December 2006:
27 & 29 – Julio Sánchez heard a Peg-billed Finch Acanthidops bairdii singing on the Sendero Camino in the Monteverde
Cloud Forest Reserve on the 27th. A bird was again singing on the 29th—this
time the song came from trees near the reserve parking lot. Julio mentioned
seeing lots of bamboo with ripening seeds in the Monteverde area and suggested
that visiting birders be alert for this and other species that specialize on
bamboo seeds, such as Slaty Finch Haplospiza rustica and Blue Seedeater Amaurospiza concolor.
20 – Daniel Martínez had a Sulphur-rumped Flycatcher Myiobius
sulphureipygius turn up in his mist
nets at the Kĕköldi Reserve, west of Puerto Viejo de Limón. It
was the first time he had come across this species in six years of working in
the southern Caribbean portion of CR. The net was in an area of second growth
at about 150 m elevation.
19 – I discovered five Ring-necked
Ducks Aythya collaris at the
I.C.E. impoundment in San Miguel de Turrúcares. 
There were
four hens and a drake, all in basic plumage. Swimming in the same vicinity were
four Lesser Scaup A. affinis (two drakes and two hens).
Conrad Weston also reported that he has been seeing Lesser Scaup (he did not
specify how many) between Moín and the mouth of the Matina River nearly
every day recently.
16 – While visiting Las Cóncavas with my family, we found a
group of four Tropical Mockingbirds Mimus gilvus in shrubs and pasture
directly behind the convent.
06 – Luis Sandoval observed a male Northern Parula Parula americana on the campus of the Universidad de Costa
Rica. The bird was foraging with about 20 Tennessee Warblers Vermivora
peregrina in some trees alongside the creek near the “soda de
Ciencias Económicas.”
Not far
away, he also saw a female Yellow-bellied
Sapsucker Sphyrapicus varius.
05 – Leo Garrigues spotted a Forster’s
Tern Sterna forsteri flying near
the mouth of the Tarcoles River. Leo was doing a mangrove boat ride with Luis
Campos.
03 – Julio Sánchez encountered a Rough-legged Tyrannulet Phyllomyias
burmeisteri while participating in the Carara “Christmas” Bird
Count. Julio’s route was the dirt road leading up past Hotel Villa Lapas
to the village of Bijagual. The flycatcher was beside the road at the edge of a
patch of advanced second-growth forest, at an elevation of about 500 meters.
Farther up
the road, just beyond the bridge over the Tarcolitos River near Bijagual, Julio
heard a Slate-colored Seedeater Sporophila schistacea singing, and
discovered a male and a female in a small fragment of forest with some bamboo.
01 – Henry Kantrowitz saw “a beautiful adult Ornate Hawk-Eagle Spizaetus ornatus holding down an adult Green Iguana Iguana iguana. I watched it for
about thirty seconds, then ran into the house to get the camera. When I
came out it had evidently flown off to another location to eat its prey.”
Henry lives on the old road to Punta Leona, about a kilometer and a half from
the main highway going toward the beach. As the hawk-eagle flies, this
isn’t far at all from Carara NP, but Henry mentioned that he talked with
most of the guides in Carara and none of them had ever seen an Ornate Hawk-Eagle
in the park. For that matter, in years of birding Carara, I’ve never
seen or heard this species there, nor can I recall any reports from other
birders.
November 2006:
28 – I spotted an adult female Townsend’s Warbler Dendroica townsendi foraging in the top
of a tree in the garden of Savegre Mountain Hotel.
27 – Noel Ureña found a Yellow-rumped
Warbler Dendroica coronata down
the road from the Savegre Mountain Hotel, by the covered bridge at the entrance
to the camping area.
26 – Lance Barnett reported a Hooded Warbler Wilsonia citrina at El Rodeo Forest Reserve, west of Ciudad
Colón.
Jim Zook
had a juvenile female Northern Harrier
Circus cyaneus at El Pelón de
La Bajura.
25 – Jim Zook sighted a Pearl Kite Gampsonyx
swainsonii between Liberia and Pijije.
Noel
Ureña reported a Red-crowned
Woodpecker Melanerpes rubricapillus
in the gardens of Tilajari Resort (in the north central Caribbean lowlands). In
CR, this species is only known from about Quepos south, on the Pacific side of
the country. It’s close relative, the Hoffmann’s Woodpecker M.
hoffmannii, has been spreading into the north central Caribbean lowlands in
recent years. However, Noel stated that his bird was seen in good light and
showed a red belly and nape—precisely the field marks that distinguish a
Red-crowned from a Hoffmann’s Woodpecker! Very strange.
22 – Jim Zook again encountered a Tree Swallow Tachycineta
bicolor flying with Barn Swallows Hirundo
rustica, this time over a flooded rice field near Bagatzi, Guanacaste.
21 – Jim Zook was visiting Chomes in the
late afternoon, when he saw a Lark
Sparrow Chondestes grammacus
perched in a tree. He took this photo before the bird flew
off—accompanied by another individual of the same size and with a similar
flight pattern, that might well have been a second Lark Sparrow! The site was
about 200 meters after the houses by the entrance to the dikes on the southeast
side of the village of Chomes. This is only the fifth record of the species in
CR.
Earlier in
the day, Jim had seen a Cooper’s
Hawk Accipiter cooperii that was
beening chased by a Gray Hawk Buteo
nitidus near Pijije.
Daniel
Martínez found five Lesser Scaup
Aythya affinis (four females
and a male in nonbreeding plumage) on an oxbow lake beside the road from
Limón to Cahuita. The spot is by the first bridge south of the
Limón airport.
20 – Jim Zook spotted a Tree
Swallow Tachycineta bicolor flying
over a flooded cane field with Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica near La Guinea, Guanacaste.
19 – Jim Zook found an adult female Hooded Warbler Wilsonia
citrina in a patch of woods beside the main irrigation canal in Bagatzi,
Guanacaste.
17 – Jim Zook observed a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk Buteo
jamaicensis in Palo Verde NP.
11 – Robert Dean has been seeing a Hooded Warbler Wilsonia
citrina in the shrubbery around his house in Santa Elena (near Monteverde)
for the past week.
10 – Andy Walker reported a Cooper's
Hawk Accipiter cooperii in the
low scrubby second growth sector at the bottom of Rancho Naturalista's grounds.
09 – Andy Walker witnessed a male Merlin Falco columbarius
chasing a male Sharp-shinned Hawk Accipiter striatus over the lodge at
Rancho Naturalista. He also reported a sub-adult male Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus
colubris feeding in the Stachytarpheta
hedge in front of the lodge.
08 – Rich Hoyer found two Spot-fronted
Swifts Cypseloides cherriei in a
flock of several dozen swifts that were foraging at the crossing of the Savegre
River, south of Quepos. Both Chestnut-collared
Swifts Streptoprocne rutila and Black Swifts Cypseloides niger were also identified in the flock.
At the
summit of Irazú Volcano, Ernesto Carman and a group of birders from
Rancho Naturalista encountered a Merlin
Falco columbarius.
And at
Rancho Naturalista, Herman Venegas had another Black-billed Cuckoo Coccyzus
erythropthalmus on the Lower Trail system.
06 – Rich Hoyer and his WINGS group had a Sharpbill Oxyruncus cristatus
just above the headquarters at Tapantí NP.
01 – Daniel Torres called to report that a Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo Neomorphus
geoffroyi had been seen again at the Rain Forest Aerial Tram. It was still
to be found at an ant swarm on 03 November, when Robert Dean and Dorothy
MacKinnon got great looks.
October 2006:
During the final
week of October, Ernesto Carman and Andy Walker sighted several uncommon
migrants at Rancho Naturalista: Black-billed
Cuckoo Coccyzus erythropthalmus, Chuck-will's-widow Caprimulgus carolinensis, Gray-cheeked
Thrush Catharus minimus (2), and Bay-breasted Warbler Dendroica castanea (2).
03 – While visiting the Madrigal sector in the southern portion of
Corcovado NP, Rayner Araya came upon a roosting Oilbird Steatornis caripensis!!
He sent the following photos:
(The first image was taken with a
flash, hence the eye-shine.)
The bird
was on a horizontal branch about three meters above the ground when they found
it at around 15:00.
Rayner
reports that the nearest cave is about 8 km away at La Punta Salsipuedes. He
also mentioned that another local guide supposedly found an Oilbird roosting in
apparently that same general area in 2004.
Liz Jones of Bosque Río Tigre, upon hearing this news, wrote that,
“Last January, our US guide Scott Olmstead saw a nightjar around dusk and
he came back to the lodge very excited. He is a very astute birder and
very self critical. He refused to look at the book before drawing it, just
to keep the confusion out of the ID (good trick). And he also described it
to me before looking in the book.
“Well,
my first thought was an oilbird but after really analyzing, the final
conclusion was Chuck-will's-widow. But we may have been swayed by the
rarity of the Oilbird...”
And thanks
to Liz for passing along this
link, where you can see 13 other images of this roosting Oilbird taken by
James ???
For reports
prior to this, please check the Gone Birding
Newsletter.
Have you
seen a rare bird in Costa Rica, or a species in an unexpected locality, or
exhibiting odd behavior? If you have any noteworthy sightings, I (and the rest
of the birding community) would appreciate hearing about them. Please send
reports to Richard Garrigues gonebirdingcr@gmail.com and include pertinent details such as
location (as precise as possible), date, time, and observers’ names. If
you have digital images, all the better; however, please send images at file
sizes of less than 500 kb.
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