Apparently rain forest birds love bananas. If one puts out a clump of bananas at sunrise, the birds will fly a path to your doorstep! My “job” in the rain forest was to get up early, find the bananas (easy), and start taking pictures. The challenge was keeping my camera dry even if it was not raining. The humidity invaded all of my electronics, which was a bit of a challenge. Given the lodge staff put out bananas at sunrise, my effort was darned easy. Eventually … perhaps after 90 minutes of communing with the birds, I would meander over to an outdoor table (with a roof to protect against the rain) and have my farm breakfast. La Carolina Lodge raises or grows over 80% of the food served to guests.

Now that I am visiting the extremely hot dry forest region on the Pacific … 95F mid day with zero rain … the heat of the days is a perfect time for blogging. Thus these pics from a few days ago …

It goes w/o saying without Cornell’s Bird ID I would have been totally confused in terms of bird identification. However as this is now my fourth trip to Costa Rica I am actually learning many birds by sight and sound. Did you know the Keel-Billed Toucan’s song sounds like a frog croaking?! I now know that fact and it helped me find this kind of toucan.

Rain Forest Banana Birds

Black Cheeked Woodpecker

Blue Gray Tanager

Buff-Throated Saltator

Cattle Egret (out in the nearby farm field)

Chestnut-Headed Oropendola

Clay Colored Thrush

Crested Guan

Crested Guan and Russet-Naped Wood Rail

Golden Hooded Tanager

Great Kiskadee

Keel-Billed Toucan

Montezuma Oropendola

Palm Tanager

Russet-Naped Wood Rail

Scarlet-Rumped Tanager

Southern Lapwing (out in the nearby farm field)

Yellow-Throated Euphonia

Yellow-Throated Toucans

Eventually I will post more from my rain forest birding. Molly and I had a great time, and the rain definitely came through as advertised. Yesterday we moved over to the Pacific Ocean and a town named Las Catalinas … no cars allowed! Early this morning a bit before 6 am I walked over to the parking lot to collect my car and then went birding at sunrise. There are two HUGE reasons to get out birding very early. First the birds are much more active, but in addition the temperature will soar later in the day to 95F.

My special find of the day was a weird and unusual bird, the Double-Striped Thick-Knee. This “shorebird” likes dry savannah, and that is where I discovered this lifer … near an almost dry creek bed that bordered the more open land.

Double Striped Thick Knee

Only 400 yards away from “old double knee” I found a “Roadside Hawk.” Now at home in Minnesota this term might be used to describe any hawk hunting a road, but down here in Costa Rica it is actually the name of a specific hawk / bird.

Roadside Hawk

For a while I hiked the almost dry creek bed. I heard and saw Black Headed Trogons, Turquoise-browed Motmot, and these Howler Monkeys.

In closing if you will allow me to “bird nerd” out a bit, and if you are interested in learning about research on how songbirds maintain territories over the course of the years since 1960 in a wilderness area of northern New Hampshire, browse to this fascinating work done by a fellow Dartmouth graduate, Miranda.Zammarelli. (read an article about this research). However, let me point out this impressive young woman is earning a PhD from my alma mater. I only managed a basic college degree!

If you want luxury, La Carolina Lodge which is up in the Costa Rican Rain Forest, is the wrong place for you. Molly and I arrived last night in time for supper, and then the evening song as the forest creatures sung out as dark took over the area. Our room has very few modern conveniences … no TV … no air conditioning (mosquito nets and fans) … and very limited lighting. We do have a very private deck overlooking a mountain river. The lodge does have yoga and horseback riding, which we will not utilize.

This working farm which has both pastures and rain forest is a nature lover’s dream. All three meals come with our room with most food sourced from this farm. We will spend $900 for three nights. I don’t normally include prices, but I want folks to know what it costs to visit a real nice Eco Lodge.

Before breakfast I was in place near some bananas, and for two hours I enjoyed the morning bird feed. Quite often I was sitting in the rain, but I did not mind or care. At one point, this Yellow-Throated Toucan visited. It tarried within 10 to 30 yards of me for over 10 minutes. I saw lots of other cool birds this morning, but the Toucan was the real treat of the morning. Enjoy! (video links one and two for email subscribers)