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Habitats and Birding Locations Below are a few of the more frequently birded areas in Costa Rica. It is not an extensive list, but all the places mentioned here are the typical birding locations for most birders and all can be accessed by car. Northern Foothills and Mountains - Arenal Volcano, Monteverde, Guanacaste NP, Heliconias Lodge, and Rincon De Viejo NP. Most of these can be long day trips from Liberia and San Jose. Arenal Volcano and Monteverde are very long and difficult day trips, yet bus tours do them every week even from several northwest beach hotels and from the central valley. These mountains usually have a very high diversity of bird species from bottom to top. Each ecological zone contains some unique birds habitat-specific to the vegetation growing there. On a good relief map, these mountains make up part of the Tilaran and Guancaste ranges. Map
Central High Mountain Habitat -The highest areas of Cerro de la Muerte, Tapanti, and Poas Volcano. The bird species at these highest points, like Volcano Junco, Volcano Hummingbird, Fiery-throated hummingbird, Slaty Flower-piercer, and others, occupy some of the highest ecological zones in Costa Rica. You won't find them in the foothills on either side. I have visited Cerro de la Muerte and Tapanti by using a shuttle service for Cerro de la Muerte and guided field trip in the case of Tapanti. I would not tackle these without a driver since they require a drive through San Jose. Costa Rica Gateways can set you up with both driver and guide should you find yourself in or around San Jose. The Poas Volcano and Poas Volcano Lodge can be accessed without going through San Jose proper. The Poas Volcano Lodge was structurally damaged due to a 2009 earthquake but has re-opened. Map Caribbean Foothills - Braulio Carrillo, Rancho Naturalista, Cinchona, and Virgen del Soccoro. The Caribbean foothills have several elevational zones with sometimes distinct avifauna. Braulio Carrillo has a mid-level wet forest that sits at about a 500 meter elevation and Rancho Naturalista sits at about 900 meters. Cinchona was a very small town with two restaurants that had outdoor hummingbird feeders just up from La Selva at over 1100 meters. This little community was the epicenter of a severe earthquake in early 2009. I have have heard that these restaurants were flattened and no longer exist. The earthquake apparently sealed off access to Virgen del Soccoro as well. Luckily, the La Paz Waterfall Gardens (good for hummers) just above Cinchona has re-opened. Map Lowland Tropical Habitats - East and West - Cano Negro, La Selva, Manuel Antonio NP, Carara NP, Hacienda Baru, and Oro Verde Private Refuge. These parks and reserves represent what most of us imagine about tropical birding - hot, steamy, rainforest environments. These areas are bird-rich, but it can sometimes prove to be difficult birding in dark, closed-canopy environments. Manuel Antonio NP is a big park but has a sprawling human community. There's only the one trail within in the park that has undisturbed habitat. All other locations mentioned here have trails or lagoons set up for viewing a wide selection of bird life. Map1 - Map2 Dry, Tropical Woodlands in Guanacaste - Palo Verde OTS, Santa Rosa National Park, Lomas Barbudal Biological Reserve. All of these areas are situated in the northwest part of Costa Rica. Birds like the Double-striped Thick-knee, Turquoise-browed Motmot, White-throated Magpie-Jay, and several others can be found in this dryer, northwest habitat, but will not likely be found in other areas of Costa Rica. The northwestern part of Costa Rica is drier habitat due to the low rainfall and the unabated trade winds. Outside of northwest Costa Rica, the rainfall amounts are more homogenous everywhere. The rainfall and habitat of south-central and southwest Costa Rica on the Pacific side is more like eastern Costa Rica as one gets south of the Guanacaste region. For instance, Carara National Park, on the central west coast, is just south of Guanacaste and no longer in dry forest habitat. Hence, several birds found there can also be found on the eastern side of Costa Rica at the appropriate elevation. Map
The first three chapters of the Skutch and Stiles Field Guide offer the best treatment of the Costa Rica climate and it's effect on the avifauna. I don't do it justice here except by over-simplifying it. Dry Woodland Habitat of Guanacaste: Northwest Costa Rica Lomas Barbudal Biological Reserve -(last visited 2005) Essentially, this refuge has similar habitat to that at Palo Verde and is almost geographically adjacent to it. However, there's a very nice trail near the headquarters that hugs a creek and has some large trees and a running stream - making it a bit different than the marshy lagoon areas of Palo Verde. It's best to have a SUV-type vehicle to get there (as well as Palo Verde if you do that refuge). At Lomas Barbudal, we saw Double-striped Thick-knee in the pastures, Lesser Greenlet, and Olivaceous Woodcreeper which we did not see at Palo Verde or Santa Rosa. Most birds at Lomas Barbudal, however, are birds you might see at Santa Rosa or Palo Verde - which are larger parks.
Palo Verde National Park (last visited: 2006) is the most widely visited park in Guanacaste. Palo Verde is the best place in Costa Rica to see Jabiru. Although this is generally no problem in the dry season, I'm not sure it should be expected in the summer wet season (birds disperse all over Guanacaste and into Puntarenas at that season). If you choose to check Palo Verde in summer, don't spend all your time looking for Jabiru in the lagoons and marshes where I suspect they are more regularly seen in winter. Check the bigger trees periodically. I've seen a single Jabiru high in a tree on our only summer visit to Palo Verde. A winter visit many years earlier, on the other hand, produced 6-7 birds. I considered my summer sighting of Jabiru at Palo Verde a lucky sighting. Palo Verde has both good dry woodland trails and a large lagoon. Because of the lagoon, mosquitoes can be a problem here. Bring your repellent. There are lots of good birds at Palo Verde. Besides Jabiru, Palo Verde is one of the best places for Limpkin, Crested Bobwhite, Snail Kite, and much of Costa Rica's waterfowl populations in winter. Along with Carara National Park, I consider it one of the better birding locations in western Costa Rica. Santa Rosa National Park - (last visited 2002) is mostly a dry woodland habitat with nice gallery forest areas - some evergreen. The park is a large park north of Liberia. One particular trail that follows an old impassable dirt road not far the entrance is especially good. Long-tailed Manakin, Barred Antshrike, Western Slaty Antshrike, and several Rufous-capped Warblers were seen along this trail. A variety of good deciduous forest birds can be found here. We also found Nutting's Flycatcher, specific to Guanacaste only and a troubling identification problem, within this park at another location. Some of the largest iguana lizards in Costa Rica are also found here. Far North Mountain Habitats: 1-2 hours from the NW coast, 4 hours from San Jose If you're staying somewhere in Guanacaste, your best chance at bird diversity is visiting the mountains along the cordillera east of the Pan American Highway. One of the easiest ways to see birds of the Caribbean slope from Guanacaste is to simply drive the road to Upala (highway 6) - (last visited: 2010) the only paved road cutting through the cordilleran valley in the north between the mountains running through Bijagua into the Alajuela Province. For a good stop on this road (if you have an SUV), I recommend a side trip to Carolina Lodge or the Heliconias Lodge both just off the road to Upala\Bijagua and just past the town of Bijagua. Both of these lodges border the Tenorio Volcano and have a wide variety of birdlife. The Carolina Lodge is rustic and low maintenance but this is clearly by design rather than any sort of neglect. Everything about the grounds seemed well-maintained. I can't recommend the sleeping arrangements since I haven't stayed there, but I can recommend the habitat. I do intend to stay there on a least one trip - it looked very birdy on our short trip around the grounds. It's owned by an American and they seem to welcome drive-in guests.
The Heliconias Lodge (visited 2010) is a lodge with interesting span bridges for birding. Both the bridge and lodge trails can be accessed with a fee for walk-in birders. A Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo was photographed there in February of 2009, and Tody Motmots are seen there regularly. The lodge habitat is specific to forest birding and can be difficult birding at times. Many species are vocal but not easily seen unless one finds an ant swarm. A playback mechanism with Costa Rica bird songs is more useful in this kind of habitat. However, when you see bird species in this environment, they are usually special birds not easily found by the casual observer in Costa Rica. The road to Heliconias Lodge (to Upala\Bijuagua) has some interesting birds if you're located in Guanacaste. Geographically, the road to Upala\Bijagua does not appear to get you much closer to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, but it will put you on the eastern side of the mountains in a biotic zone entirely different than Guanacaste. Most of the birds from Bijagua to Upala are birds of the Caribbean slope foothills even though you are much closer to the Pacific Ocean than the Caribbean. Although the Bijagua-Upala road is paved (sometimes good and sometimes horrible), there are no shoulders on the road. One must be very careful about pulling over. The turn-off dirt road that goes up to the Carolina Lodge and Rio Celeste Lodge (found a few kilometers past the town of Bijuagua and well-marked with signs) can be a fairly birdy road all the way up to either one of the lodges. On the road to the lodge, I saw Violaceous Trogon, Gray-headed Chachalaca, Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, Baltimore Oriole, Golden-hooded Tanager, Red-legged Honeycreeper, White-collared Seedeater and a few other birds not usually seen around Guanacaste. After making a quick stop at the Carolina Lodge we had Plain Xenops, Band-backed Wren, Boat-billed Flycatcher and a variety of other birds. At the entrance to another lodge trail, a Buff-rumped Warbler was chipping excitedly. We spent less than an hour there and only a couple of hours on the 10 kilometer drive up the dirt road birding from the car. Check with someone if you arrive at one of the lodges unannounced so they know you're poking around. From the lodge property, it is a short drive to the Tenorio Volcano National Park - a park still unexplored by my wife and I.
Guanacaste National Park (last visited: 2000) is opposite and just a few miles from the Santa Rosa NP on the Pan American Highway, but it will also take you into Caribbean slope birding if you're willing to try unpaved roads. In fact, one should not mistake Guanacaste National Park as having Guanacaste-type avifauna. Guanacaste National Park is mid-elevation birding more reminiscent of the birdlife found closer to the Caribbean. During our first year in Costa Rica, we hired a guide in Liberia who drove us on the back (east) side of Guanacaste NP. This was very productive, and it was one of our longest days birding in the field. There are no places to eat on those back roads, so take supplies. Birds included Collared Aracari, Laughing Falcon, White-collared Manakin, Piratic Flycatcher, Gray-capped Flycatcher, all three saltators, Passerini's Tanager, Black-faced Grosbeak, Black-cowled Oriole and a wide variety of others. There are other wetter high-elevation habitats close enough for a very long day trip or a quick overnight if you're staying somewhere in Guanacaste. Guanacaste NP which I've just mentioned, and Rincon De Vieja NP and even Arenal are in the mountains and can all be done with a long day trip.
North-central Habitats: About 4 hours from the NW coast, 2-3 hours from San Jose Arenal Volcano is also a nice foothill birding experience and most good Guanacaste and Central Valley hotels offer trips to Arenal Volcano if you don't want to drive. Several older maps show a large section of unpaved road on the north side of Arenal, but as of 2007, we found it to be entirely paved. On our drive around Arenal, we stopped on a bridge and watched a Fasciated Tiger-Heron fish for breakfast. Many of the birding tour companies find Arenal the best place to look for species like the Keel-billed Motmot. There is also a "Hanging Bridges" span bridge near Arenal ( a short drive) that most birders can enjoy. Hanging Bridges is one of the few places to look for White-fronted Nunbird in Costa Rica and is usually a good place for Broad-billed Motmot. There are several lodges around Arenal from which to choose.
Many birding groups prefer the Arenal Observatory Lodge (last visited 2010). This particular lodge has trails that can occasionally produce some hard-to-see antbirds. One good army ant swarm on the El Zaino Trail produced Ocellated, Bicolored, and Spotted antbirds, as well as a Buff-rumped Warbler and a Thicket Antpitta. The Waterfall Trail produced Streak-crowned Antvireo, Slaty Antwren, Song Wren, Bright-rumped Attila, Slaty-capped Flycatcher and a variety of others. The Arenal trails are deep forest birding, and one's experiences here might be better served with a bird guide through Costa Rica Gateways or some known birding guide from the area. Sometimes birds like Keel-billed Motmots are not easily observed, but guides usually know where the birds are being seen. The Arenal Observatory Lodge is the closest lodge to the volcano. You can actually hear rocks tumbling down the side of the volcano at this location. The last major eruption, however, was 1967. Here is a video of Arenal Volcano and Hanging Bridges area. Monteverde (last visited: 2003) is possible in a day from the western coast (about 4 hours) and is equally approachable from San Jose about the same distance. However, it is much better to have at least two-three days of time allotted for the area. It's a popular destination and there are many places to stay (see web site), several trails, and a suspension bridge where one can bird. Perhaps more importantly, there is an excellent hummingbird gallery with feeders that shouldn't be missed. There are several different roads that lead to Monteverde from the Pan American Highway, but the best road will be the road from Lagartos. That's the road all the buses take and is perhaps the best maintained (a subjective term in this case). On my second trip to Monteverde, I stayed at Hotel Montana - a mid-priced hotel. There are many to choose from. Check out the Monteverde web site for more information on accommodations. The average temperature at Monteverde is about 65-70 degrees, usually cloudy and a bit breezy (less windy in July), and sometimes rainy. Nevertheless, it remains one of Costa Rica's better birding locations. The Monteverde cloud forests have several birds that might be hard to get otherwise - including Three-Wattled Bellbird (part of the year), Prong-billed Barbet, Golden-browed Chlorophonia, Resplendent Quetzal, and some of the nightingale-thrushes. It also moves quickly through a few biotic zones so that you can see a larger variety of bird life. Quetzals - The Resplendent Quetzal is a highly sought after Costa Rican species, but it's not particularly common even within the narrow zone of elevation where it is usually found. Only two major birding hot spots really advertise a good possibility of seeing the bird - Monteverde and the Savegre Mountain Lodge south of San Jose. Smaller lodges, like El Toucanet and Paraiso del Quetzal, also offer a good chance at a sighting if you like places off the more typical tourist path. If you are a birder actively seeking to see the quetzal at Monteverde, your chances are very good.... but it is not a slam dunk. At Monteverde or any area where quetzals are regularly seen, quetzals will frequent the edge of the canopy sometimes out in the open. It's worth asking a guide if they know where they're being seen. Hiring a guide may make your chances even more likely. The guides at Monteverde - even general natural history guides - know that most visitors at the park are eager to see a quetzal. It's not uncommon for the location of a morning quetzal sighting to be passed around from guide-to-guide. Cano Negro Refuge (last visited: 2006), is a lowland habitat east of Upala (and in the Alajuela Province) and can have some Caribbean lowland birds but an overnight is required there since the 2-hour morning boat trip around the lagoon is needed to see Nicaraguan Grackle, Green Ibis, Black-collared Hawk and a few others that might be target species. We also had a nice look at two Bat Falcons, several Bare-throated Tiger Herons, Gray-necked Wood Rail, and a surprising Snowy Cotinga perched in a tree on the lagoon. There are two lodges available in town... both are quite clean as I've looked at both. The Cano Negro Natural Lodge has the only true restaurant. This is not a well-visited refuge, but I found the little town around the lagoon clean and inviting. There are no trails, so you'll need to bird the small dirt roads if you feel like birding before or after your boat trip. While birding on the roads around the lodge before the boat trip, we had Crimson-fronted Parakeets, Mealy Parrots, Collared Aracari, Gray-fronted Dove, and Montezuma Oropendula as well as the usual suspects. Paraques were common on the roads after the sun went down - and are strangely quiet at that time of year. This refuge is geographically closer to Liberia than San Jose. To date, I have seen no other location in Costa Rica for observing Nicaraguan Grackle except on the Cano Negro boat trip, but other trip reports suggest observations of the bird on the road to Los Chilies in the dry season (which is generally the same area as Cano Negro but just a few kilometers further east).
The boat trip at Cano Negro was $25 a person in 2006, but was easily worth it. There are several places to get the boat tour - at either lodge or the public boat ramp - and I think a guide would do it any time of day on the spur of the moment if necessary. We took the boat trip out of the Hotel de Campo using a guide named Jimmy. He knew no English, but he knew his birds. Tropical Western Lowland Birding: 4 hours from Liberia, and 2 hours from San Jose
Carara National Park (last visited 2009). The real change in birdlife while driving south from Guanacaste into the state of Puntarenas is Carara National Park on the west-central coast. This is an easy place to bird, an easy place to drive to, an easy place to get a bird guide (they wait for tourists at the gate of the River Trail or sometimes at the visitor's center and offer their services - worth it on your first trip), it's almost always productive, and anywhere around Carara is good viewing for Scarlet Macaw. In other words, this should be a primary birding stop for everyone. I've seen a lot of birds at Carara and I see new birds every time I go there. Carara NP is about 2.5-4 hours from most places in Guanacaste and about 2 hours from San Jose. Staying overnight is quite nice at Villa Lapas or the Cerro Lodge both of which are very close to Carara NP. We were able to see several Boat-billed Herons at Carara NP on the River Trail near the lagoon on two occasions during two separate July visits. In summer, the Carara River Trail may be the most reliable location for this species in Costa Rica. Manuel Antonio NP and Hacienda Baru Refuge - Manuel Antonio NP (4 hours south from Liberia, 2.5 hours southwest from San Jose) and Hacienda Baru refuge (near Dominical about 20 minutes south of Manuel Antonio) are just south of Carara NP. I have visited both spots, Manuel Antonio several times since it serves the purpose of giving us real vacation time after some intense birding. Manuel Antonio NP (MANP) does not have a lot of great birding habitat, but it does have one fairly nice trail in the park. It's a pretty crowded park entrance although the trail itself is not so crowded. Just before the park entrance is a bohemian marketplace of sorts, so you must get to the trailhead early. MANP is growing with lodges and people. It's a beautiful place so you can see why people build there. In a natural history sense, I recommend it only as a nice place to stay, a very good place to see monkeys, and a hike along the one walking trail in the park. It's also pretty good for Fiery-billed Aracari around some of the better hotels. On the trail, we had Golden-naped Woodpecker, Brown-hooded Parrot, and Black-bellied Wren among the usual suspects. If you are a serious birdwatcher, you might avoid this park and move on to other areas. But if you want to enjoy Costa Rican beauty, it's hard to find a prettier coastal experience. There are very nice accommodations here although you frequently don't see them from the main road. Hacienda Baru (visited 2005) is a private refuge with accommodations about 20 minutes south from MANP near Dominical. You can search for their web site where they have a bird checklist. Hacienda Baru has several trails and we had nice looks at Charming Hummingbird, Yellow-headed Caracara, King Vulture (flying over) and American Pygmy Kingfisher. I saw a Blue Ground Dove on the road as we drove over. Unlike Manuel Antonio, it's a good place for forest birds. Hacienda Baru has several options for birders and offers a couple of different hikes just to watch birds (we didn't do either of these guided tours). The road from Manuel Antonio to Hacienda Baru is now paved as of 2010, and maps may show it incorrectly as a dirt road. If you were serious about birding, and your beach-loving wife owed you a favor from when you grabbed that 10-inch lizard out of the bathtub in your Liberia hotel room, then I would suggest Hacienda Baru over Manuel Antonio National Park for the birding. South of Dominical is the town of Uvita (visited 2010). Uvita has several places to stay and it's a good networking spot for southern Costa Rica. From here one has access to the Osa Peninsula and birding lodges like Esquinas Lodge and Bosque de la Tigre Lodge. The locally owned refuge of Oro Verde is 5 minutes from Uvita. The mountain habitats of Talari Lodge, Skutch's farm (Los Cusingos Neotropical Bird Sanctuary), and Quebrada Biological Reserve are about 2 hours away and Hacienda Baru is less than a half an hour from Uvita. The Wetter Foothills and Lowlands - East and West: 4-6 hour trips from the NW coast, 2-3 hours from San Jose Rancho Naturalista (visited 2009) - is a superb birding lodge approximately 3 hours south of San Jose. Hummingbird feeders on the public porch balcony produce at least 8-10 species within the first 15 minutes of your arrival. By the end of 3 days - the recommended time frame for visitors - one should have at least 15 species of hummingbirds including the uncommon Snowcap. On my stay in early July (a difficult time to bird) we had about 115 species including Dull-mantled Antbird, Checker-throated Antwren, Russet Antshrike, Buff-throated Foliage-gleaner, Long-tailed and Wedge-billed Woodcreepers, Tawny-chested Flycatcher, Rufous Mourner, Olive Tanager, three species of euphonias, and a wide selection of other birds. An adjoining side trip to the Tuis Valley is a good place for Sunbittern and Fasciated Tiger-Heron. We also were treated to an unexpected pair of Crested Owls and at least two Black-crested Coquettes. The very rare Lanceloated Monklet (which will show up on a few trip reports) should not be expected but is infrequently seen if one takes a field trip to the Tuis Valley.
Getting to Rancho Naturalista is not easy drive even though most all of it is paved. I frankly do not recommend driving there because it almost always entails driving south through San Jose - a truly gruesome ordeal. Instead, I recommend hiring a driver from Costa Rica Gateways or some other company. That may be over $200 total, but remember, your rental car is simply going to sit there at the lodge anyway. Why drive it there if you're not going to use it? Your stay at Rancho may seem costly at first, but when you add in the fact that you're getting 3 good meals a day, a good room, and a very good personal bird guide (for us it was a guide for two people), then it really turns out to be a bit of a bargain. The birding is very good, and the feeders are stocked three times a day. When you weigh the relatively small number of good birding lodges in the American tropics, Rancho Naturalista is a special experience for birders. It's not easy for individuals who are not with a tour group to reach the property, and it does require it's own time frame. Because of this, it's not on everyone's itinerary. Still, if you can add the days to your itinerary, it will almost certainly reward you with good memories. La Selva (visited 1997 and 2007) - For some of the best birding, the classic places for Caribbean birds of Costa Rica (the richest bird life in CR) are found at La Selva OTS Biological Station (lowland habitat - 5 hours from Guanacaste and 2 hours from San Jose.) and Braulio Carrillo NP (mid-level elevation - 5.5 - 6 hours from Guanacaste and less than 2 hours from San Jose). The La Selva OTS is certainly worth it if you're making a trip to the central valley around San Jose. You can get there a couple of different ways without getting on unpaved roads, so even a small car can make the trip. The sheer volume of birdlife around the dining hall is staggering. La Selva offers an early morning guided bird tour at 5:45 AM for a fee, but advanced confirmation is required. I strongly recommend the early morning bird walk. Otherwise operating hours begin at 8:00 and a second round of natural history tours begin (also for a fee). Lunch can be purchased in advance from their web site. Food is family style at the research dining hall. The OTS designation means that it's a tropical research station (as is Palo Verde) and ongoing research projects have to be protected from visitors. I recommend the La Selva users guide for a good understanding of the facilities. We stayed at the Selva Verde Lodge - only a few minutes from La Selva OTS - but there are several places around the vicinity (including the La Selva OTS itself if you don't mind camp bunking). If staying at Selva Verde Lodge, I personally would choose the lodge accommodations over the optional bungalows. We enjoyed the bungalows, but there's no great advantage to staying in them that I could see. Selva Verde Lodge has their own guides that can be hired to bird around the lodge property. It's a good place to see endangered
Great Green Macaws flying over or a Sunbittern along the river. Instead of Selva Verde Lodge, many birding tour groups stay at the less expensive LaQuinta Sarapiqui also near La Selva and seem to be very happy there. Birdwatching around the grounds there seems equally as good. I have also heard from a Costa Rican bird guide that Tirimbina Lodge is also quite good for birding. Tirimbina is conveniently located a few kilometers west of La Selva. Tirimbina is a less expensive option than the lodges I have mentioned near La Selva like Selva Verde Lodge and LaQuinta Sarapiqui. It might be to a birder's advantage to stay at Tirimbina while visiting La Selva, but I have not been there myself. A Costa Rica bird guide has told me that the birding is very good there. Tirimbina is on the newly developed Costa Rica Birding Trail. A little bit more about Tirimbina can be found on their web site. Braulio Carrillo NP (visited 1997) is a huge national park east of San Jose but has only two significant turn-outs for cars around the highway loop from La Selva. Neither turn-out is marked well on maps, but both are easy turn-outs off the highway. Trails are marked, and the birding is always somewhere between good and great. Birds like Black-and-Yellow Tanagers and Lattice-tailed Trogons are not uncommon here. Bare-necked Umbrellabird has been seen with some regularity around the aerial tram. There are not a lot of accommodations around this park, but it's not a difficult drive from places around La Selva or even San Jose. Since Virgen Del Soccoro has been made inaccessible because of the 2009 earthquake, Braulio Carrillo National Park now has become one of the most centralized locations for Caribbean foothill birding and perhaps the easiest access to that habitat from San Jose. There are several species at this mid-level elevation which may prove hard to get at other parks and reserves.
There is a rather steep admission fee at the waterfall gardens ($35), and it can only be approached from San Jose side of the highway now because of earthquake. The road going further east towards La Selva and Virgen Del Soccoro is still closed. Here is a Video of the hummingbird galleries at the waterfall gardens. Cano Negro Refuge (last visited: 2006 and included above in "North-central Habitats"), is a lowland habitat east of Upala (and in the Alajuela Province north of Lake Arenal). Cano Negro is good for many Caribbean wetland birds. An overnight is required there since the 2-hour morning boat trip around the lagoon is needed to see Nicaraguan Grackle, Green Ibis, Snail Kite, Black-collared Hawk and a few others that might be target species. We also had a nice look at two Bat Falcons, several Bare-throated Tiger Herons, Gray-necked Wood Rail, and a surprising Snowy Cotinga perched in a tree on the lagoon. There are two lodges available in town... both are quite clean as I've looked at both. The Cano Negro Natural Lodge has the only true restaurant. This is not a well-visited refuge, but I found the little town around the lagoon clean and inviting. There are no trails, so you'll need to bird the small dirt roads if you feel like birding before or after your boat trip. While birding on the roads around the lodge before the boat trip, we had Crimson-fronted Parakeets, Mealy Parrots, Collared Aracari, Gray-fronted Dove, and Montezuma Oropendula as well as the usual suspects. Paraques were common on the roads after the sun went down - and are strangely quiet at that time of year. This refuge is closer to Liberia (perhaps a little over 3 hours) than San Jose. To date, I have seen no other location in Costa Rica for observing Nicaraguan Grackle except on the Cano Negro boat trip, but other trip reports suggest observations of the bird on the road to Los Chilies in the dry season (which is generally the same area as Cano Negro but just a few kilometers further east). The boat trip at Cano Negro was $25 a person in 2006, but was easily worth it. There are several places to get the boat tour - at either lodge or the public boat ramp - and I think a guide would do it any time of day on the spur of the moment if necessary. We took the boat trip out of the Hotel de Campo using a guide named Jimmy. He knew no English, but he knew his birds. Birding Habitats 6-7 hour trips from the NW coast, 2-5 hours from San Jose
Other great places like Tapanti, Cerro de la Muerte the Savegre Mtn Lodge (on the south slope of Cerro de la Muerte), Corcovado, (Osa Peninsula) and Tortugero, have specific travel problems to try in a short amount of time. Savegre Lodge, like Rancho Naturalista, caters to birders but the habitat is higher with different birds than Rancho. The avifauna here resembles Monteverde. Most birding tours either do Monteverde or Savegre Lodge, but I rarely see a tour company visit both places because of some redundancy. Savegre is a more personalized birding experience than Monteverde, but the itinerary will usually dictate which place will be best for independent travelers. Like Rancho, Savegre Lodge is a bit difficult to get to because of the travel problems through San Jose. Both of these places are meant for 2-3 day experiences, and I recommend a shuttle service as a better course of action for both Rancho and Savegre if you're not with a group. Even with San Jose as your Airport, places like Tortugero, Corcovado (Osa Peninsula) and areas south of the peninsula like La Amistad National Park, have special problems even outside of the distance when trying to access those places by car. Tortugero is mostly accessed by boat once inside the park, and the Osa Peninsula presents some difficult logistics especially during the wet season. Both places are strenuous drives to the outer reaches of the Costa Rican infrastructure. The Osa Peninsula is better accessed by small plane although they've added some paved road recently all the way to Puerto Jimanez. La Amistad National Park (near the Panama border) is also a difficult drive and has no paved roads within the park. Although I have done both Cerro de la Muerte and Tapanti in summer, it was done using San Jose as a home base. On one occasion I was on tour with a birding group, and on the other occasion I had a natural history guide service take me on a day trip to the top of Cerro de la Muerte. You can make that call from almost any hotel in San Jose. There are several natural history companies that have flyers in most hotel lobbies.
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