Once wed completed our morning bird walk, we packed up and headed off towards our next destination, the cloud forests of Savegre. The drive out of the Osa Peninsula was much more pleasant during daylight, and the river crossings seemed so much less daunting. Our next lodge the Savegre Hotel, Natural Reserve and Spa is on the slope of Costa Ricas highest mountain, Cerro de la Muerte (Mountain of Death). Whilst the peak is over 3400m, the lodge itself is at a much more comfortable 2200m still high enough to be shrouded in cloud for a good proportion of the time. The route involves driving the Pan-American Highway (also known as the Inter-American Highway). This road is narrow and very twisty in places there are overtaking lanes from time-to-time, generally favouring south-bound traffic (we were north-bound), and overtaking on double-yellow lines and blind corners is the norm here. This is the main truck route north and south and seeing large semi-trailers passing each other or approaching each other on a twisty narrow road sometimes causes you to catch your breath! A considerable part of the journey was at 2800m-3000m along this road, and that adds the element of cloud or fog, just in case it wasnt already interesting enough!
Gustavo had told us to keep a look out for a restaurant Vista de la Valle as it was good for hummingbirds and Orange-bellied Trogon, but we could not find it. Later we wondered if he meant the Restaurant La Georgina, which is famous for its hummingbird feeders that attract the high-elevation Fiery-throated Hummingbird. Anyway, we arrived at Savegre mid-afternoon and enjoyed a pre-dinner walk around the cultivated gardens with our cameras. Volcano Hummingbirds, Green Violetear and White-throated Mountain-gem are common at the feeders and around the flowers, with Scintillant Hummingbird being present, but less common. The most interesting bird of this afternoon, though, was the Slaty Flower-piercer. This bird lacks the long bill of a hummingbird, but still requires nectar from flowers, so it stabs the flower at its base and drinks the nectar through the hole later on we also saw hummingbirds drinking nectar from the holes made by these birds. On arriving at the hotel we saw that the place was full of birdwatchers people with binoculars around their necks, some carrying spotting scopes, most with cameras, and we realised that this was one of the key destinations in Costa Rica for birding and this explained the trouble that we had trying to get a guide for this area. Before arriving, the hotel had told me by email that they had no guides available, despite me sending pleading emails! On arrival, however, we were told that they could fit us in with another group for a bird-watching session the following morning and that we were to meet at 5:30am at reception.
The following morning we were up and ready. Whilst the hotel does not start providing breakfast until much later in the morning, they do provide an urn of coffee and some biscuits from about 5:15am on the balcony, and this was well received. At 5:30am a Toyota Landcruiser troop carrier arrived and four Americans from Oregon and Ruth and I hopped aboard. We were driven 2km up the road and unloaded, where we met our guide, Carlos Serrano Obando (costaricaverde2010@hotmail.com). He told us that before breakfast we would look for one of the signature birds of Costa Rica, the Resplendent Quetzel. Soon we were joined by other birding groups until ultimately there must have been seven or eight guides with close to 30 bird watchers. The quetzels had not been seen the previous day, so there was some pressure on the guides to find them the various guides staked out favourite trees and remained in mobile phone contact with each other. Eventually after hanging around in the chilly morning air (it was a good thing that we brought fleecy tops) word went around that a bird had been found just a couple of hundred metres from where we were up a very, very steep track. Anyway, after a bit of a climb we made it to some trees on the edge of the forest surprisingly not the avocado trees that the birds prefer and there was a female quetzal. Within a minute or two she flew out of the tree and to a tree a couple of metres back, and without warning a glorious male flew out and joined her, sitting reasonably out in the open for brilliant viewing and photographs. The Resplendent Quetzel is a spectacular bird (hence its name) of the trogon family. Males have a green fluffy head and a yellow bill, with the green extending around the birds upper breast and wings with an incredible contrasting red for the lower breast and belly. Feathers from the birds back extend into long green streamers for at least twice the length of the bird. The female is somewhat more drab, lacking both the red and the streamers. These birds do not like direct sunshine, so only appear in the open in the early mornings after which they retreat to the shade of the forest. The glorious colour is partly pigmentation and partly iridescence, which gives the birds a sheen, even in dim light. The bird is awe-inspiring to the point that one woman in our group, when seeing the bird for the first time, wept! We spent an hour with these birds, watching them and photographing them what a start to the day!
Whilst watching the quetzels we scored a good bonus bird, a covey of Spotted Wood-quail walked underneath the quetzels tree and continued to forage for insects along the forest edge. On leaving the property that the quetzels were on we crossed the stream that follows the main trail down the mountain and I noticed a small grey bird hopping on the rocks a Torrent Tyrannulet a small flycatcher that specialises in feeding near fast moving mountain streams. We returned to the hotel for breakfast and then with Carlos our guide, headed up a steep hill to one of the trails La Quebrada (the creek trail). This trail winds its way through primary rainforest, and for a proportion of the time follows (and crosses) a bubbling creek. This was to be our main opportunity to see the temperate highland birds, and we were not disappointed, with birds like Mountain Elaenia, Tufted Flycatcher, the uncommon Ochraceous Pewee, Black-faced Solitaire, Mountain Robin (Thrush), Sooty Robin (Thrush), the appropriately named Yellow-thighed Finch, Large-footed Finch, Rose-breasted Grosbeak and many others. One of the birds we were after was the Emerald Toucanet, which we missed on this morning, but caught up with several over the next day or so. We heard a Costa Rican Pygmy-owl calling strongly, but could not locate this uncommon species for a view. We saw a Golden-olive Woodpecker, a mountain specialty, and many woodcreepers. Our walk ended around lunchtime and we headed back to the hotel. I spoke to Carlos about hiring him for the next couple of days and found out that he was available that afternoon, the following evening and the morning of our final day, so I locked that in with him.
After lunch we went with Carlos to the area near the peak of Cerro de la Muerte this area is full of radio masts, and fenced-off buildings. The forest is quite different at this altitude it is páramo, an alpine tundra, consisting of stunted shrubs and other low vegetation. This habitat is above the treeline, but below the snowline (not that theres any snow at these latitudes). On clear mornings it is possible to see both the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean from this peak in addition it is possible to see south to Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula. On the day we were there, whilst the summit was clear, there was lower cloud obscuring the views. We parked near a fenced area, and within seconds we had Volcano Junco hopping out onto the track and around our feet. This is one of the key species at this altitude, and is only found in an incredibly small number of spots in Costa Rica. Our next target was the Timberline Wren which was somewhat more challenging as it prefers the cover of the vegetation, but we managed to see it quite well. Walking at this altitude (3451m) is tiring and you need to be conscious of altitude sickness if you start to feel lightheaded, or have hangover-like symptoms you need to head for lower altitudes immediately. The air at this altitude is thin and crisp the sun can be harsh because of the thin air and sunscreen is essential.
After seeing our target species, we headed down from the summit and headed a few kilometres to the west to the Restaurant La Georgina. This restaurant has hummingbird feeders visible from the windows of the restaurant, and is a well-known site for Fiery-throated Hummingbird. Unfortunately to see the fiery throat colour the sunlight needs to catch the bird at exactly the right angle, so we ended up with a poor view of a medium-sized greenish-blue hummingbird. The blue crown of this bird is also diagnostic and we certainly saw that. Whilst this restaurant is well-known for this bird and they are usually present in numbers, we saw only one. We came back a couple of days later also and still had the same view of just one bird.
That evening we celebrated New Years Eve by having a spa and massage, which was incredibly inexpensive by Australian standards. After dinner we adjourned to the bar and caught up with an English (non-birding) couple we had met at Drake Bay. Being the serious party animals we are when birding, we were in bed by about 9:30pm! The following day we walked up the steep hill to La Quebrada trail by ourselves and caught up with a number of species we missed the previous day, including Emerald Toucanet. We saw a spectacular Swallow-tailed Kite flying over the valley a common enough bird in the south-eastern United States, but a first for us. After lunch we walked the waterfall trail, following the mountain stream that follows the road down the mountain, and found two target species we had here American Dipper and Louisiana Waterthrush. We had seen American Dipper in Washington last year, but not good views. Here we saw a pair of them and observed them feeding (dipping) for about half an hour. The Louisiana Waterthrush was much shyer but patience was the key and we ended up seeing that bird for about 15 minutes.
We arranged to meet Carlos at his house, higher up the mountain, that evening. He had a Dusky Nightjar that had perched on a fencepost along the road for the last few nights. Sure enough, within minutes of arriving we saw the bird! Carlos had asked his wife to join us although she ended up carrying the scope as he said that he had a Bare-shanked Screech-Owl nearby. We walked through an area of forest attached to one of the lodges higher up the mountain with Carlos calling the owl periodically. Ultimately the owl started calling back, but quietly. I assumed that the owl was distant and we were unlikely to see it, but no! Carlos told me that these owls dont open their bills when calling and are not particularly loud. After another 20 minutes or so, with the owls calling getting slightly louder, we eventually located it on a visible horizontal branch about 20m from us. We hadnt really counted on seeing that many night birds, but we were doing pretty well nonetheless!
Carlos was available again early the following morning but only up to 8am, so we met at his house at 6am to look for Buffy-crowned Wood-partridges (that he got on his property occasionally). When we arrived he had been looking for about half an hour, without luck but we managed to call them in but unfortunately for us, whilst close, we never managed to see them just hear them. In the time we had left with Carlos we managed to see Ochraeous Wren, a bird we had heard but not seen, had great views of Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher and picked up a few other species that wed missed in the previous couple of days. We had hoped to see Silver-throated Jay and Golden-browed Chlorophonia, but alas it was not to be.
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