Tag Archives: wading birds

Costa Rica’s La Angostura Florencia Wetlands: Turning Disappointment into Delight

Today, we wrap up our 2026 Costa Rican adventure with a post from Braden. Our nine-day trip was filled with incredible birds—and a share of setbacks caused by unexpected weather and road closures. In fact, circumstances prevented us from visiting our major final destination, El Copal (see Braden’s 2024 post). That disappointment, however, turned into great good fortune. Why? Because it redirected us to what would become one of our favorite birding locations of the trip.

My dad and I woke to the sound of a Barred Antshrike singing outside our Airbnb. After packing our stuff and stepping outside into the bright, clear morning, we realized that there were two antshrikes, one singing from each side of us. It took little prompting for both the male and the female to come in, giving us the best looks at the species so far on our trip and knocking off another target from my dad’s list. The antshrikes, along with several cooperative White-eared Ground-sparrows on the lawn of the property and the steady flyovers of parrots and oropendolas, started our day off strong.

Great looks at White-eared Ground-Sparrows and both male and female Barred Antshrikes helped kickstart our fabulous final day of Costa Rican birding.

We’d been so successful with our target birds on the trip that our plans for this morning were simple: bird somewhere not too far out of the way back to San Jose, and spend one last morning enjoying Costa Rica’s birds. The night before, we’d decided on a nearby wetland called La Angostura Florencia, where the wide open habitat would render the birds easier to see than in the dense, rainforests we’d spent the last few days.

Disruption of our plans helped us discover several great new CR birding locations, including Tranki Garden near Turrialba. Here, the proprietor David has been creating a great new birding hotspot where we got our lifer Ochre-bellied Flycatcher!

So far, during the trip, we’d had pretty bad luck with just looking at eBird hotspots and trying to bird them. Some hotspots were closed, and we had caught David, the manager of Tranki Garden, off guard by showing up without calling ahead of time. One place we’d gone to was just completely private property (which we hadn’t known ahead of time), and the owner asked us to leave. La Angostura Florencia wetlands, however, was great—no locked gates, no private property signs, just a public, protected wetland nestled into the foothills of the Talamancas. As soon as we pulled onto the dirt road leading towards the water, we started spotting things.

**As La Angostura Florencia rolled into view, we immediately became excited by its birding potential—potential that would be fully realized!**

The first sighting of the day was our most unexpected. We stopped to scan a little creek, and my dad spotted a Black-crowned Night-Heron lurking on a rock. As I stepped out of the car to look, movement caught my eye—a large, brown mammal trotting through the forest on the other side of the road. As it grew closer to us, I realized this wasn’t a coati (which is a fairly common mammal across most parts of Costa Rica) but a tayra! Tayras are large members of the mustelid group (the group of mammals that includes weasels, otters and martens) and I’d never seen one before, despite all the time I’d spent in Costa Rica. We turned our attention towards the tayra as it scaled a tree and disappeared into the foliage above. Despite the mosquitos moving in on us from all sides, the day was off to a great start!

Though we’d seen a Green Ibis earlier on the trip, this pair at La Angostura Florencia gave us our first close, leisurely looks. Unlike other ibises, the Green Ibis prefers swampy or flooded forests to wide-open wetlands.

We kept driving slowly, rounding a corner and flushing a bird up from the road. “Sunbittern!” my dad yelled as it escaped into the trees. We got out again in an attempt to relocate it, but couldn’t get eyes on it again. Fortunately, there were tons of other birds around, calling, singing and foraging in the trees above and around us. We slowly made our way down the road, identifying warblers and other neotropical migrants above our heads as a variety of species gave us great, eye-level views. The dawn chorus consisted mostly of flycatchers, but we did hear a Thicket Antpitta singing from the shrubby, overgrown edge of the road!

As the wetlands came into view, we again got out and walked towards them, sidestepping a massive mud puddle in front of us. Two Green Ibises croaked from a Cecropia tree a dozen meters away, and we stopped to watch a Gray-headed Kite, our second of the trip, hunting and soaring over us. The heads of waders and waterfowl kept popping up from the grassy marsh in front of us, and we identified them one at a time.

**We got wonderful views of this Gray-headed Kite both perched and in flight—one of our best raptor experiences of the trip.**

“Snowy Egret!”

“Black-bellied Whistling-Duck!”

“Purple Gallinule!”

“Ooh, that one’s a Limpkin!”

While many of the wetland birds were the same as the birds we’d seen at Caño Negro, seeing them in a new location felt satisfying. Costa Rica isn’t known for its extensive wetlands, but the presence of these birds at La Angostura Florencia meant that at least several populations of these species could be found in abundance in the country. We spotted some fun songbirds in the shrubs on the border of the wetland, too. Both Olive-crowned and Gray-crowned Yellowthroats sang from the grass, and a Slaty Spinetail rattled off from a bush near the road.

Near the center of the wetland, the grass gave way to a large river. On a sandbar in the river stood a Wood Stork alongside a couple of egrets, and a Muscovy Duck floated by with a horde of babies in tow. From one overlook, my dad and I got both Ringed and Amazon Kingfishers while White-throated Crakes sounded off in the tall grass.

As we reached the end of the road, a flash of movement and tail feathers caught our eye. A small, gray raptor had launched out of trees, just missing what we assumed to be a Squirrel Cuckoo as it dove for the cover of the grass. The raptor landed on a low bough in front of us, and as I raised my binoculars, I realized that it was not the Gray Hawk I’d assumed it to be. No, this was an accipiter, slate gray, with a dark cap, yellow eyes and rufous legs.

“That’s a Bicolored Hawk!” I yelled, probably too loudly, though the bird seemed unperturbed.

**One of our best raptors of the trip, Bicolored Hawk was a bird I had longed to see since first coming to Costa Rica two years earlier.**

Literally two days ago, after seeing a Black Hawk-Eagle, I had been texting my friend Drew about the raptors I had yet to see in Costa Rica. Raptors are some of the coolest, and most difficult, birds in the neotropics. They’re hard to target and show up seemingly at random. Over the months I’ve spent birding in Central America, I’d slowly accumulated most of the uncommon raptors in the region—White Hawk, Ornate and Black Hawk-Eagle, Barred Hawk, various kites and falcons. But the few that I’d never seen before are not only elusive but quite rare, and the two I wanted most were some of the rarest: Bicolored and Tiny Hawks. Both of these species are widespread across Latin America but very infrequently reported, and while I’d been looking for spots to search for both (especially Bicolored) as my dad and I had journeyed across the country, I’d just had to admit to myself that nowhere were these species reliable. By this last day of the trip, in fact, I’d given up on seeing them.

**“You lookin’ at me? I’m lookin’ at you, Braden!”**

But suddenly, there was an adult Bicolored, taking in the sunlight, fifty feet away. My brain went into shock as my dad and I stared at it and snapped pictures. It felt like seeing a ghost. After about five minutes, the ghost flew away, leaving its vivid image seared into my memory forever.

My dad and I high-fived, then turned around, not quite believing our luck. And our luck continued.

On the way back down the road, we ran into a trio of birders—two from Great Britain and their guide—who had just spotted a Great Potoo a couple hundred meters away. They wanted to scope the wetlands for Snail Kites first, but said they would walk back to show us where the potoo was afterwards. We forged on ahead, hoping to find the roosting nocturnal bird by ourselves. As we passed a gap in the trees, I spotted exactly what the other birders had been looking for—a single Snail Kite soaring over the marsh. This location was known for the species, and it was only my second sighting of one ever, after the ones I’d gotten to see with Nick in Florida in 2022. (See THIS POST.)

**As much as we’d been looking forward to seeing one, we had to admit that our first ever “potoo lump” er, huh, lacked in excitement.**

We kept walking, my dad taking the lead, when a small, yellow and white flash caught my eye. I snapped my fingers, alerting my dad to walk back towards me. There, in the shade on the side of the road, perched a White-collared Manakin. My dad had been trying to get good looks at manakins during the whole trip, but they had been incredibly uncooperative. I’d spotted a White-ruffed while he was in the restaurant at Arenal, and we’d spent hours trying to get good looks at Long-tailed a few days before. And now, here was my favorite of the bunch, a spectacular male White-collared, sitting and posing right in front of us. Between the manakin, the Bicolored Hawk and the antshrike this morning, it felt as if the trip had come completely full circle.

**This great look at a White-collared Manakin finally ended a string of frustrating close calls my dad had experienced trying to get a good look at one.**

To make things even better, the British birders returned and showed us where the Great Potoo was! It was a little underwhelming, given that the bird was far away and completely still, but a lifer’s a lifer! We finished the morning with around 95 species, far exceeding my expectations for the wetland and wrapping up our phenomenal Costa Rica expedition.

Link to our Costa Rica eBird Trip Report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/482094

If you enjoyed this post, here are links to the previous Costa Rica posts in this Series:

Birding Costa Rica—Beginning at the Airport

Arenal for Antbirds

Caño Negro: Costa Rica’s Epic Wetland

**A final selfie on what turned out to be one our best birding outings of the trip.**

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

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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.

Anahuac Lifer Attack (Texas 2025 Part 2)

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After my morning exploring Peveto Woods (see last post), I had intended to visit another favorite coastal Texas location, Sabine Woods (see “Going Cuckoo for Fall Warblers in Texas”). Alas, my long previous travel day caught up with me so I decided to grab a siesta back at my hotel in Winnie. Besides, it didn’t look like the warblers and other migrants were showing up in large numbers, and I reasoned that I wasn’t likely to see much more at Sabine Woods than I’d seen at Peveto that morning. Instead, that afternoon I decided to visit another Texas favorite of Braden’s and mine: Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.

**Braden during our first visit to Anahuac NWR in 2016.**

The refuge lies about halfway between Winnie and High Island, and Braden and I had many fond memories of it. During our Big Year in 2016, we’d seen our first Scissor-tailed Flycatcher here, along with our first Common Yellowthroat. I especially liked driving a route called the Shoveler Pond Loop. This afternoon, I didn’t expect any major surprises, but it was a pleasant way to watch Roseate Spoonbills, Common Gallinules, and a variety of other water birds. As I approached the refuge entrance, however, I got my first major surprise: the refuge had a new name! Only in the past few weeks, Anahuac had been renamed the Jocelyn Nungaray NWR. I later looked up how the name change had come about. I like to keep this blog politics-free, but I will just say that the new name resulted from both a tragic story and crass political shenanigans that apparently caught everyone off-guard. Feel free to look it up yourself and draw your own conclusions.

The good news? Shoveler Pond Loop looked better than I’d ever seen it! The loop consists of a 2.5-mile road that circumnavigates a 300-acre wetlands, and the last time I’d visited, in 2021, the latter seemed clogged with vegetation. Not so today. A large area at the loop’s beginning had been cleared out to create wonderful habitat for wading and dabbling birds and as I proceeded, I noticed many other revived sections as well. In preparation to write this post, I called the refuge to make sure that I wasn’t imagining things, and Park Ranger Chris Campbell confirmed that a couple of years ago, they had drained the wetlands and taken steps to remove large areas of cane grass.

**Shoveler Pond Loop is definitely one of my Top 5 “car birding” routes in the United States.**

The results looked terrific. As I began making my way around the loop, I immediately noticed large numbers of Black-necked Stilts and dowitchers—probably Long-billed, according to Campbell. Both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs made a good show of it, too, and it wasn’t long before I began obsessing over some smaller shorbs. I eventually IDed two of these as Dunlins, and was especially pleased to find a Least Sandpiper as well. Alligators also seemed to relish the new-and-improved loop, and I watched with amusement as Black-necked Stilts nonchalantly probed the shallows only a few feet from the six- or eight-foot crocodilians.

**Uh, Mr. Black-necked Stilt, have you looked over your shoulder lately?**

I soon found a great collection of waders including Roseate Spoonbills, Tricolored Herons, Snowy Egrets, and both White and White-faced Ibises. It was when I turned the first corner, however, that the real excitement began.

**“Uh, just where do you think you’re landing, Mr. Tricolored Heron? Us Neotropic Cormorants and the herps over there were here first.”**

First up? A kind of duck neither Braden nor I had ever seen before: Fulvous Whistling Ducks! “Wow! Lifer!” I exclaimed out loud. For some reason, it never occurred to me that I would see these ducks, but there they were—sitting only fifty feet from their compadres, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks! And the hits were just getting started.

My first lifer of the day, Fulvous Whistling Ducks.

As I rounded the second corner, a narrow canal paralleled the road to my left, and suddenly, a medium-sized, reddish-brown bird flew out from beneath the road to some reeds across the canal. Astonishingly, it was another lifer, one that I recognized immediately: a Least Bittern! One of the smallest members of the heron family, Least Bitterns apparently are not all that rare. Ranger Campbell told me that they are very common year-round at the refuge, but the thing is, they are incredibly shy. I will just tell you that I never really expected to see one, and yet here one was! Not only that, it struck a pleasing pose while I kept my camera shutter clicking.

**Seeing my lifer Least Bittern not only justified the entire trip, it captured Bird of the Trip honors!**

I had barely started again when I noticed a couple of terns flying around. Generally while I am birding, I ignore terns and gulls until I’ve identified everything else. As one of the terns zoomed by my car, however, I noticed that it had an oddly blunt thick black bill. “No way,” I said, rushing to take some ID photos. My hunch was correct. These were Gull-billed Terns—lifer Gull-billed Terns!

**Terns favor the prepared mind. If I hadn’t been birding for more than a decade, the black bill on this guy may never have caught my attention.**

Really, I could hardly believe it. I arrived at Anahuac expecting to see birds that I had seen many times before. Now, within the space of ten minutes, I added three new species to my life list! It seemed so preposterous that I laughed out loud. What’s more, this was still only my first day of birding on my Texas trip. One thing was for sure: I never would have had such success if it weren’t for the hard-working government employees we all depend on. It just shows the wisdom of investing in protecting our natural resources for the common good.

Birding Ohau: A Hawai’i Report from Roger Kohn

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Following Memorial Day, it is fitting that FSB presents a wonderful guest birding post about Hawai’i by Roger Kohn. For many Americans, World War II began in Hawai’i and left few families untouched by the experience. Roger’s dad served in the Navy during the war, and both of my grandfathers (Braden’s great-grandfathers) served in the Pacific. Meanwhile at home, my grandmother and great aunt worked in the huge Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine plant in Kansas City. As we honor all who served, I can’t help wonder how astonished our veterans would be to see peacetime Hawai’i today—a peace won by their commitment, intelligence, and sacrifice.

“I’m just going out there to hang out with my brothers, sip a few local beers, and eat good seafood”, I told Sneed in a February phone call. “Of course I’ll bird some, but it’s not really a birding trip.” I had made plans for what I called The Brother Summit. My California brother and I would go to Honolulu in April and visit our other brother, a Hawai’i resident. “Every trip is a birding trip,” Sneed quipped. I immediately knew he was right.

**Our Special Hawai’i Correspondent, Roger Kohn, celebrates a big birding score at a viewpoint on the descent from the Koʻolau mountains.**

Although I wanted to see as many birds as possible, I faced some built-in barriers. My brothers are not birders and I would not have a car, so I would have to find creative ways to get to some good birding hotspots. One way was to book a tour with a bird guide. I knew this was my only chance to see two Oahu endemic species (found nowhere else in the world, including other Hawaiian Islands): the Oahu Amakihi and the Oahu Elepaio.

On the first morning of the trip, my guide and I ascended the Koʻolau mountains that tower above Honolulu. Our first stop? A roadside spot for seeing the Oahu Amakihi, a bright yellow honeycreeper and our first Oahu endemic target. As we searched for the Amakihi, we picked up two dove species (Spotted and Zebra, both very common), Red-vented Bulbuls, the omnipresent Red-crested Cardinals and Rose-ringed Parakeets (an invasive species considered a pest in Hawaii due to its impacts on agriculture, but I must confess, fun to see). I also saw my first Warbling White-eye of the trip, a Lifer for me. (For some fun perspective on this and other widely-introduced species, also Sneed’s Japan posts such as “Birding Japan: Tokyo, Part I” and Braden’s and Sneed’s post, “Layover Birding in Amsterdam.”)

**I saw this Warbling White-eye near the pool at my brother’s condo tower.**

After a while, the guide spotted our target bird feeding in a ginger plant at the edge of the road, and we enjoyed good looks. The Oahu Amikihi is a beautiful bird, and the first honeycreeper species I’ve ever seen. The species is designated “near threatened” in eBird, so I felt very fortunate to see it. With this success under our belts, we headed down from the mountains, pausing at a viewpoint to take in epic views of Honolulu, with its skyscrapers and Diamond Head (the volcanic feature that looms over the city), backed by the deep blue waters of the Pacific.

**I loved seeing an Oahu Amakihi, a honeycreeper found on Oahu and nowhere else.**

Our second stop was a forest trail with the goal of locating the Oahu Elepaio. This proved difficult, and at one point we had been trying for at least an hour and half without success. Finally, as we made our way back to the trailhead, the guide spotted two or three individuals in bushes near the trail! We did not have good looks at the birds, which moved rapidly and offered us only brief, very filtered views as they flitted among the bushes. This flycatcher species is not much to look at, brown on top and white-ish underneath. But this Oahu endemic is listed as “vulnerable” in eBird, and once again I was grateful for the chance to see a rare Hawai’ian species.

**A gorgeous Red-billed Leiothrix allowed me a few good looks in the Makiki Forest Recreation Area.** Even though introduced species such as this have had direct and indirect impacts on native Hawai’ian animals and ecosystems, they do offer an unusual opportunity to observe and learn birds from other parts of the world.

The next day, I got my first good looks at a Pacific Golden Plover on somebody’s front lawn. In breeding plumage, this plover species is quite striking, with a black belly and face, a thick, clean white stripe down the side of the neck, and brown, white, and shiny gold patches on the back. I would subsequently see this species all over town in any available stretch of green space, from small lawns to big city parks. Their migration to Alaska loomed, so my April visit proved ideal.

**Resplendent Pacific Golden Plovers were a common sight in any available green space in Honolulu as they prepared to migrate to Alaska.**

Fast-forward a couple of days, and I was thrilled to get a chance to score some seabird Lifers. I had a big gap in my life list, with no shearwater, tropicbird, noddy, or booby species. However, during my pre-trip study, I came across a hotspot where many of these species could potentially be seen: the Japanese Fishing Shrine, on the southeastern coast of Oahu. This hotspot is literally just a shrine on a hunk of lava rock that juts out into the sea. There is nowhere to walk, so whatever birds I would see would have to come to me. One species that I particularly wanted to find was the Red-tailed Tropicbird, an elegant white seabird with a red bill and long red tail streamers. Not long after I arrived, I got my target, as four or five Red-tailed Tropicbirds traced large circles in the sky. At first, they were pretty far away, but as time went on their flight paths kept coming closer and closer to me and I was able to see them up close and capture great photos. A Lifer, and a spectacular one at that! In between tropicbird sightings, I scanned for other species and managed to pick up a pair of Sooty Terns, another Lifer, flying low over the ocean in the distance. Rendezvousing with my brothers, we headed to Kona Brewing, where they helped me celebrate my seabird treasure with a couple of rounds of delicious seasonal beers at the bar, with sea breezes whooshing around us in a pretty marina setting.

**An elegant Red-tailed Tropicbird patrols the southeastern coast of Oahu.**

One area that piqued my interest was the wetlands near Kailua, on the southeastern coast. After a pretty, 25-minute drive on the Pali highway and a superb lunch of a grilled mahi mahi sandwich and guilt-free fries (highly recommended!), my brothers dropped me off at Kaha Park. This is the starting point for exploring the Kawainui Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary, a delightful spot graced with abundant water and velvety green mountain views. Right away, I was rewarded with up-close views of Common Gallinules, including a super cute youngster that would melt the heart of even the most jaded observer.

**A Common Gallinule chick at the Kawainui Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary. Whoose da cutest bird in the marsh?!**

As I continued walking, I got good looks at both bulbul species (Red-whiskered and Red-vented), Common Waxbills, and Northern Cardinals. In the grasses, I saw another Lifer: a Scaly-breasted Munia, a songbird with rich chestnut hues above and an attractive and well-defined scaly pattern on the belly. Another introduced species (native to India and southeast Asia), this was another Lifer for me.

**A handsome Scaly-breasted Munia in the grasses on my wetlands exploration.**

As I returned to the trailhead, someone pointed out a Black-crowned Night Heron, which I had missed as it stood as still as a statue in the water a mere 50 feet away from me. While I waited to be picked up, I scored yet another Lifer, Java Sparrows (which are actually finches, so I wonder what genius named them Sparrows?), which were foraging in a grassy field nearby. In an hour and a half, I had picked up three Lifers, which I celebrated with my brothers at Lanikai Brewing. The parking lot for the brewery faces a pretty stretch of Hamakua Marsh, where I was delighted to pick up another Lifer, Hawaiian Coot, and see Black-necked Stilts for the only time on the trip. Bonus brewery birding, woohoo!

**Finding Black-necked Stilts in Hamakua Marsh right behind Lanikai Brewing was a serendipitous event.**

Another trip highlight was finding a small flock of Yellow-fronted Canaries, a boldly patterned bright yellow finch native to Africa, in a waterfront park. I had assumed I’d have to head up into the mountains or to some specific hotspot to find this species. Yet here they were, busily calling and feeding in a park amidst the hubbub of Waikiki. I also got brief but spectacular views of a Red-billed Leiothrix in all its multicolored glory, which I had barely seen on the guided tour, in the Makiki Forest Recreation Area. Bird of the Trip honors is a tough call, but I’d say it’s a toss-up between this species and the Red-tailed Tropicbird.

**A Yellow-fronted Canary poses for me at Fort Derussy park in Waikiki.**

As of mid-May, according to eBird, 108 species have been reported in Honolulu County (encompassing the entire island of Oahu) so far this year. In a nine-day trip in which birding was only one of several priorities, I managed to see 31 species. Seventeen of those were Lifers, which far exceeded my expectations. With determination and a little help from my brothers, I had an excellent birding trip to Honolulu. Indeed, in the words of a wise blogger I know, every trip is a birding trip.

Our Bend, Oregon-based correspondent, Roger Kohn traces his birding obsession to a November 2016 Sneed visit to the Bay Area and considers Sneed his birding mentor. Though grateful for that, he sure wishes Sneed would increase his consumption and appreciation of craft beer. (Editor’s Note: I’m not sure what Roger is complaining about. I have been known to drink up to two beers a month!)

For more on birding Hawai’i, see Braden’s post “Hawai’i: The International Jungle.”

All photos copyright Roger Kohn.

Birding Barcelona, Part 2: In Search of the Greater Flamingo

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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!

When birding big cities I’ve discovered that it often requires a bit of extra effort to reach even a highly modified natural area. That proved true last year when my daughter and I visited Japan (see “Birding Japan: Kanazawa”), and it once again proved to be the case when my wife and I recently visited Barcelona. After birding city parks and tourist sites all week, I had barely breached 30 bird species total—far short of my goal of 50 or 60 species (see “Birding Barcelona, Part 1: The Urban Core”). I had a plan to help rectify the situation—but it was going to take that extra bit of effort to realize it.

On the last full day of our trip, I rose early, wolfed down some yoghurt, and hailed a cab in front of our hotel. In my mediocre Spanish, I explained to Isabella, my driver, where I wanted to go and even showed her the place on Google Maps. She knew about the area and had even been there, so we set out toward the airport in a light drizzle.

When visiting Barcelona, the best chance for a birder to enjoy some natural habitat—and an abundance of birds—is to take a taxi out to the Espais Naturals del Delta del Llobregat near the Barcelona Airport.

My destination was the “Espais Naturals del Delta del Llobregat,” which I’ll just call “Llobregat” for simplicity. Llobregat was a wetland divided into two parts, one on either side of the Barcelona airport, and the reason it existed at all was no doubt due to the fact that you can’t build huge buildings where giant aircraft can run into them. I thank the travel gods for that because these wetlands were the only orange-colored (high species count) hotspots anywhere near the city of Barcelona.

I asked Isabella to drop me off at the area on the far (western) side of the airport, and twenty minutes later found myself standing utterly alone on a road that appeared to lead into the natural area. Turns out, Isabella could have driven me another mile closer to the main action, but that error turned out to be a good thing. As I walked down the road, I began hearing all kinds of bird vocalizations and soon Merlin’s Sound ID picked up a new lifer for me, Cetti’s Warbler, calling from the thick reeds on both sides of the road. Sound ID also picked up Green Sandpiper, which got me really excited because shorebirds were at the top of my list to see on this, my sole real birding outing, of the trip. As I walked, I also saw what would be my only raptors of the trip—three Western Marsh-Harriers—and some high-flying swallow-type birds that turned out to be Eurasian Crag-Martins. I got occasional glimpses at a canal to my left, but saw only Mallards, a pair of Gadwalls, and a Gray Heron in it.

Half an hour later, I arrived at Llobregat’s official entrance and was relieved to see a series of established trails that led to various bird blinds around the reserve. As I followed the first trail, Common Chiffchaffs, Black Redstarts, European Robins, European Serins, and White Wagtails hopped and fluttered around me, but my excitement didn’t spike until I entered the first birding blind.

**I had worried that I might miss Greater Flamingos in Spain, but a couple of dozen greeted me at Llobregat. Note how pale they are. Evidently, they are not getting enough crustaceans in their diets!**

It took me about five seconds to locate the birds I most wanted to see—Greater Flamingos. But they just formed the tasty appetizer to the huge variety of waterfowl before me. This included many familiar ducks familiar from back home: Northern Shovelers, Gadwalls, Mallards, and the Eurasian variety of Green-winged Teal (which may eventually get split into a new species).

I just love the unique looks of Eurasia’s Green-winged Teals, which have a distinctively different appearance than our North American versions. I hope the taxonomic splitters pounce on them and declare them a distinct species.

The ducks that really got me going, though, were new for my life list: Common Shelducks and a pair of Red-crested Pochards that was doing its best to avoid eye contact on a distant island! I had hoped to see both of these, but had tempered my expectations. No worries—there they were, and in company of a lone Eurasian Wigeon.

Ka-ching! **Life Bird #1007!** **Common Shelduck in the company of a pretty fetching Mallard!**

As I sat enjoying the duck show, I also noted Eurasian Coots and Moorhens, along with a delightful pair of Little Grebes, all of which I had seen in Japan almost a year earlier. As I scanned the pond, I also saw something quickly dive into the reeds at the edge of the pond. I strongly suspect that this was a Water Rail, but reacted just a moment too slow to get my binoculars on it.

If you look at this photo carefully, you will see a number of charismatic Spanish species: Graylag Goose, Eurasian Wigeon, and my lifer Red-crested Pochards. The latter two are reported infrequently this time of year.

After about thirty minutes, I continued onto another viewing area. On the way, I passed a plywood wall with a few viewing windows cut into it and happened to take a quick peek. A largish purplish bird stuck out and my first thought was “Eurasian Moorhen.” Then, I did a double-take. “Hold on. Moorhens aren’t that blue—nor do they have bright red bills and legs!” The bird before me was one I had been studying on eBird quizzes, but darned if I could remember the name of it. Scrolling through eBird, I quickly found it: Western Swamphen! Even better, it had two adorable fuzzy black chicks with it!

I had not expected to see such a bird in my wildest dreams and it didn’t stay visible for long—just long enough for me to take a couple of modest photos—before disappearing into the reeds. And that, apparently, is typical for this bird, a species that rarely makes an appearance even where it might be fairly common. It immediately leaped to the top of my Trip Bird list, where it would remain for the rest of our vacation and beyond.

**Earning Bird of the Trip honors, this rare sighting of a Western Swamphen put a lasting grin on my face. That black “shadow” to its left is actually one of two chicks accompanying it.**

After more bird blind fun, I walked out to the beach in the hopes of seeing shorebirds. No dice. In fact, I didn’t see a single shorebird my entire morning, one of the trip’s big disappointments. I asked the interpreter about it and he confirmed that there hadn’t been many shorebirds around the entire year. Alas, I later discovered that the other section of the wetlands, on the east side of the airport, had been getting some. Nonetheless, I sat down on a jetty, breathed in the salt air of the Mediterranean, and enjoyed some bread and cheese while watching the giant jets taking off to almost every continent in the world. Then, I began making my way back down the long access road, happy with the day despite the shorebird miss.

My morning at Llobregat nabbed me 33 species—as many as I’d seen in the previous five days in Barcelona. It pushed my world life list to 1011 species. It also pushed my trip list to 49 species—one short of my goal of 50 species. “Shoot,” I thought, riding a taxi back downtown. “Where can I go near our hotel to pick up one more species?” I hadn’t a clue, and quietly resigned myself to this epic failure that would mar my reputation and confidence the rest of my life and cast shame upon my friends and family.

**More Flamingo fun. These birds sat atop my list of birds I wanted to see in Barcelona and at Llobregat, they did not disappoint.**

That evening, Amy—who had spent the day shopping and visiting the Picasso Museum—and I decided to take a walk before our last Barcelona supper. She hadn’t yet visited Parc de la Ciutadella (see my previous post “Birding Barcelona, Part 1: The Urban Core”), so we strolled over there. We reached the pond where they rented rowboats and decided to go for it. I handed over six Euros and we climbed in, joining a huge assortment of merry locals and tourists. Black-headed and Yellow-legged Gulls, Graylag Geese, Gray Herons, and Mallards surrounded us. Monk and Rose-ringed Parakeets squawked overhead. I smiled. This was a perfect way to wrap up the trip.

Then, I spotted a small bird sally out from the edge of the pond and return to land on a rock. From similar sightings in Taiwan, Israel, and Japan, I knew immediately what it was. “Gray Wagtail!” I exclaimed! Just as in Japan, it was the only GRWA I had seen, and it pushed my trip list to 50 species.

I swear, you can’t make this guano up.