ten copies of my book Birding for Boomers—And Everyone Else Brave Enough to Embrace the World’s Most Rewarding and Frustrating Activity. This popular gift book has received half a dozen awards and even made a couple of bestseller’s lists. Once you’ve placed that order, however, you’ll want to check out the titles below. Please note: we receive no compensation for any of these recommendations (other than a free review copy or two), so the thoughts are all our own. Enjoy!

Purely Enjoyable Bird Storytelling

Let’s start with the “most fun” category of reading—great storytelling that just happens to be about birds. In the past, I’ve recommended such titles as Christopher Skaife’s The Ravenmaster, Joshua Hammer’s The Falcon Thief, and Tim Gallagher’s classic, Imperial Dreams. My favorite title from this year’s reading is Tim Birkhead’s The Great Auk: Its Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife. This wonderful, often whimsical tale focuses on an extinct species most of us have heard of, but know little about. Birkhead gets totally into Bird Nerd mode by both explaining the biology and history of the Great Auk, and tracing some of the antics of egg collectors who were totally obsessed with obtaining Great Auk eggs. You’ll love this! See our full review here.

The Great Auk by Tim Birkhead (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Also on the short list for this category is Bruce M. Beehler’s Flight of the Godwit, a must-read for anyone interested in the remarkable lives of shorebirds—and who isn’t? Through the tales of his own peregrinations, Beehler follows the migrations of many of North America’s most charismatic shorebirds, telling us all kinds of cool things that I certainly never knew before. See our full review here.

Birding Memoirs

My top pick for this category is Christian Cooper’s 2023 book, Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. I admit that I put off reading this book for a couple of years after it came out. It’s sheer popularity made me insanely jealous as an author, but once I picked it up, I was captivated. Cooper’s down-to-earth honesty about his life and passion for birds sucked me right in, both with its engaging storytelling and how it broadened my perspective on birding in our culture.

My second pick for this category is Richard L. Hutto’s new book, A Beautifully Burned Forest: Learning to Celebrate Severe Forest Fire. This book is half memoir and half science book and I enjoyed both parts equally. Perhaps as a fellow Southern Californian, I especially related to Hutto’s boyhood experiences exploring the chaparral ecosystem, but I also appreciated Hutto’s impassioned plea to bring common sense to fire management, especially when it comes to protecting burned forests from the ravages of so-called “salvage” logging. See our full review here.

Oh, and if you’re wanting to learn all about Braden’s and my early years of birding, don’t miss my classic first adult book, Warblers and Woodpeckers: A Father-Son Big Year of Birding!

In-Depth Group Guides

Advanced Bird Nerds will definitely want to add Amar Ayyash’s The Gull Guide: North America to their holiday shopping lists this year. Like most birders, I have been—and remain—incredibly intimidated by gulls. Sure, I recognize the adult plumages of many species, but when you start getting into hybrid gulls and first-, second-, and third-year plumage variations, my brain and confidence begin to melt. The Gull Guide does not solve this problem, but it does accomplish two important things. First, it gives great insight into gulls for the casual birder. Second, it offers myriad minute details for those who are bound and determined to become experts on everything gull. Both of these things are accomplished with an extensive, remarkable collection of photos that serve to educate and guide. See our full review here.

A less technical book that may be more to the taste of the casual birder is The Shorebirds of North America: A Natural History and Photographic Celebration by Pete Dunne and Kevin T. Karlson. This beautiful book strikes a nice balance between detail and readability. A lot, but not all, of the information is fairly general, but the photos are wonderful and if you’re a shorb fan, you will enjoy it. See our full review here.

Three More for the Planet

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention three more titles that made a big impact on me this year. The first is Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie by Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty. I thought I knew all about the tragic history of the destruction of America’s grasslands. I did not. This highly readable book provides astonishing insights into how we lost most of our grasslands—and why that destruction continues today. Grassland birds are our most imperiled group of birds, losing at least forty percent of their collective populations in just the last fifty years. If you care about these animals and want to know what we can do to slow their precipitous demise, please read this one!

Similarly, Jordan Thomas’s When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World, gives us an inside look at the often counterproductive politics and decision-making behind today’s “fire fighting industrial complex.” With riveting storytelling and astonishing revelations, this is a perfect companion to Hutto’s A Beautifully Burned Forest.

And if you’re wrestling with how to keep from being overwhelmed in today’s world, where we are confronted by one environmental threat after another, I highly recommend the late Thich Nhat Hanh’s Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. I read a few pages of this every morning and I gotta say that it helps keep me sane in our complicated, highly imperiled world. Not only does it raise serious questions about how we all live, it provides approaches and encouragement for how each of us can truly make a difference.

Don’t miss our holiday guides to birding equipment and, in our next post, charitable giving!

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