It has been several months since I have posted to this blog. The reason for that is we have been through some difficult times and I just wasn’t ready to write about it yet. I will share some of that now. We had to curtail our plans for traveling in Alaska last summer. We made it to Anchorage and did fly to Nome for a few days visit. From there we traveled down to Seward and then to Homer. At the end of June my husband, Alan became very ill. He was admitted to the hospital in Homer and was diagnosed with cancer. We were there for 3 weeks while he recovered from major surgery. The hospital staff were so kind to us and went out of their way to meet our needs. Upon hearing of our situation from a hospital employee, a local resident offered to let us park our motorhome in his driveway free of charge. I was able to stay in the hospital room with Alan and even had my meals there. The community was marvelous. If this had to happen, we were in a good place to deal with it. Alan was discharged the third week of July and we started the long drive back to Arizona in early August. I won’t write in detail about the return trip now. I plan to do a series of posts to catch up in real time.

We arrived back in Tucson, AZ the last week of August where we are staying with a long time friend who has offered us a place to stay as long as we need it. Alan met his oncologist and went through a series of tests and started on chemo. He has tolerated the chemo very well. He feels pretty good generally. The oncologist encouraged us to try to maintain a normal life as much as we can, including doing some traveling.

Golden-browed Chlorophonia – what a gorgeous bird!

We have been talking for a while about going to Costa Rica, which is one of the top birding destinations in Central/South America. The oncologist encouraged us to do that, so we researched on the internet to find a good birding tour company. We contacted Tropical Feathers on December 17th and asked them to put together an itinerary for us for a two week visit. Noel Urena, the owner of the company replied to our email the next day to advise either he or his brother, Carlos, would be available to guide us for 5 Feb through 21 Feb, which was perfect. On 23 Dec we received a proposed itinerary which included several excellent birding lodges and covered the main habitats/geographical areas of the country. This was really last minute plans, so we were concerned that the best places might be booked up, but it worked out for us. We finalized the plans with Noel and everything was set for us to depart on 5 Feb and return on 19 Feb.

On Monday, 5 Feb, we flew from Phoenix to the San Jose airport. We arrived in the evening. Our lodging for the night was at Hotel Bougainvillea. This is a lovely hotel with beautiful gardens and a popular hotel for birders laying over in San Jose for a night. The header photo above was taken in the hotel gardens.

We liked Noel from the moment we met him and as the evening progressed, we knew we had found an excellent birding guide! Not only because of his birding knowledge, but also because of his sensitivity to the needs of his guests and desire that they have a great experience in Costa Rica.

We went out early Tuesday morning before breakfast to walk around the hotel grounds and start our birding.

Lesson’s Motmot pair seen in hotel gardens

After a lovely breakfast, we departed for El Paraiso Quetzal Lodge where we would stay Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. It is to the south of San Jose in a lovely setting in the mountainous area of Cerro de la Muerte. Our cabin had recently been constructed and was quite lovely with a wonderful view from the porch. The premier draw to this area is the magnificent Resplendent Quetzal. The lodge is at an elevation of 2,650 meters, so it was cool during the day and cold at night! I somehow left my fleece jacket in Arizona. It was a little cool but we managed. Our cabin just had a small space heater, which didn’t warm as well as we would have liked though.

Our El Paraiso Quetzal Lodge Cabin (photo by Noel Urena)

The lodge had hummingbird feeders on the deck behind the restaurant. The common hummers there were Talamanca Hummingbird, Volcano Hummingbird and Lesser Violetear.

Talamanca Hummingbird

Volcano Hummingbird

Lesser Violetear

View from our cabin porch at El Paraiso Quetzal Lodge. The blue in the deep vee on the left side of the photo is the Caribbean Sea.

Our number one target species for the trip was the Resplendent Quetzal. This bird is unbelievably beautiful. On Thursday we went out to look for it. This area is a prime location for seeing it and there were a few spots where it was being reported reliably. Our first stop was at Trogon Lodge. We did see a pair of Quetzals there but they were too distant for photos. We stayed a while then left to drive back towards the lodge. There was one stop we wanted to make along the way where Noel had heard a couple birds he wanted to look for. While we were there, we began hearing a Resplendent Quetzal calling. It started coming closer and within about 10 minutes it flew into a tree right above where we were standing. It was amazing! And there was no one else there, so we were able to enjoy observing the quetzal without the usual crowd that gathers around when they are seen. The male of this species has two long tail feathers that blow in the breeze when it is perched.

Resplendent Quetzal – male, breathtaking!

Resplendent Quetzal – male (digiscope photo by Noel Urena)

Wow! This was certainly a highlight of our trip, spending 30 to 45 minutes just observing this gorgeous bird, then back to the lodge. Another bird commonly seen around the lodge is the Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher. They would feed in the shrubs right off our deck.

Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher outside our cabin

On both Wednesday and Thursday we stopped at Miriam’s Restaurant for lunch. This is a very popular birding location. She has excellent food and superb birding from the deck behind the restaurant. A few of the species we saw:

White-throated Mountain-gem, male

White-throated Mountain-gem, female

Northern Emerald-Toucanet

The Costa Rican subspecies of Hairy Woodpecker is more buffy/tan on the underparts than the US Hairy Woodpecker.

Costa Rican Hairy Woodpecker

Flame-colored Tanager, male

Flame-colored Tanager, female

Tennessee Warbler

Blue-gray Tanager

Volcano Junco – seen in Parque National Los Quetzales

On Friday morning, 9 Feb we departed Paraiso Quetzal for our next destination – El Copal Reserve where we would spend 3 nights. El Copal Reserve is at approximately 900 meters ASL. That’s quite a bit lower than Paraiso Quetzal Lodge. It was much warmer also. This is a fairly new lodge that is taking hold as a top birding location. Noel is of the opinion it has the best birding in CR. It is being operated as an Eco-lodge with low impact on the environment. All power is generated by solar and water is also heated by solar. The system seems to be well designed as our shower was hot! The rooms are quite spartan, but were comfortable enough. The food was very good. The lodge is built on a hillside, so is up high and has a great deck around 2 sides. This makes for excellent viewing into the tree canopy. In the 2 full days we were there, we saw 7 hummingbird species including Snowcap, and 8 raptor species including an Ornate Hawk-Eagle. There are trails in the forest for birding and also nearby spots that offer excellent birding.

Tawny-capped Euphonia

The Snowcap hummingbird is another of the birds that is highly sought after and is uncommon. We saw them daily feeding at some Porterweed flowers on the grounds.

Snowcap, male

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

Gartered Trogon, male

We finished our first week in Costa Rica at El Copal Reserve. Every day has been exciting as we see new birds and travel around the countryside. Everywhere we go the countryside is so lush with greenery and so many plants in bloom. It really is a tropical paradise. And of course the people are so hospitable and friendly. This is my third trip to Central/South America and this has been my experience on all of them.

The amazing thing is how stress-free everyone seems to be. They really do live their national slogan – pura vida! And we are doing the same!

Speckled Tanager

Looking at something, I don’t recall what 🙂

I hope you enjoy this post and the photos from Costa Rica. Tropical birds are so amazing and it is fun to share them with others! I’ll have another post for the second week of our trip – pura vida!!