Category Archives: Travel

Colorado’s Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival (FSB Festival Report)

I hadn’t visited the Four Corners region of Colorado in sixty years, so when I got an email inviting me to keynote a birding festival almost literally in the shadow of Mesa Verde National Park, well, it took me about one wingbeat of a Broad-tailed Hummingbird to accept. The festival was the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival and why they chose me harkens back to last year’s blog post In Search of the Green-Tailed Towhee. Each year, the festival selects a different featured or mascot bird to help promote the fest, and the committee just happened to choose the GTTO (the bird, not the car) for 2026. After doing a quick web search, they found my blog—and the rest is history.

**My invitation to the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival resulted from last year’s blog post In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee.**

Well, not quite. I still, after all, had to attend the festival—and what a delight it turned out to be.

After being invited, the first thing I did was to look up what kinds of birds I might see. It was a good list, consisting of a nice mix of conifer forest, wetland, and sagebrush birds. What got me doing lizard push-ups, however, were the birds of the pinyon-juniper forests—what the locals refer to as the “PJ forest.” These birds included several species that are challenging to find in Montana such as Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Gray Flycatcher, Pinyon Jay, and Green-tailed Towhee. Even better, it included a couple of potential lifers pour moi, especially Virginia’s Warbler and Gray Vireo.

**Having Amy along for the first few days helped make this trip extra special!**

What made the trip even more exciting was that I convinced my wife Amy to fly down with me a couple of days early to explore Durango and visit Mesa Verde National Park—where we saw my first Black-throated Gray Warbler in eight or nine years and heard both Rock and Canyon Wrens right next to the famous Cliff Palace dwellings (see above photo)! Afterward, we took a delightful hike on the park’s Knife Edge Trail, and almost immediately Merlin’s Sound ID picked up one of my top trip targets: Virginia’s Warbler! It took only about five minutes to get a glimpse of this gorgeous little creature and as a bonus, the trip’s first Blue-gray Gnatcatchers joined it. Alas, Amy had to head home Wednesday, but that may have been just as well since three intensive days of birding lay ahead of me.

When you get invited to speak at a festival, it is common to be asked to “co-lead” field trips with local birders who are the real experts. Doing this may be the best part of the invitation, and I felt especially excited about the trips I had been assigned. The first, led by Mesa Verde’s Chief of Natural Resources, Paul Morey, took us into the little-known wilderness part of the park—a section along the Mancos River closed to the public. The river—a creek by Montana standards—led through spectacular groves of cottonwoods as well as PJ forest and sagebrush habitat, overlooked by the impressive main ridge of the park.

A special bonus of our Mesa Verde wilderness hike was getting to see the restoration work the park has been doing–including facilitating the return of beavers to the Mancos River. This has already improved water levels and sedimentation that the cottonwood gallery forest needs to thrive.

We got some nice surprises on our four-mile hike: Golden Eagles, Plumbeous Vireos, Lark Sparrows, more Virginia’s Warblers, and two Red-naped Sapsuckers. Lazuli Buntings and Yellow-breasted Chats earned crowd favorite honors, though the chats did their best to elude us visually until late in the hike. Another great thing about the trip, however, was getting to meet wonderful, bird-loving folks from all over the country—new friendships that would solidify over the next couple of days of birding.

**Not surprisingly, Lazuli Buntings were one of the crowd favorites of our first-day group.**

Friday’s trip took me to another place that had limited access—a downstream section of the Mancos River located in the heart of the Ute Mountain Tribal Park. To enter this area, you need to be on an official tour organized by the Tribe (see details here) and all I can say is “Do it!” I got an inkling of what we were in for as we passed the impressive Chimney Rock and entered the canyon itself. On both sides of us, incredible walls like giant Jenga constructions rose for miles upstream, the river threading through them as if nothing had changed for millennia.

A highlight of our Ute Tribal Park trip was a Black Phoebe, a bird common in California but fairly scarce in these parts.

Don Marsh, our fearless leader, had us stop at many locations and the birds repeatedly surprised us. Almost immediately, we saw ten Western Tanagers moving together upstream, surely still in migration. Say’s Phoebes, Ash-throated Flycatchers, Lark Sparrows, and Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jays flitted between trees and bushes while more chats and Gambel’s Quail provided an alluring soundtrack.

**Most visitors to Mesa Verde don’t realize the remarkable number of Puebloan sites—thousands of them—that fill the area, including this spectacular cliff site in the Ute Mountain Tribal Park.**

Don had been charged by festival organizer Diane Cherbak to find me my Number One Target Bird, Gray Vireo, and he set about this task with determination. On only our second or third stop, he said, “I hear one,” and for the next fifteen minutes, we doggedly tried to get a glimpse of it. The little bugger didn’t make it easy! We saw movement in bushes and others in our party shouted, “There it is!”—always a split-second late for me to see. FINALLY, the bird quit taunting us and popped up to the top of a bush where I got a lengthy, glorious glimpse of this drab, but thoroughly enchanting little bird! This trip also provided some additional adventures including a flat tire and a break to admire impressive cliff dwellings and petroglyphs few people ever get to see.

**My top trip target bird did its best to stay out of sight before finally posing for a photo op. Thank you Gray Vireo—and Don, for finding this bird for me!**

Saturday saw us in the good hands of Brenda Wright and Coen Dexter, two of the area’s top birders, as we explored the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, a sprawling region northwest of Cortez. This was the heart of Pinyon-Juniper country and offered a wonderful mix of PJ forest, agricultural fields, Puebloan ruins, and yet more stunning canyons. On our explorations, we saw yet another Gray Vireo along with Brewer’s Sparrows, Cassin’s Kingbird, Juniper Titmice, both Sora and Virginia Rail, and perhaps the day’s highlight, a pair of mating dark morph Swainson’s Hawks! Fittingly, our last new species of the day here was the festival’s featured bird, a Green-tailed Towhee that I saw dive into a bush and stuck around long enough for everyone to see it.

**Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jays greeted us every day of the festival—incredibly adaptable birds that I had seen only twice before.**

I honestly felt sad to leave this amazing festival in a remarkable part of the world—and I encourage you to give it a try. The festival offers more than twenty tours over its five days and has some of the friendliest people I’ve met anywhere. Both Durango and Cortez are fun towns to explore and hang out in, and both offer great Mexican food, fun shopping, and other cool activities. Speaking of food, a wonderful local caterer creates some of the yummiest “field lunches” I’ve ever had—so yummy that I usually ate them by 9 or 10 o’clock each day. Best of all, the festival is for a good cause, being the main fundraiser for the Cortez Cultural Center.

For more information, check out the festival website: https://utemountainmesaverdebirdingfestival.com/

I certainly hope it’s an event I’ll return to one day.

My Colorado eBird Trip Report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/519560

The Ute Mountain Mesa Verde birding festival is the major fundraiser for the Cortez Cultural Center each year. The center’s mission is to “provide programs that enrich the lives of our community and its visitors by increasing cultural awareness, promoting the arts, and educating about the area’s history, diversity and natural environment.”

Fulvous Whistling-Duck: Bird #15 on Braden’s ABA Life List Countdown

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As you read this Sneed is eagerly preparing for the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival (see our recent post Birding Festivals of the West 2026) in Cortez, Colorado. Meanwhile, Braden is birding through east Texas, helping his college friend Ryan achieve his Big Year ambitions. Fittingly, today’s blog post reports on a bird frequently found in Texas—but that Braden first recently found in Southern California. With its discovery, Braden has only 14 regularly occurring species to see on his countdown of ABA Lower 48 birds (see our recent post Lower 48 Life List Countdown: Crissal Thrasher). Enjoy his report!

I haven’t exactly been on top of rare bird reports during the last few years. When I was younger, I subscribed to all the eBird alerts I could: the ABA Rare Bird Alert, the Montana Rare Bird Alert, and even the Missoula County Rare Bird Alert. I also regularly visited birding pages on Facebook, meaning that if a bird in my region showed up where it wasn’t supposed to, I knew about it pretty quickly. Recently, though, I’ve unsubscribed from many of those alerts, and don’t use Facebook as much. So I consider it lucky that I found out about the California Fulvous Whistling-Ducks by accidentally scrolling past an Instagram post.

**My dad saw his first Fulvous Whistling-Ducks in Texas only in 2025, so it felt like a strange coincidence for me to have a crack at them now, a thousand miles away in California.**

According to eBird, the pair of whistling-ducks showed up at the 20,000-acre San Jacinto Wildlife Area in late January, 2026, about a month before I learned about them. Fulvous Whistling-Ducks have a cosmopolitan distribution, being found in both North and South America as well as Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Historically, the species never lived in the United States, but arrived in Florida, the Gulf Coast states and California from the tropics during the nineteenth century. At one point in the early 1900s, Fulvous Whistling-Ducks bred as far north as San Francisco! Following this aggressive colonization period, however, their populations fluctuated wildly, and especially declined on the West Coast. In California, they now only occasionally breed at the Salton Sea (which I did visit last fall to see a Yellow-footed Gull), with no recent breeding records on eBird. The last time the species bred at San Jacinto, according to a local birder, was pre-1950.

**The San Jacinto Wildlife Refuge quickly showed me its importance as a haven for waterfowl. Here, a stunning Green-winged Teal dazzles under full sunlight!**

I’d never actually looked for Fulvous Whistling-Ducks before. The closest I’d been to the species was probably during my trip to Florida with my friend Nick Ramsey in 2022, when we passed one of the state’s most reliable spots for the species: Lake Apopka. Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit Lake Apopka due to the wildlife drive only being open on specific days of the week. I suppose my dad and I also could have seen the species on our visit to Anahuac (now Jocelyn Nugaray) National Wildlife Refuge way back in 2016, but I doubt that the species was even on my radar at the time. The bottom line is that I was shocked to see a pair show up so close to where I was currently working, in Running Springs, California—and I had no choice but to try to find them!

**Tricolored Blackbirds, an endangered species that has suffered catastrophic declines during the past century, were a delightful surprise during my San Jacinto visit.**

February 14th was an unusually foggy day in the San Bernardino Valley, and it seemed to only get foggier as I entered the grassy hills south of Redlands. I’d never been to this area before, and was pleasantly surprised to find dairy farms complete with muddy pastures and flocks of foraging blackbirds. As I entered the wildlife area, the fog gave way to sun and the pastures transitioned to open grasslands, some of the only ones I’d ever seen in California. A Loggerhead Shrike darted across the road in front of my car and I stopped periodically to peer at Mountain Bluebirds, Western Meadowlarks, American Pipits and a variety of sparrows perched on the fencing. The pavement turned to dirt, and I soon spotted wetlands and flooded fields on the horizon. This winter had brought heavy rains to much of southern California, and golden flowers decorated the hills.

In no time, I recognized the value of San Jacinto Wildlife Area to wintering birds. Flocks of waterfowl, especially Northern Shoveler, Ruddy Duck and Northern Pintail, as well as shorebirds and waders like Least Sandpiper and White-faced Ibis, covered the fields and ponds. A Peregrine Falcon alighted on a telephone pole, and I pulled over next to a wire absolutely covered in Tree and Barn Swallows, the first I’d seen this year. Apparently, some of the Barn Swallows that breed in Argentina and Chile spend the winter in the southern United States, and I found a few contenders for austral birds among the flock.

**It’s impossible not to stop for a photo op when a pair of Cinnamon Teal willingly presents itself!**

I followed coordinates to find the whistling-ducks and they proved easy to locate on a small island as soon as I pulled alongside a large pond. They’re pretty ducks, clad in earthy orange with what appear to be claw marks along their sides. They also stand taller than other ducks, as all whistling-ducks do, and nearby Gadwall, Cinnamon Teal and American Coot provided careful comparison. As I watched them preen through my scope, a pair of local birders walked up to me.

**Hopefully, this pair of Fulvous Whistling-Ducks will pioneer a new, invigorated population of the ducks in Southern California.**

“You see these next boxes?” one of them said, “The refuge has been putting them up in the hopes that this pair will nest here this year.”

“Are whistling-ducks cavity nesters?” I asked.

The birder replied. “I believe they can do both—nest in holes and on the ground.”

While I didn’t have particularly high expectations, I do have to admit that it would be pretty cool to see the first breeding whistling-ducks at San Jacinto in the 21st century!

(Note: according to Cornell’s Birds of the World, there have been reports of cavity nesting, but the vast majority of nests are built of vegetation in “dense floating or flooded emergent (herbaceous) vegetation.” This includes weedy rice fields. Unlike most waterfowl, FUWD pairs form strong long-term bonds and males participate greatly in incubation and the rearing of young.)

Fulvous Whistling-Duck is the last regularly-occurring waterfowl species that I checked off of my Lower 48 life list, and it felt a little surreal to see them standing there on that sparkling day in southern California. The first bird on my life list is a waterfowl, the Bufflehead, and I can still remember it clearly, my dad and I standing in the frigid January cold at Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge, our Sibley guide open as we tried to identify that small, black and white duck. Ducks are gateway birds, easy to see and identify, and the focal species for the protection of so many wetlands around the U.S., especially in the West. To be seeking, once more, a species from the same group of birds that welcomed me to the birding world, is something that made my trip to San Jacinto all the more special.

**FUWDs from Sneed’s April 2025 Texas trip (see post Anahuac Lifer Attack).**

The Nocs Zero Tube 10X25 Monocular (FSB Equipment Review)

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If you’d like to support our work at FSB, please consider purchasing *new copies* of Sneed’s books shown to the right—and support a group such as Birdlife International or Audubon that is working hard to protect birds against climate change and many other perils. Remember: all of our posts are written and photographed by REAL PEOPLE!

Not long ago, I was fortunate to be able to review my first monocular, the Nocs Field Tube 10X32. Today I’m happy to review Nocs’ next-generation monocular, the Zero Tube 10X25.

In past reviews, I have extolled the virtues of Nocs as a company (see this post and this post), and many of you have read of the excellent performance of the Pro Issue binoculars on Braden’s and my very wet recent trip to Costa Rica. With the Zero Tube, it’s clear Nocs is continuing to turn out great products with an ethical mindset, and in talking about this product, it’s perhaps most useful to compare it to their Field Tube that I reviewed earlier.

The first thing cost-conscious birders will notice is that the Zero lists for $179.95, a $50 premium to the Field Tube. Let’s take the Zero’s features one by one to see if it’s worth that extra fifty bucks.

**Setting the Zero Tube (right) next to the Field Tube (left) immediately reveals some big—and important—differences between the two.** **Note especially that the Zero Tube has eliminated the large, bulky focusing knob and comes with a convenient clip for you “pocket protector” types.** **(Photo by Sneed Collard)**

When reviewing the Field Tube, I was impressed by how small and portable it is—which is kind of the whole point of monoculars, verdad? Upon pulling the Zero Tube out of the box, I have to say that I was even more impressed and surprised by how much sleeker it is than the Field Tube! The Zero Tube measures 4.5 inches, a good half-inch shorter than the Field Tube. Better yet, while the Field Tube weighs a very modest 8.6 ounces with the wrist strap, the Zero weighs in at a minuscule 6.8 ounces. To give you an idea of how light that is, my wallet weighs 6.3 ounces—with my Costco card in it!

Like the Field Tube, the Zero Tube is waterproof and features a ridged rubber grip that even the muddiest, wettest hands will have no trouble hanging on to. Like its other products, Nocs provides the Zero Tube with a lifetime warranty—not to mention the fun styling the company is known for.

**While creating a sleeker, lighter, and sharper product, Nocs has not neglected the fun styling the company is known for.**

Setting the Field Tube and Zero Tube side by side, you’ll immediately note that the Field Tube features a focusing knob on top of the main tube while the Zero Tube has eliminated this. Instead, you focus the Zero by twisting the forward part of the tube. This keeps the Zero Tube from getting hung up on pockets and other compartments, making it truly easy to slip in and out for use. The only downside of eliminating the top focus knob is that the knob allows you to focus while holding the Field Tube in one hand. The Zero Tube pretty much requires you have both hands to hold and focus it. A huge improvement of the Zero Tube, however, is that you do not need to twist it nearly as far to bring it from near to far focus—an essential bonus for a birder.

**Though I have not done this myself, digiscoping should be a cinch with Nocs monoculars, especially with the improved optics the Zero Tube provides.**

Despite all of its other advantages, the best part of the Zero Tube is the sharpness and clarity of the image. Just last week, I let my friend Bruce experiment with the Zero Tube as we hiked some nearby trails and, really, he was having so much fun I was afraid he wouldn’t give it back! He focused the Zero Tube on some Western Bluebirds in a tree and remarked, “Wow, this really gives you a sharp look!” In my try-outs, I agree, and it’s clear that Nocs’ use of better optics in the Zero Tube has paid off big. To my mind, that alone easily justifies paying $50 more for this fine product.

Compact monoculars do come with some compromises. The most notable is their relatively narrow field of view—6.5 degrees for the Zero and 6.3 degrees for the Field Tube 10X32s. Still, and as I’ve stated before, they aren’t meant to replace binoculars, but to offer a convenient, compact alternative for travel and outdoor activities. If this is a niche that needs filling in your birding activities, you’ll be happy you picked up a Zero Tube.

**The many improved features makes paying a little more for the Zero Tube a no-brainer for birders.**

Photos (except where noted) and review equipment provided by Nocs.

Birding Festivals of the West 2026!

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As April proceeds apace, it’s time to greet our spring birds with the word “Tadaima!”—Japanese for “Welcome Home!” However, it’s also an excellent time to finally do something you may have contemplated for years: attend a birding festival!

Never fear, it’s not too late. Particularly as recent geopolitical events make you rethink vacationing in Paris or visiting the Egyptian pyramids, birders have the chance to seize opportunities on our very doorstep. During the past few years, Braden and I have participated in a number of birding festivals and they have always been huge fun. They have allowed us to explore places and see birds that we never imagined, and connect with great birders from all around the world. Pick up a copy of BWD or Birding and you’ll see that there are literally dozens of birding festivals to choose from throughout the year. Today, I’d like to focus on three in the West that I’ll be participating in—and that you may want to consider for yourselves.

The Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival, Cortez, Colorado, May 6-10

In just three weeks, I’ll be traveling to the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival in Cortez, Colorado, which runs from May 6 to May 10. Fun story: I was invited to this year’s festival because of a blog post I wrote last summer called In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee. The UMMV organizing committee happened to have chosen that bird as this year’s “mascot” and when they read the blog, Voila!, they invited me to give the keynote!

**The charismatic Green-tailed Towhee is this year’s featured bird at the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival—but is only one of the cool specialties participants are likely to see!**

Now I’ll admit that I’d never considered birding southwest Colorado, but as I delved into the various field trips, I grew more and more excited. The variety of birds and habitats in this part of the country is fabulous and includes many species that can be a challenge to see elsewhere. 180 species have been observed at the festival including waterfowl, shorebirds, raptors, and songbirds. Most exciting to me are the Southwestern birds I rarely get a chance to see including Black-throated and Sagebrush Sparrows, Gray Flycatcher, Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay, Scaled Quail, Sage Thrasher, Virginia’s Warbler, Juniper Titmouse, and at top of my list, Gray Vireo.

**The Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival not only offers up great birds, but a chance to explore some of our nation’s most iconic scenery and cultural sites, including Mesa Verde National Park.**

What really sets this festival apart is the chance to bird while exploring some of the most breathtaking scenery in America. Think dramatic canyon country like Mesa Verde National Park (see photo above) and Ute Mountain Tribal Park. This Four Corners region is loaded with archaeological sites and a unique culture found nowhere else in the world, and just begs to be explored. In fact, my wife and I are going down a couple of days early to do just that. To get there, we’re flying into Durango and renting a car. If this intrigues you as much as it intrigues us, do check it out! https://utemountainmesaverdebirdingfestival.com/

Wings Across the Big Sky, Kalispell, Montana, June 12-14

This will be Braden’s and my fourth time participating in our home state birding festival, and we couldn’t be more excited. One of the things that makes this festival special is that it travels to different parts of the state each year, allowing birders to explore Montana’s extensive variety of habitats and birds. Braden and I are leading two field trips, including one to the CSKT Bison Range, but all of the trips offer a surprising wealth of bird life. Montana is especially known for its raptors and grassland birds, but most people don’t realize that it’s a great place to see waterfowl and songbirds, too.

Just one of dozens of field trips at the 2024 Wings Across the Big Sky festival, including trip leaders, field biologist Hilary Turner (far left) and Andrew Guttenberg (third from left). And yes, that’s Braden towering over Hilary on the left!

If you’ve never visited Montana before, I highly recommend the field trips to Glacier National Park. At least ten kinds of warblers can be found in the park, along with four kinds of chickadees (think Boreal Chickadee), and three kinds of grouse, including Spruce Grouse. The park is especially known for breeding Black Swifts, Harlequin Ducks, Common Loons, and American Dippers. Again, you might just want to come a few days early to explore on your own!

**Glacier National Park may be the best place in the Lower 48 to score breeding Harlequin Ducks! Braden and I saw this one, our lifer, on our very first Wings Across the Big Sky festival!**

Glacier, though, is not the only draw to this part of Montana. Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake in the West and hosts a great variety of birds along its shores. The Mission Mountains are truly one of the most spectacular and little-known mountain ranges in the Lower 48, and several field trips will explore the grasslands and wetlands of the Mission Valley. Passionate local trip leaders and Montana hospitality will ensure that you make this festival a regular part of your birding calendar.

For complete information, click here: Wings Across the Big Sky

Southeast Arizona Birding Festival, August 12-16, Tucson, Arizona

The Southeast Arizona Birding Festival has built a reputation as one of the nation’s premier birding festivals, and so when I was invited to speak and co-lead field trips at this year’s festival, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. Of course, the first thing you’re probably asking yourself is “Arizona? In August???” I did, but believe it or not, this is one of the best times to bird the Grand Canyon State.

**Braden contemplating a glorious sunset near the mouth of Madera Canyon—one of the field trips I’ll be co-leading during the SE Arizona Birding Festival.**

Braden and I have been lucky to bird Arizona several times. See our posts “Portal Dreaming” and “Trogons and Border Walls.” One thing that always amazes us is the variety of habitats that can be found there, including wetlands, saguaro forests, and incredible canyons. Of special note are the region’s sky islands. These are mountains and mountain ranges that rise steeply out of the desert to altitudes of over ten thousand feet. Climbing up them, you quickly transition from desert through a variety of habitats, culminating with conifer forests at the top.

**While many people travel to Arizona specifically to see the Coppery-tailed (formerly Elegant) Trogon, Arizona offers an unparalleled diversity of other specialties to US birders.**

Sky islands not only provide welcome relief from Arizona’s summer valley heat, they offer an astounding variety of birds, many of which cannot be found anywhere else in the US. On our 2022 trip to Arizona, Braden and I nabbed life bird after life bird including Coppery-tailed (formerly Elegant) Trogon, Red-faced Warbler, Olive Warbler, Scott’s Oriole, Five-striped Sparrow, Mexican Whip-poor-will, and many more.

**Yellow-eyed Juncos are just one of the many specialty birds that can be found in Arizona during the upcoming birding festival.**

In addition to speaking at this year’s festival, I will be co-leading field trips to both Madera and Ramsey Canyons—two of my favorite places I have ever birded. But my buddy Roger and I are flying down a few days early to bird on our own. Registration for the festival begins on April 28, and if you’re interested, I wouldn’t hesitate to get on the website that day to reserve your preferred trips. The festival headquarters hotel, the Tucson Doubletree, is having some reservation issues, so you may want to call them directly as soon as possible to book a room.

SE Arizona Festival Link: https://tucsonbirds.org/festival/

So that’s it for this Festivals of the West post. We hope it has inspired you to give a birding festival a try. If the above festivals are out of reach, look into a local festival near you. For a list of festivals nationwide, check out Cornell’s All About Birds website. We can almost guarantee you’ll be glad you did! And if you spot me at one of the above festivals, please come and say Howdy!

If you’re enjoying FatherSonBirding, please consider subscribing by filling out the box in the column to the right. We won’t ever sell or give away your information and you can unsubscribe at any time. And do feel free to share this blog with others or link to it—but please contact us for any other uses! FatherSonBirding is written by REAL PEOPLE, and if you’d like to support our work, please also consider buying *new copies* of some of Sneed’s books, also shown in the column to the right.

Caño Negro: Costa Rica’s Epic Wetland (Birding Costa Rica, Part 3)

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If you’re enjoying FatherSonBirding, please consider subscribing by filling out the box down and to the right. We won’t ever sell or give away your information and you can unsubscribe at any time. And do feel free to share this blog with others or link to it—but please contact us for any other uses!

When blogging about a birding trip to Costa Rica, it’s almost impossible to choose which things to cover. As anyone who’s been there knows, every day offers avian delights, whether you’re walking through rainforest or hanging out in a town or city. One place we simply cannot overlook, however, is Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge.

**The lagoon area of Cano Negro, at high water because of recent rains.**

Caño Negro is one of Costa Rica’s rare, large interior freshwater wetland areas and lies almost within sight of the Nicaraguan border. I had never heard of it until Braden sang its praises when he studied abroad down there two years ago. As he planned our itinerary for this year’s trip, he left no doubt it was a must-see destination. To reach it, we left the La Fortuna area (see our post Arenal for Antbirds) and drove an hour and a half up highway 35 through flat agricultural country, before turning west on the access road to the refuge.

**Seeing such large numbers of Northern Jacanas was a first for me!**

The access road is one of those tricks perpetuated with great amusement on tourists. Paved for its first few miles, it suddenly degenerates into a cratered track that reduces the speed of rational drivers to about 10 km/hour. Nonetheless, this road is not to be endured, but to be birded. Along its stretch are a rich variety of grasslands, mini-wetlands, and patches of trees that are loaded with birds. I was thrilled to see my first Northern Jacanas and Purple Gallinules of the trip, but these were quickly overshadowed by the Variable and Morelet’s Seedeaters (see our post Chasing Morelet’s Seedeaters), and Thick-billed and Nicaraguan Seed-Finches. The highlight of the drive was a brief, but spectacular view of yet another lifer for Braden—a Black-collared Hawk!

**These overcompensating “giant-billed” Nicaraguan Seed-Finches are a specialty of the northeast part of Costa Rica.**

The next morning, we eagerly met our guide, Chambita, and his boat driver/assistant, Yalvin, at one of the town boat docks. Because of the heavy unseasonable rains, the Rio Frio was running higher than usual, but still flowed along at a placid pace perfect for birding. Most birding boat tours have two components—the river itself and a lagoon that feeds into it. From Braden’s past comments, I was most excited about the lagoon, but the river relentlessly amazed us.

**Chambita and Braden proved a dynamic duo in detecting Caño Negro’s astonishing bird life.**

As we began slowly making our way downstream, I was thrilled to see both new and familiar species. Over the first hour, the kingfishers stole the show, as we saw five of Costa Rica’s six kingfisher species, missing only the most common one—our own Belted Kingfisher that we enjoy back home. The ones we saw included both the big bruiser Ringed Kingfishers and the two that are hardest to find: Green-and-Rufous Kingfisher and American Pygmy Kingfisher.

**I’m a sucker for kingfishers and was ecstatic at seeing FIVE species, including this American Pygmy Kingfisher.**

Chambita, though, quickly demonstrated why he is a local legend among expert birders by calling out dozens of other bird songs and calls, many of them flycatchers that I had no hope of recognizing, but that Braden raptly absorbed. Then, we spotted a species Braden most hoped to see—Snowy Cotingas.

I’ll just say it: Cotingas are bizarre. And I’m not alone in thinking so. Birds of the World remarks, “No family of birds exhibits more diversity of auditory, behavioral, and plumage elaborations, all the result of rampant sexual selection, than do the cotingas.”

**We saw five Snowy Cotingas on our outing—an unusually high number that pretty much made Braden’s entire day.**

I actually didn’t think I’d ever seen a cotinga until Braden informed me that two of Latin America’s most spectacular birds, the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock and Three-wattled Bellbird, are cotingas. Even then, I only started getting interested in them as a group when mi amigo Roger and I saw Black-tipped Cotingas last year in Colombia, inspiring a spate of jealousy from Braden.

Today, when we saw the Snowy Cotingas, I had to restrain Braden from jumping out of the boat. “I wanted to see them,” he gushed, “but I didn’t think we would!” That, of course, got me super excited about them, too—delicate white birds perched atop trees high above the river.

**Though not rare, Sungrebes can be shy and difficult to find, so we felt lucky to see one. The birds are actually more closely related to rails than grebes.**

The river offered many other treasures including a rare Sungrebe, eight species of warblers, three kinds of orioles, and four kinds each of woodpeckers and parrots. Oh, and caimans and monkeys, too. And that’s before we turned around and went to the lagoon.

A troop of Squirrel Monkeys provided us with a welcome bonus as they fearlessly leaped a twenty-foot gap between trees. Look closely and you can see a baby on this one’s back! Talk about Livin’ on a Prayer!

When we reached it, the lagoon presented a totally different view than Braden had previously experienced. On his past visits, the water had been relatively low, i.e. perfect for wading birds. Recent rains, however, had raised the water dramatically. We still found a great diversity of birds, but numbers were lower than usual.

**Ever since seeing a Fasciated Tiger-Heron with Roger in Colombia last year, I have been in love with tiger-herons, and this was my first chance to get good looks at Bare-throated Tiger-Herons!**

Still, all manner of wading birds presented themselves. My favorites were Bare-throated Tiger-Herons and the uber-strange Boat-billed Herons. It was a tough call, though, with Tricolored Herons, a Roseate Spoonbill, Little Blue Herons, Green Herons, and three kinds of ibises—Glossy, White-faced, and Green—all competing for our attention.

**A yawning Boat-Billed Heron is a bird after my own heart. Not only is it one of the coolest birds in Costa Rica, it needs its afternoon nap, just like moi!**

A special treat for both Braden and me was getting to see our first Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture, which Chambita identified from a distance as it swooped down low over the lagoon and passed within a couple hundred yards of our boat. Resembling a Turkey Vulture—and sharing many of its characteristics—the Lesser Yellow-headed’s yellow head became visible only as it approached more closely. I love vultures.

**This intriguing Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture was a special first for both Braden and me.**

As we continued to explore, many more species kept showing up including a couple of Wood Storks, a Greater Yellowlegs, and both Crested and Yellow-headed Caracaras.

**Roger and I had seen a Yellow-headed Caracara leap up onto a cow last year in Colombia, but this guy gave Braden and me an even better show.**

A couple more of our favorite finds were a pair of Yellow-tailed Orioles and a Black-headed Trogon, all of which offered close up incredible looks.

We finished up our boat tour with classic looks at both Yellow-tailed Orioles and . . .

We were happy that Chambita and Yalvin seemed as excited by the day as we were. They spent far more time with us than was strictly necessary and you can bet we appreciated it.

After bidding them farewell, we headed back out the same cratered road we came in on and were rewarded as richly as on the day before. On the drive, we paused to enjoy Green Kingfishers, Common Tody-Flycatchers, a Fork-tailed Flycatcher, and the perfect capstone to the day—our lifer Red-breasted Meadowlarks! We ended the day with more than 130 species, one of our best days of birding ever. Pura Vida!

Our Caño Negro checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S303336007

I was especially thrilled to see a Red-breasted Meadowlark after recently reading that the similar-looking South American Pampas Meadowlark is critically endangered. Loss of grassland habitat and rampant use of pesticides has drastically reduced populations of many meadowlark species, including those found in the US.

To arrange a trip with Chambita, check out his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100047210666376.