Category Archives: Endangered Species

Eastern Odyssey 2024: Return to Westby

Our fourth post about our epic 2024 eastern Montana expedition takes us to the birding mecca of Westby. Over the years, Westby has grown an outsized reputation in the imaginations of Montana birders. To find out why, read on—and don’t forget to check out Sneed’s newest picture book, Like No Other—Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures by clicking on the image to the right!

After, to be honest, a pretty disappointing time in Plentywood (see last our last post), Braden and I continued our Eastern Montana Odyssey 2024 by driving twenty-six miles to a place that has obtained almost mythical status among Montana birders: Westby. Westby sits in the very northeastern corner of the state and has long been known as a place where eastern songbirds clip Montana on their way to northern breeding grounds. Some fool cut down some of the best bird habitat there a few years ago, before Braden and I ever visited, but birders still discover rarities such as Mourning Warblers, Black-throated Green Warblers, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks every year. The bad news? Braden and I were about two weeks late to have a serious shot at anything like that. The good news? We still had a great chance to see migrating shorebirds.

**Westby literally straddles the North Dakota border, making it a go-to destination for birders hoping to snag rare migrants for their Montana life lists.**

We arrived early and decided not even to waste time looking for songbirds right away. Instead, we immediately drove north out of town toward a series of pothole lakes well known for shorebirds. Changes in water levels can be shocking out here year to year, and I quickly saw with dismay that one pond that had brimmed with water during my visit with my pal Scott Callow last year had gone bone dry. Fortunately, another pond with just a brief window of visibility did have water. “Shorebirds!” I shouted. We broke out the spotting scope and did our best to ID what was out there. Sanderlings could be made out by their distinct dark red heads and boldly black legs and bills. More exciting, we were able to ID Semipalmated Sandpipers and a species we hadn’t seen in Montana for four years, White-rumped Sandpipers.

**This is about as close as we got to a White-rumped Sandpiper, but you can see a distinctive ID feature—the dark spots stretching down its side under the wings. Sanderlings are feeding behind it.**

As we continued to explore, we got better looks at all of these birds in various places, along with Wilson’s Phalaropes, Willets, and Marbled Godwits. One bird high on our list was Nelson’s Sparrow, and at a little marshy area right next to the road, Braden was able to hear one, though my crummy hearing once again thwarted me.

**A Marbled Godwit checked us out as we were scoping other shorebirds.**

We continued to explore the rest of the day, both driving north and south of town and even making a foray across the border into North Dakota, where we picked up a respectable 23 species in a couple of miles. A wonderful development in Westby is a new AirBnB about fifty yards from the border and I had reserved it for two nights. That evening, I took a stroll through town to see what could be seen. No rare warblers, but I did have a lovely visit with a Brown Thrasher and gobs of American Goldfinches feeding on spilled grain next to the grain elevators looming over the north end of town. When I returned, a Say’s Phoebe was sitting on our house!

Thanks to our rented house, we hit the streets of Westby early the next morning. Again, no rare songbirds, but we did see a couple of Swainson’s Thrushes, along with Orchard Orioles and Purple Martins as part of our 22-bird list. Once again, our best surprises popped up as we explored surrounding areas. Venturing north we got great, close looks at the shorebirds we’d seen before, with a soundtrack of Wilson’s Snipe and Soras—one right next to the car—filling the air. Braden identified a Ferruginous Hawk flying overhead and we heard two Baird’s Sparrows and even a Sprague’s Pipit! Braden picked up at least four Nelson’s Sparrows and one popped up right next to our car, giving us our best look ever. Range maps don’t even show that Nelson’s reach into Montana, so this is a great place for birders to pick them up for their Montana life lists!

**With few people on the roads, this Wilson’s Snipe took time to check out what we were up to.**

Still, the “catch” of the morning happened as we were skirting Round Lake. Ever since arriving, we had kept our eyes sharp for one particular shorebird. This morning as I drove, Braden suddenly yelled, “Stop!” We quickly got our eyes on it and then set up our spotting scope. It was none other than a Piping Plover! I had seen my Montana lifer PIPL last year with my buddy Scott, but this was Braden’s Montana lifer. Even better, there were two—one stalking another with obviously amorous intentions.

**I think that Piping Plover on the left should be looking over its shoulder, don’t you?**

North America has three distinct breeding populations of Piping Plovers: one in the Northeast, one in and around the Great Lakes, and one on the northern Great Plains. The world total population may have dropped to as low as 3,000 pairs, but the Great Lakes and Northeast populations have apparently been making a comeback. Montana, is home to a breeding population of perhaps 1-200 pairs of these delightful birds, but the outlook for the northern plains population may not be as rosy as it is for the Northeastern population. Frequent drought (exacerbated by climate change), poor water management practices, pesticides, and an increase of predators make its future dicey. Still, this near-threatened bird is hanging on and our fingers are crossed that some better management practices will also help it increase.

**We got an amazing number of great Bobolink photo opportunities on the trip, including this one south of Westby.**

**This Baird’s Sparrow popped up on the fence while we were scoping a brand new lake south of town.**

In the trip’s spirit of birding new places, we decided to head down a new road south of town. We had low expectations, but soon encountered a lake with lush green grasses surrounding it. We got out to scope the lake and discovered at least 250 Sanderlings out on a sand bar. It is while we were scoping that we got our biggest surprises, however. Grassland birds just kept popping up on the barbed wire fence to check us out or perch on plants very close to us. During the next forty or fifty minutes, we got incredible looks at Bobolinks, Baird’s Sparrows, Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Grasshopper Sparrows, Clay-colored Sparrows, Horned Larks, and of course, Savannah and Vesper Sparrows. Every time we looked up, there was another great bird not fifty feet away. It truly was one of the coolest things we’ve ever experienced—and was a great reminder to keep taking the road not birded!

**It’s become a tradition to visit this old homestead every time we trek to Westby. Each visit, the old place loses a bit of ground. Soon it will be part of the prairie earth.**

One-of-a-Kind Birds—and a One-of-a-Kind Book to Go With Them

4 Replies

Thank you for sharing this post :)!

This week’s blog focuses on one-of-a-kind birds—and a book to go along with them. For those of you who have been following FatherSonBirding for the past couple of years, you may remember a February, 2022 post about monotypic animals. These are animals that have no other species in the scientific genus to which they belong. At the time of the post, I had begun researching a new children’s picture book about animals that were not only monotypical to genus, but to the family or order taxonomic level. In other words, these animals are really alone in their taxonomic world. What’s more, they often possess wonderful adaptations and behaviors found nowhere else in the animal kingdom. They include both animals you are undoubtedly familiar with such as the platypus, leatherback sea turtle, whale shark, and pronghorn. They also include lesser-known critters such as India’s purple frog and the South American monito del monte.

**Often called an “antelope,” the Pronghorn is actually a unique survivor of our Ice Ages, whose closest living relatives are giraffes and okapis.**

The good news is that Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures is now a reality, exploring 13 of earth’s most remarkable creatures! But since this is (mostly) a birding blogsite, let me focus on the one-of-a-kind birds in the book.

Like No Other’s very first animal is Africa’s Secretarybird. I first learned about this bird 25 years ago when I was researching a book called Birds of Prey: A Look at Daytime Raptors. That book is now out of print, but while researching it, I came upon this bizarre-looking, long-legged raptor that often kicks and stomps its prey to death—when it’s not carrying them up into the air and dropping them from great heights. This grassland- and savanna-dwelling bird originally lived throughout much of Africa, but has declined sharply in much of its range. Culprits include habitat loss and degradation, collisions with fences and powerlines, and poisoning from pesticides. It is a dream of mine to see these birds in the wild before I croak (or hit a powerline myself).

**Though a bird of prey, the Secretarybird’s appearance, behavior, and ancestry is unlike any other raptor.**

The second bird in Like No Other is a bird I’m not sure I’d even heard of before writing the book: South America’s Oilbird. These squat, kind of chubby-looking birds are reminiscent of nightjars such as the Common Nighthawk or Common Pauraque, but similarities stop there. Oilbirds roost in colonies of up to 10,000 birds in caves of forested areas of northern South America and along the spine of the Andes. Like bats, they use echolocation and an excellent sense of smell to locate fruits of forest trees. Birds of the World lists them as of “Least Concern,” but they contain so much fat that in the past they have been boiled down for oil lamp fuel. No one has any idea how long they live.

**Oilbirds live in caves in South America and hunt using echolocation, good night vision, and a great sense of smell.**

You know me. I would have packed a lot more birds into Like No Other but felt obligated to include a fair number of other vertebrate groups (those darned vertebrates!). I did manage to wedge one more monotypic bird into the pages, however—New Zealand’s enigmatic Kakapo. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, the Kakapo is the world’s heaviest parrot. Even more amazing, it doesn’t fly! I first learned about the birds 35 years ago when I was on a four-month bicycle trip through New Zealand. At the time, fewer than 50 Kakapo were thought to exist, and as is so often the case on Pacific islands, invasive mammalian predators were largely to blame. Thanks to an intensive conservation program that included captive breeding and eradication of introduced species from offshore islands, however, the Kakapo’s future now looks much rosier. Kakapo are by no means out of the woods, but their population is up to about 250 birds, and they are being closely monitored. It’s another wonderful example of what humans can accomplish when we put our minds to it.

**The Kakapo provides an inspirational story of what we can do to save species if we try.**

Humans are the very last one-of-a-kind creatures in Like No Other. Nothing like us has ever existed on the planet before, and the jury’s still out whether we can figure out what to do with our big brains and ambitions without destroying ourselves. Stories of protecting the Kakapo and other species in Like No Other, though, give me hope we’ll come up with solutions.

Like No Other is available now from your local independent bookstore, online stores, and other outlets.

**Like No Other is available now through your local independent bookstore and other outlets.**

Braden’s Costa Rica Report #4: Osa Peninsula Adventure

4 Replies

Braden and I write FatherSonBirding in the hopes of sharing the wonders of birds and birding, and the urgency to protect them. We do not accept advertising or donations, but if you’d like to support our work, please consider buying *NEW* copies of some of Sneed’s books—First-Time Japan, for instance, or my recent Orbis Pictus Award winner, Border Crossings. We appreciate your interest and hope you will keep reading!

A low growl emanated from the dense jungle up the hillside from the highway, stopping me in my tracks. The sun hadn’t even thought about rising yet, since I’d woken up before 5 a.m., but some animals were awake, including the Crested Owl I’d just heard call from the rainforest. I laughed in disbelief as I stood on the side of the highway, looking up the hill. While I could not see the animal, Crested Owl was one of the country’s largest owl species and one I’d been hoping for but not expecting to get during my time here. And yet here one was, singing for me as I began my trek from El Chontal (my hostel) to the Río Rincon Bridge in extreme southwestern Costa Rica.

The walk from the hostel to the bridge was about an hour, and as I plodded along the highway, I could hear and feel the forest waking up. Little Tinamous and Great Curassows called in the dark, and about half an hour before dawn many other species of birds started up. Immense roars echoed from high in trees as male Mantled Howler Monkeys welcomed the sun into the sky, and I eventually arrived at my destination, the bridge spanning the Río Rincón. Nearly every birder visiting the Osa Peninsula stopped here, albeit usually with a vehicle and not on foot. The bridge offered great views of mangroves to the east and rainforest to the west, as well as a wide open vista from which to watch parrots of many species leave their roosts in search of food. The primary reason birders stopped here, however, was for a specific, critically-endangered bird species: the Yellow-billed Cotinga.

**My early morning walk rewarded me with multiple looks at Yellow-billed Cotingas, rare and beautiful birds endemic to southwest Costa Rica.**

Cotingas are a strange, remarkable and hilarious group of birds. These plump birds feed primarily on fruit and come in a wide variety of shapes and colors, including tangerine orange, like the Andean Cock-of-the-rock, shadow black, like the Bare-necked Umbrellabird, or electric blue, like the Turquoise Cotinga. The family features some of the world’s weirdest species, like the monk-like Capuchinbird, and the loudest birds in the world, the bellbirds, one of which resides in Costa Rica (and will be my target for my final weekend trip in this country, so stay tuned!).

Yellow-billed Cotingas are angelic white, and are endemic to southwestern Costa Rica and extreme western Panama. They live in extensive lowland rainforest and mangroves, and thanks to habitat decimation, are largely restricted to the Osa Peninsula, one of the country’s wildest remaining areas. This species was one of the primary reasons that I had requested to skip classes this week and visit this far-away peninsula, and the Río Rincón Bridge was the most reliable place to see them.

By the time I arrived, barely before dawn, the birds were already active. Hordes of parrots, from the pint-sized Orange-chinned Parakeets to the chunky Red-lored Parrots to the spectacular Scarlet Macaws, flew over me towards distant locations. A Bare-throated Tiger-Heron hunted for fish in the river, and another one, a juvenile covered in its namesake black and orange stripes, watched from a nearby tree. The sandy river island hosted several Spotted Sandpipers, a Willet and a Northern Jacana—the first I’d ever seen. Jacanas have massive feet which they use to walk atop lily pads, although there weren’t any lily pads in sight here. Flocks of swallows and swifts wheeled overhead, and I spotted a few Fiery-billed Aracaris swooping across the river, their flame-colored bills shining in the sun.

**Even though I’d already seen them on the trip, I had yet to grow bored seeing a Bare-throated Tiger-Heron.**

As I stood on the bridge, unsure of where to look for the cotingas, I heard a distinctive song from a nearby tree. The “bouncing-ball” call sounded exactly like a Wrentit, a bird native to the chaparral of California, which had never been recorded in Costa Rica and probably never will be. I knew exactly what it was, though, since I’d studied the song the night before and noticed the resemblance it had to a Wrentit. I walked over to the tree and whipped out my speaker, playing the call right back at the bird. Then, a large, blue and red bird flew in and landed several dozen feet above my head in clear view: Baird’s Trogon. This had also been one of my chief targets on the Osa, given that it was difficult to find nearly anywhere else in the country, and I snapped some poor photos of it before returning to my cotinga watch. After about fifteen minutes, that watch paid off, as a mottled gray female cotinga flew over, landing briefly in a tree in front of me before disappearing in the foliage. “Well, that wasn’t the view I’d hoped for,” I said to myself, a bit disappointed but still relieved that I’d seen my target species. The cotingas weren’t done yet, though. Over the next hour and a half, I spotted seven more of the birds flying over, many of them strikingly-white males. I got a decent picture of one in flight, too.

**Despite the poor photo, Baird’s Trogon was one of the chief targets of my Osa Peninsula trip—and at least the sixth species of trogon I’d seen in Costa Rica!**

After two hours of great birding, I walked back along the highway to my hostel. From there, I packed up and caught the bus down to Puerto Jiménez, the largest city on the Osa (which is still quite small). I found a small soda (the name for any number of small, family-owned restaurants in Costa Rica) and waited there for about an hour before a tiny, run-down van pulled up in front of it at 11. “Dos Brazos?” asked the lady driving it, and I nodded, throwing my bag in the van and climbing up after it. The interior of the van was in rough shape, although the seats were comfortable, and I taught the lady’s young son how to use my binoculars as we rattled up dirt roads towards the “town” of Dos Brazos, hidden deep in the rainforest.

**Riverside Wren—Costa Rica’s Most Stylish Wren???**

The woman let me off in front of the reception house for the Bolita Rainforest Hostel, where an American greeted me. “Welcome to Bolita! The hostel is a 30-minute hike that way,” she pointed up into the jungle. So, I set off, my heavy pack on my back. I spotted a pair of Buff-rumped Warblers next to a creek I had to cross, and eventually arrived at the open-air hostel, caked in sweat. Another American and several volunteers from all over the world greeted me cheerfully, showing me to my “room”, an outdoor bed with a mosquito net over it. There was no “inside” at Bolita, except maybe the supply closet, which hosted half a dozen roosting bats on its walls. After I settled down, Pascal, an older French volunteer, noticed my binoculars.

**I wonder how many Hilton Honors points I’ll get for my stay at the Bolita Rainforest Hostel—a place with superb “air-conditioning!”**

“Are you a birdwatcher?”

I nodded, and she proceeded to pull out a faded “Birds of Costa Rica” book, flipping it open to a page with small, colorful birds on it. She pointed to the bird that just so happened to be my number one remaining target for the entire trip: Orange-collared Manakin.

“I saw these guys here! The males all dance for the females at places called leks, and I found a lek on one of the hostel trails. I can show you if you’d like!”I nodded profusely—fate had somehow delivered to me the perfect opportunity to see the bird I wanted to see most here. Soon, Pascal led me and a few other interested guests up the “Big Banana Trail.” After twenty minutes of hiking, we rounded a corner and heard claps from the nearby trees. Pascal waded a few feet into the foliage off the trail, and pointed. There they were, tiny, football-shaped birds with sunset-colored collars and tiny black caps, like the White-collared Manakins I’d seen in Sarapiqui but with fiery rather than white throats. We enjoyed them for fifteen or minutes or so before everyone else wandered back down towards the hostel. I decided to poke around the trails a bit longer—and I’m glad I did.

**Once I arrived at the hostel, and thanks to a new friend, it took me only minutes to find my last remaining Osa Peninsula target bird, Orange-collared Manakin.**

Almost immediately, I heard the loud, repeating call of a wren coming from a tangle near me, and with a little verbal coercion, I was able to spot the culprit: a Black-bellied Wren, another southwestern Costa Rica specialty bird. This wren happened to be the beginning of a large mixed flock and I spotted several more wrens as well as antshrikes, antwrens, a foliage-gleaner, and a Little Tinamou, a hard-to-see forest bird, feeding right on the trail in front of me. I stopped at one lookout and watched as the birds came to me: parrots, flycatchers, hummingbirds and more. Highlights included a female Thick-billed Seed-finch, a tiny bird with a massive bill; an Olive-sided Flycatcher, a bird that winters in South America and summers in the boreal forest of Montana and Maine; and a Purple-crowned Fairy, a flashy, usually-arboreal hummingbird that steals nectar from flowers rather than pollinating them. Extremely satisfied with this mid-day birding, I headed back to the hostel to watch the sunset.

**Scarlet Macaws are one of the birds most people want to see in Costa Rica, and in the Osa Peninsula, I found no shortage of these spectacular creatures.**

I found a nice little bench overlooking much of the rainforest and quickly realized that even the hostel had great bird activity. Piratic Flycatchers, Scarlet-rumped Tanagers and Bananaquits flew around me, and about an hour before dusk, I spotted another bird that blew me away: another cotinga, this one the color of the sky. I’d looked for Turquoise Cotingas three days earlier and completely missed them, and yet here they were, delivered right to my doorstep in all their blue and violet glory. I had gotten, quite simply, every bird I’d wanted to see on the Osa Peninsula. And I still had one morning left!

**One of the trails I explored near the Bolita Rainforest Hostel.**

That morning was spent exploring more of the trails behind the Bolita Rainforest Hostel. With no real targets, I just set off into the jungle, hoping to discover something unexpected, and I did! I spotted three more lifers, including Black-crowned Tityra, Black-cheeked Ant-tanager (the only species completely endemic to the Osa Peninsula) and a Northern Black-throated Trogon, which was one of four trogon species I reported on my hike. I heard dozens of antbirds, antwrens, antshrikes and antthrushes, spotted groups of Scarlet Macaws flying high above me, and watched the sunrise over the misty hills stretching all the way out to the Pacific Ocean. I’d seen some beautiful places in Costa Rica so far, but none had been so wild as here. From one vantage point, I could see no signs of human habitation—just forest and sea. Even for a country that has done so well protecting its environment, places like this are rare, and I’m so happy I got to experience it.

**A lone Scarlet Macaw flies across the dawn sky—my last morning in the Osa Peninsula, and one I’ll never forget.**

You can experience it too! Whether you want to see the jungles of Central America, like me, or the snow-capped peaks of the Alps or the Andes, the castles of Europe, the hubbub of Tokyo or the grasslands of the Serengeti, you can, with the help of the Gilman Scholarship! I’m sure I sound like a broken record, but it’s because it’s true—the Gilman can help low-income college students reach far away destinations to study abroad with just a simple application! I urge you to apply today, so you can have a life-changing, international experience during your college years, like me!

Braden’s Costa Rica Report #3: El Copal

6 Replies

Not many of us have the resources to bird outside of our own regions, and if you are part of that large club, you’re in luck. Braden is spending the spring semester of his junior year studying abroad in Costa Rica. He has 16 full weekends to work with and it’s no surprise that birding is on the agenda for every one of them. Here is his latest report—to a place that is not only a wonderful birding destination, but a model of sustainable agriculture. Enjoy!

I arrived at La Reserva El Copal just as the sun dipped behind the rainforest-covered foothills, my clothes soaked with sweat and every part of my body tired from the four bus rides and two-hour walk it had taken to get to one of Costa Rica’s best birding locations. My weekends in Monteverde and Jaco had been eventful and fun, but I was in need of some solo birding time, and so four days earlier I had made a reservation for this inexpensive, out-of-the-way property sitting on the lower slopes of the Cordillera de Talamanca. Patricia and Beto, the couple that ran the reserve, warmly welcomed me as darkness fell, showing me to my room and then to the dining hall for a dinner by candlelight. As I stared at the photos of rare and colorful hummingbirds on the walls, I realized that I was the only guest staying here for the night. Patricia served my rice and beans and said that she and Beto usually lived in Pejibaye, the town the final bus had dropped me off in, and only came up here when guests arrived, which wasn’t particularly frequently in January and February. This surprised me, given El Copal’s location and the high number of desirable bird species reported from here.

**Even a glance of the grounds explains why El Copal is one of Costa Rica’s top birding destinations.**

The next morning I arose at dawn, grabbed my binoculars and camera and headed off into the property as the trees began to glow with increasing sunlight. Almost immediately after stepping outside, a small, dark hummingbird buzzed by me, stopping to feed at one of the many flower bushes adorning the property. Despite the fact that it was still dark, I could clearly see the brilliant white cap for which the bird was named—Snowcap, which, in the weeks leading up to my trip to Costa Rica, had quickly risen up the ranks as one of my most-wanted birds. Rare denizens of the Caribbean slope, there were very few places in the country where these birds were reliable. El Copal was one of them, and I ended up seeing at least half a dozen of them during my stay here. The tiny, fairy-like hummingbirds eliminated any doubt I had about making this trip!

**El Copal is one of the few places to reliably see Snowcap hummingbirds, and fortunately, they are there in abundance!**

El Copal is full of rare birds. Back in the late 90s, the land now holding El Copal had been purchased by several families for agriculture. Instead of developing the rainforest, however, they decided to first establish a form of sustainable agriculture, then open it up for ecotourism, preserving much of the primary forest on the property. Now, some of Costa Rica’s most sought-after birds (and other animals) thrive here, thanks to the decision of those local farmers. This includes the Snowcap and a variety of other hummingbirds, as well as my #1 Target Bird for the whole country: Yellow-eared Toucanet. Of the six toucan species found in the country, this toucanet is the rarest, only found in middle elevation-rainforest on the Caribbean slope. El Copal seemed to be one of the best places to find them in the whole world, and I had my fingers crossed as I headed up the steep trails leading into the reserve.

The morning was…complicated. I heard a whole lot of birdsong, but very few of the singers actually presented themselves for good looks. Merlin (the bird identification app developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) was only so helpful, as there are significantly fewer recordings of Latin American species than North American species. Bird sounds that the app identified for me included Bright-rumped Attila, Broad-billed Motmot, and Northern Schiffornis, the latter of which is an entirely brown bird with one of the most entertaining whistling songs I’ve ever heard. Despite my frustration at not being able to see many of the birds hidden in the foliage, I did get eyes on a few. I spotted both a Collared Aracari and a Keel-billed Toucan, two species of toucans quite common in this type of rainforest. And I did lay eyes on several large, mixed flocks of tanagers, colorful birds that traverse the forest in search of fruit. The species I picked out at the tops of trees included Silver-throated, Emerald, Speckled, Golden-hooded, Hepatic, Summer, Scarlet-rumped, Tawny-crested, Black-and-yellow, and Bay-headed Tanagers. I also got to watch a family group of coatis quietly foraging on the trail ahead of me. They scattered when I stepped on a branch by accident.

**The tanagers put on a real show around the El Copal lodge—including this spectacular Emerald Tanager.**

I returned to the main property for breakfast, then headed off on a different trail, this one leading down towards a stream. I found a Buff-rumped Warbler foraging on the rocks in the water, and peered around tree ferns and buttressed trees to try and glimpse the calls I was hearing. This trail also took a left turn and then continued up the mountain, and further up I spotted Scarlet-rumped Caciques and Chestnut-headed Oropendolas, big grackle-like birds making crazy calls. As I rounded a corner, a shiny green bird with a long bill alighted on a branch in front of me. The bird’s beak was longer and thinner than that of a kingfisher, and it had a warm, orange belly complementing its shimmering, green back: a Rufous-tailed Jacamar! Few birds had given me such a good look that morning, and I stood there for several minutes, watching the bird peer down at me curiously. A few minutes later, a large Ornate Hawk-Eagle soared through a gap in the trees, and my attitude began to improve—the birds were showing themselves! On the way down, I heard a rising and falling song, signifying the presence of an antbird. I poked around a little, eventually getting eyes on a Bicolored Antbird overturning leaves! This species, like many other antbirds, are ant-following obligates, meaning that they depend on army ants to find food. As large swarms of army ants rush through the rainforest, they stir up and scare hundreds of other insects, who leap out of the way, straight into the waiting mouths of antbirds, antwrens, woodcreepers and a variety of other birds that just follow the ants around. Ground-cuckoos, one of the most enigmatic groups of birds, also belong to this ant-following group.

While I didn’t actually lay eyes on any army ants, the antbirds signified that there must have been some nearby. The leafcutter ants, meanwhile, were everywhere. Their trails ran alongside and crisscrossed the walking trails, and I always had to keep an eye on the ground so I wouldn’t step on any.

**One of the best parts of my visit to El Copal was meeting Carlos, who pointed out this perched Ornate Hawk-Eagle near the lodge.**

When I arrived back at the lodge for lunch, another birder who had just arrived pointed out another Ornate Hawk-Eagle, this one perched up on a distant snag. As I peered at the bird through his spotting scope, he introduced himself as Carlos, a local also living in Pejibaye. Carlos is an English teacher and regularly visits El Copal during weekends to search for the hundreds of bird species found here. I told him that I hailed from the University of Maine, and spoke of my hunt for the Yellow-eared Toucanet. He looked at his watch. “I’ve got a few more hours…do you want to hike the trails and look for the toucanet together?” So, after a quick lunch, we headed back up the mountain in search of my target.

**Thanks to my chance meeting with Carlos, a teacher and Costa Rican bird expert who can identify most of the birds by sound, I got to see one of my most sought-after Costa Rican species (keep reading).**

Carlos’s knowledge of the birds of the area was impressive. For one, he could identify many of the calls I’d felt hopeless about earlier, which included more species of antbirds, Collared Trogon, and several species of wrens. He also knew exactly where all the birds hung out, at one spot pointing down the side of the cliff to a White-crowned Manakin, a tiny black bird with a white cap, sitting in a bush fifty meters away. “He’s always here.”

As we gained altitude, I could begin to see the influence of cloud forest. Slightly different species lived here, and the plant composition looked different, too. One thing in particular made us realize we’d entered a higher-altitude area, however. “Toucanet!” Carlos yelled, pointing to a large, bromeliad-covered tree rising from the slope. I held my binoculars up to see, not my target bird, but an entirely green toucan: a Northern Emerald Toucanet! We tried in vain to photograph the species but neither of our cameras would cooperate, although it will be a long time before I forgot what it felt like to see that bird. This species is much more common at higher altitudes, and it was the first time Carlos had ever seen one on the property! It was, of course, a lifer (a bird I’ve never seen before) for me. As if the Emerald Toucanet wasn’t enough, as we rounded the corner, Carlos stopped me again.

Slowly and quietly, he pointed out a large-ish bird sitting about twenty meters in front of us, up in a tree. The bird was black, with a chestnut cap complementing the blue and green skin around its eye. Its long yellow and black beak, combined with green wings, orange flanks and red rump, identified it as the bird I’d been searching for: a female (hembra in Spanish) Yellow-eared Toucanet. I just about lost my mind, holding my camera up slowly with shaky hands. Never had I actually believed I would lay eyes on one, and yet, here one was, right in front of us. Then, the male appeared, sporting that yellow ear the species was named after.

**Again thanks to Carlos, I had an unforgettable experience with the bird at the top of my “must see” list—a pair of Yellow-eared Toucanets (male shown here).**

We enjoyed the birds for about ten minutes, then headed off, as Carlos had to get back home. I thanked him profusely for sharing these amazing birds with me, and we exchanged contact information. Then, I spent the rest of the evening looking at and deleting photos and enjoying the tanagers feeding in the fruiting trees in front of the rooms. Before I went to bed, I spotted several of what I believe to be bioluminescent beetles flying through the rainforest (though they may have been fireflies. I’m not good with bugs.).

**No, this Speckled Tanager was not touched up by artists for my visit!**

In total, I spotted 117 species at El Copal over the weekend, including a few the next morning like King Vulture, Gartered Trogon and Green Thorntail. La Reserva El Copal could be described as nothing short of magical. Are there places like this that you’ve always wanted to visit? A mountain range full of endemic plants? A reserve dedicated to protecting endangered amphibians? Perhaps your bucket list is topped with places like the Serengeti, the Great Barrier Reef, the ancient castles of Ireland? If you are, the Gilman Scholarship can help you get to these places! Studying abroad is an experience that every student should have the opportunity to have, and the Gilman helps put this philosophy into practice. The money they awarded me has helped me afford to go on adventures like this, the rain-forested foothills of Costa Rica, and they can help you too! So please, if you’re considering studying abroad (which you should be), apply to the Gilman!

Braden’s Costa Rica Report #2: Of Stingrays and Macaws

11 Replies

I stood on the wooden platform a hundred feet above the forest floor, staring down the long metal cable leading off into the foliage. The ziplining guide unhooked the carabiner on my belt from one line and attached it to another, then banged on the cable with a wooden bat—a signal to whoever was on the other end that I was ready to go. A colorful iguana watched from a nearby tree as I leaned back, grabbed the cable with my leather gloves, and jumped into the air. Humid, tropical wind hit me as I zipped past epiphyte-covered trees, and I heard the calls of parrots flying over. Thirty seconds later, I landed on the next platform, where the guide unclipped my carabiner and clipped it to another cable for another thrilling ride. An hour and fourteen platforms later, I touched down on the ground and joined the rest of the USAC students in gushing about how awesome ziplining had been—just the beginning to an exhilarating, chaotic weekend on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

**I’m going to get the, ahem, hang of this eventually!**

After lunch, our program directors took us to the coastal tourist town of Jaco. Some people split off to take a paid surfing lesson, but I opted to stay on the main beach and enjoy the waves. As my friends and I waded into the warm, salty water, we discovered that we were not alone. As we swam in the surf, something soft and slimy suddenly collided with my leg.

“Ack!” I cried, jumping backwards. Everyone around me stared. “What?”

A pair of fins appeared in the water to our left. Sharks! my mind shouted, but a sudden rolling wave gave us a glance at their true identities—stingrays! And the Pacific Cownose Rays (according to our limited research on Google) were not strong swimmers. Every time a more powerful wave rolled in, it carried the animals straight into us. Thankfully, none of the human—stingray collisions ended in harm to either party, but feeling a large, slimy animal run into me was not something I got used to.

**The beach at Jaco—a favorite for tourists and stingrays!**

We retired from the beach to the hostel where we would be staying for the night, a mere hundred meters from the ocean. As the sun set, however, our activities continued. At around 5, two of my friends and I went on a probably ill-advised walk through the town of Jaco in search of owls. We ended up on a long dirt road leading towards the jungle. Before we got there, brooding clouds materialized above us, and a downpour soaked our clothes. We didn’t see any owls (or at least not well), but we did spot a few other night birds, including Lesser Nighthawks and Common Pauraques. Upon our soggy return to Jaco, we stopped briefly on a bridge crossing a small stream in town. There, in the dark, moonlit water, stood a tall, powerful-looking heron, staring straight down into the current. We watched from the bridge as the Bare-throated Tiger-Heron crept closer and closer to its desired target. After five minutes of holding our breaths, the heron plunged its neck into water, pulling out a fish and swallowing it whole!

That night, our entire cohort of students went out for drinks in downtown Jaco (the legal drinking age in Costa Rica is 18). Some of us grew restless sitting in the bars, however, and made our way back to the beach to watch the ocean pound relentlessly into the dark sand. Near our hostel, a river mouth emptied into the ocean, running in all directions to create a maze of shallow streams and sandbars. And there, under the moon, we spotted more herons, fishing in the dark. Another tiger-heron strutted on the shore. Two Yellow-crowned Night-herons fought over a frog dinner. But the coolest animal we saw was a bird straight out of a horror movie—the uncommon and elusive Boat-billed Heron (I didn’t take a picture because it was so dark but you should definitely look this thing up). There on the sand it stood, with large, dark, soulless eyes complementing its wild, black hairdo. Its bill looked more like a shovel than a boat, and we watched as it rushed into the water, chasing after a fish.

The next morning, Kiley, Leah and I caught an Uber to Playa Hermosa (“Beautiful Beach”—one of several Playa Hermosas scattered around the country) south of Jaco. Silvery streaks of sand ran across the less-touristed coastline, but the biggest prize had little to do with the ocean. Planted along the edge of the sand stood large trees of many species, including palms and almonds. Feeding on those almonds were giant, long-tailed Scarlet Macaws! The macaws flew over us in groups of two to four, calling abrasively and flashing the streaks of blue and yellow that decorated their otherwise crimson bodies. At one point, one landed no more than ten feet away, and we watched and filmed it in awe. Scarlet Macaws are a threatened species because of the illegal pet trade and habitat loss, but their story in Costa Rica is one of success. After declining significantly in the 1900s, Scarlet Macaws are increasing in numbers on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of the country, thanks to conservation work. They are now once again a common sight in much of Costa Rica.

**Scarlet Macaws feeding in trees along the beach. Their beaks are especially designed to crush the largest, hardest nuts!**

The next morning, our last of the weekend, eight of us caught an early-morning bus north to Carara National Park, one of the last tracts of pristine Pacific lowland rainforest in the country. Once we bought our tickets and entered the park (if you go, make SURE to buy tickets online in advance—it was a hassle doing it there), we followed a trail deep into the forest, marveling at the height and circumference of the smooth-barked trees rising before us. Many of the trees had thick buttresses stretching out from their bases. Here, the deeper soils held little nutrients, so tree roots stretched out rather than down. Leaf-cutter ant trails crossed the trail every couple hundred meters, and we thanked a guide who pointed out a White-lined Bat roosting on the side of a tree.

**One of several troops of leaf-cutter ants we enjoyed watching.**

White-faced Capuchins preening during siesta time.

Loafing on a log laid across a bubbling river we spotted not one but two Brown Basilisks or Jesus Christ Lizards, that special reptile with the ability to run on water. White-faced Capuchins stared down at us from trees as they picked through each other’s fur, and we startled a White-nosed Coati from the trail, where it had been quietly gobbling down ants. We got great views of Slaty-tailed Trogons—big, red-bellied birds that look kind of like frogs—and a Yellow-throated Toucan that flew in as we watched yet more Scarlet Macaws. My personal bird of the day was a Black-faced Antthrush, a small, quiet songbird poking through the leaf litter about fifty meters away from the trail. This lowland rainforest (which was the final of the three prominent forest types in the country for me to visit) held many species from the tropical dry forest, too, as Carara National Park sits near the zone where the two habitats blend together. To see true, pure lowland tropical rainforest, however, we’ll have to visit the Osa Peninsula or Manuel Antonio National Park, quite a bit farther south.

My favorite bird of the weekend, a Black-faced Antthrush.

Stay tuned!