We had a late breakfast back at the hotel before leaving mid-morning. We stopped off at Restaurant La Georgina to have another look at the Fiery-throated Hummingbird, before driving to our Caribbean lowlands destination, the Selva Verde Lodge on the Sarapiquí river near to the township of Puerto Viejo. This lodge has a botanical garden abutting an area of secondary rainforest and has extensive trails through primary rainforest on the south-eastern side of the river. The lodge boasts its own suspension bridge crossing the river. The restaurant overlooks feeding stations where staff place fruit each morning attracting Chestnut-mandibled Toucan, Keel-billed Toucan, Collared Aracari, both Montezuma and Chestnut-headed Oropendola, Gray-headed Chachalaca and many other fructivorous species. The river banks and ponds also attract Sunbitterns, but unfortunately not during our stay. Red-throated Ant-tanagers tend to like the covered walkways at the lodge, and are easy to see here. Mantled Howler Monkeys screamed from around 5am, and we had good views of this species during the following days.
We arranged to meet Roger Melendez Pereira, our guide at 6am and at the nominated time he was there! Roger was recommended to us by a birding-aus subscriber as a good guide and a good bloke, and he certainly is both. Selva Verde is another one of those places that caters for birders by having coffee and biscuits available well before breakfast. Our pre-breakfast birding was in the botanical gardens over the road from the lodge (although still part of the same property). We managed to see a number of new lowland species before breakfast, including Wood Thrush, Band-backed Wren, Cinnamon Becard, Black and White Becard, Yellow-crowned Euphonia and Giant Cowbird. We returned to the lodge for breakfast before continuing birding. Roger had suggested that since we had a full-days guided birding booked at a local biological station, La Selva, the following day, we should concentrated on more open-area birding rather than primary forest birding. With that, though, our first walk after breakfast was through the secondary rainforest just beyond the botanical gardens. We had distant, and somewhat unsatisfying views of Yellow-margined Flycatcher (we saw this well the following day), and good views of both Black-capped Tody Flycatcher and Black-throated Trogon. We also had a glimpse of a Central American Agouti rather like a large guinea pig with long legs!
We spent a while trying to find a Slaty-breasted Tinamou that was calling nearby. The previous evening and into the early hours of the morning it rained heavily (I did mention that the Caribbean side was the wettest) and the tracks were muddy. I had been thinking that this mud was different to the mud that that we waded through in Borneo that stuck to everything instead of being sticky, this mud was very slippery. And that was my undoing In walking down a steepish path I slipped and landed on my camera and 300mm lens. The camera had gone lens-down into the mud and I landed on top of it, collecting the camera on my left-hand side, towards the back and just under the ribcage. The pain was excruciating and I could not move I knew I had hurt myself quite badly. Ruth was worried of course and Roger, our guide. Both counselled me to lay still for a while (I wasnt going anywhere). After about 10 minutes of lying in the mud, I managed to start moving, and with assistance managed to stand but walking was going to be a challenge as every step jarred and caused me pain. There was no way I could raise my camera just carrying it was a challenge. But, being the extreme birders that we are, I decided that all I could do was grin and bear it I certainly hadnt travelled halfway around the world to be put off by a fall besides I could still walk, barely, and still use my binoculars, barely.
After lunch Roger decided that we would visit some much more open areas and took us to an area north of Puerto Viejo here we found Thick-billed Seed-finch, Bay Wren (near a bridge over one of the rivers), Paltry Tyrannulet one of the tiniest flycatchers, and one wed missed earlier at Savegre. Perhaps the best new bird here as Slaty Spinetail this is usually a difficult bird to see as they forage for insects in dense, tangly scrub this one, however decided to pop up and show itself to us. It even flew to another spot and still showed itself! Nearby we got good views of Tawny-winged and Black-striped Woodcreepers. We also managed a good view of White-collared Manakin, a bird that wed seen previously. We found at least two Hoffmann’s Two-toed Sloths, so that meant that wed seen both species of Costa Rican sloth.
With the sun going down we moved to a different road with a tree that Great Green Macaws were known to roost in. Wed seen the Macaws fly over earlier in the day, and had heard them, but we werent entirely satisfied with our views. The road that Roger directed us along was poor potholed, deep mud and lots of water Im glad that our hire car had 4WD, because I wouldnt have attempted it in a normal vehicle. We pulled up alongside an almond plantation and waited. Within a few minutes we heard Macaws and saw them land in the roost tree. We realised that we could get closer so we drove nearer and had great views and photographs.
The following day we had a full-days guided tour booked at the nearby La Selva Biological Station (part of the Organization for Tropical Studies OTS). Our guide was Lenin (no kidding!) and he was absolutely excellent. We started walking the main driveway which is famous for its birds and shortly encountered Plain-brown Woodcreeper, Northern Barred-woodcreeper and Olive-striped Flycatcher (we also got much, much better views of Yellow-margined Flycatcher). We saw Hooded Warbler, Canada Warbler and Scarlet-rumped Cacique but perhaps the best bird of the driveway was a Gray Catbird. Lenin told us that hed heard it before, but this was the first time hed seen it here, and only the second time hed seen one. We entered the forest from about half-way along the drive way and found that many of the forest tracks were actually paved in fact, La Selva has about 16km of paved tracks through the forest (and a further 45km of unpaved tracks). Now we were looking for tinamou ground-dwelling birds ranging in size from 22cm to 44cm in length, a little like a large quail through to a small turkey. Shortly we had a Little Tinamou calling Lenin called it and it came closer after a few minutes, to the point that we could see the foliage moving but never got a look at the bird. We were luckier with the next-size-up as shortly afterwards we heard a Slaty-breasted Tinamou and got good clear views of it. I had already decided that due to my injuries I was not going to carry my camera but Ruth managed some pictures.
After lunch we continued with our walk, starting near the researchers compound. We were searching for Great Tinamou and incredibly found one within minutes of looking. Back on the grassed area near the compound we found a number of native pigs, Collared Peccary we encountered these again deeper in the forest a little later. We headed into the forest, this time along a trail beside the river. Reasonably quickly we found another Hoffmann’s Two-toed Sloth, this one carrying a baby.
We found Rufous and Broad-billed Motmot and Rufous-tailed Jacamar all brilliant-looking birds. Amazingly we (and I used the term we loosely, as it was all Lenin) found first a Crested Owl and then a Vermiculated Screech-Owl both without the use of any sort of playback. From an open area we saw vultures circling and one of them had the distinctive white leading-edge and body of a King Vulture the one and only that we saw during the trip! We managed to see another Central American Agouti, this time with much better views strange looking creatures with their long legs and a rodent body on top! In another clear area we saw Gray-rumped Swifts circling and also caught sight of both a Hook-billed Kite and a Gray Hawk. Heading back to the canteen we had to cross the suspension bridge over the river. The day before a Sungrebe had been seen, and photographed, here but unfortunately not today. We were entertained by a troop of Mantled Howler Monkeys climbing along the cables of the bridge, though. Back at the canteen we sat down for a coffee and Lenin told us that a White-ruffed Manakin had been seen in the vicinity in the morning. Thinking he had heard it, we headed outside to have a look we found a White-collared Manakin, but not the other one, so headed back inside to finish our coffees. As we were sitting there, I said, What exactly does a White-ruffed Manakin look like? Is it kind of deep blue-black with a white throat, like that bird out there? (looking out the window) Where?! Asked Lenin, turning around. YES! Thats it!, he yelled, dashing outside
After leaving La Selva we stopped off in Puerto Viejo at a medical clinic as it was clear that I was going to need assistance and wasnt going to get better in a hurry by myself. On arrival I think the clinic was about to close as there was no-one there except for the nurse she spoke no English, and my Spanish was very limited. Somehow using a combination of limited Spanish and gestures I managed to convey that I had had an accident and needed to see a doctor. She managed to convey that shed called the doctor and that hed be here in about half an hour. While waiting for the doctor, I had to be weighed and measured and my details entered on a form that I needed to fill out unfortunately the form was completely in Spanish, and the only field I could identify was nombre or name. When the doctor arrived he could speak reasonable English, thankfully how arrogant of me to expect people in their home country to speak my language! Anyway, he checked me over and said that he didnt think that I had broken a rib, but that I had severe trauma to my abdomen so he prescribed some anti-inflammatories and some painkillers. In addition he said that I needed to get a Faja he didnt know the English expression, but indicated that it was something that I should wrap around my chest, Ah! Compression bandage! Si! Si! Meanwhile I wasnt going to escape so easily, the doctor said that I must have two injections different anti-inflammatories before leaving, and that the nurse would administer them. I had to go back to the room that I waited in, and with an audience of the doctor and Ruth, I had two injections in my backside. I must say that I didnt feel immediately better like Id hoped! Our next challenge was to find the pharmacy and have the prescription filled, which went reasonably smoothly, except that the doctor had made a mistake so I needed to convey to the pharmacist what had happened to me so that she could figure out whether she needed to give me anti-inflammatories or antibiotics!
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au
http://birding-aus.org ===============================
