Monteverde — birdwatching tour

[sashura]

There are quite a few people offering birdwatching tours in the area.  We went with Esteban (506-8685-598 two) and it was a great choice! We started at 6 am by the coffee shops and then get to the Curi Cancha reserve by 7, when it opened.

All tour guides use spotting scopes on tripods, so if the bird is sitting still in one place they can point the scope at it and let everyone take a look. These scopes are much stronger that any binoculars and than my 500 mm lens, plus it is possible to take a cell phone picture through it.

After the tour Esteban sent us list of all the birds we have seen. His list has 56 species, I have pictures of 18 :))

1. Great-tailed Grackle, lives in Mexico and Central America.

2. Panamanian white-faced capuchins — there were quite a few of them close to the stores. Later on we have seen them in a few other places, but those were the closest ones.

3. Lesson's Motmot

4. Great Kiskadee

5. Blue-grey Tanager

6. White-eared Ground Sparrow

7. White-nosed coati. We have seen a lot of them in Mexico in the resorsts and here they also were close to people, not in the foest.

8. Some hummingbird :) The only thing I know about it is that it doesn't go up to the preserve, it's too high for it.

9. Baltimore Oreole - another winter visitor.

10. Black-throated Green Warbler

11.  Purple-throated mountain hummingbird. (Needed better light for the throat to be actually purple)

12. Brillian forest frog ( Warszewitsch's frog) lives in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The inside of it's legs is bright orange, so when it jumps the preditors think that it is poisoness.

13. Keel-billed Toucan.

14. Coppery-headed emerald Hummingbird

15. Blue throated goldentail hummingbird. Two if them fiting :)

16. White-thorated Mountain-gem hummingbird. Endemic to highlands of costa Rica and Panama. This is a female, hence the orange, not white, throat.

17 Green Hermit.

18. Grey-necked Wood-Rail (grey-cowled wood-rail) - shot through a scope.

19. Yellow-throated Euphonia

20. Olivaceous Woodcreeper.

21. Scaled antpitta

For the most part all the birdwatching groups moved on their own, but sometimes quite a few happened to be at the same spot: