What a super day. We got up for a walk at 5:45 am to bird the lower area cabins of Arenal and had some great sightings of birds (sorry, this place has internet only in the bar/dining area and the internet is slow and I forgot my listing in the room some 5 minutes away).
Then breakfast and we packed up and hit the road with stops along the way.
On the way, we stopped for gas and a health break. Some of us headed off to the new washroom building. What a surprise!!! Everything was mirrored, the walls, the stalls (all four sides in a stall including the door!!! It was a little disorienting and a total bizarre experience in a stall. That is all I will say!!. We laughed about it and returned to the bus and convinced everyone who had not gone to go for a visit. Many who left the washroom building had a smile on their face. What a bizarre interior design, what were they owners thinking!!
We put on sunscreen as the day was hot hot hot. We were out of the rainforest and in the farmland areas of north Costa Rica. Sugar cane and pineapple fields were along the roads we took.
We had about a 2 to 3 hour drive to Los Chiles which is right on the Nicaraguan border. We could see Nicaragua. We stopped several times for birds and it was tick tick tick for the target birds. We had the longest lunch of the tour at a local restaurant in Los Chiles which took a a long time for a simple lunch food like sandwiches and burritos and soup.
Outside Los Chiles we drove down a dirt road for a distance to reach a boat launch and meet the boat driver who was to take us out. We got on a small boat to travel the river Medio Queso which borders Nicaragua in places and is a river that has marshes alongside. We saw the Sungrebe and the Nicaraguan Grackle and many other marsh birds. Birding by boat is great!!I really enjoy it and I think everyone did.
We were on the river for almost two hours and it was 5 pm by the time we got off the boat. We had seen our target birds and more. There were cows along the river and many Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and many wading birds: egrets, ibis, herons and Lesser Yellow-headed Vultures. Many of these were lifers. It was sunny and windy and beautiful to be meandering down the river.
From here we went on to Cano Negro Nature Lodge for one night. On the way we had some target birds once we got on the 20 km turn off to Cano Negro. The road was rough but with are stops we got the birds we were hoping for. It was dark by the time we arrived. We stopped in the dusk for the Lesser Nighthawks flying over the road and we have a basic room and no internet. I am just trying to get this done here since we are going owling after supper and after we do our daily bird list so it will be late when we are finally done for the day.
On this road I saw a bird sightings notebook lying on the side of the road and it was full of records. I picked it up and dusted it off and gave it to our guide who turns out knows the fellow!!! Steve phoned the fellow and told him he had his bird record book. The fellow Allan, said he had been looking for this all over the place and was glad to hear about it.
Sami as usual was very fortunate in timing his picture taking and he took some wonderful photos of the Pinneated Bittern flying which turned out super just looking at the photo in his camera viewfinder. Sami is lucky and with his camera and along with his talent, his photos are superb.
This was great day with sweet birds and we are not yet done.... maybe an owl or two. unfortunately we did not find any owls that evening. I hit the bed and slept until 5 am.
But the next day in the day light and just outside the dining hall, Bruce found the Pacific Screech Owl.
It was a fantastic find.
Barb, Emily, Sami & Lynne.
No comments:
Post a Comment