First blog for Costa Rica:Travel, Hotel Bougainvillea, La Quinta, and Selva Verde

 The very best trip (for birds) to Costa Rica of the four trips I have made.  Thanks to Sally's planning, the great follow-through with Sonia Nunez of Costa Rica Gateway, and the awesome company of Sally, Neal, and Gray made for a trip of a lifetime.  We saw 251 species (if we count the MacGillvray's Warbler, still in doubt), and every inn, every meal, and almost every trek was spectacular 

This will take about 5 blogs, so I hope readers will be patient and forgive the detail.  

One of the great aspects of the trip was my new camera, a Canon R10, tiny by comparison to my old and very beloved Canon 7d Mark II, about a third of the weight, and actually vastly improved in its focus system (finding the eye of the bird for a focal point!), and then a new, very light, relatively inexpensive 100-400 Canon lens which, again, weighed about half of my former 100-400 L series zoom.  I got very detailed and highly resolved pictures with so much less weight, and what a blessing that was. 

So here we go. 

Two photos from the plane, looking down on Boston harbor. 
Below is Castle Island

From the airport to Bougainvillea Hotel.  

A startling contrast between cold and grey Boston, and the gardens of the hotel.

And the first bird, a Rufous-naped Wren, almost guaranteed in the gardens. 

And an unexpected and great bird, a Lineated Woodpecker

Also a regular, a Mottled Owl in the thick bamboo.

Waiting for my ride the next morning, I caught this guy hanging over my head. 
Off to La Quinta Inn

Our lunch break was a famous restaurant with a fantastic view of a waterfall (hidden from view by rain), 
and a series of feeders all around the balcony.  A great introduction to Gray.
This is a Prong-billed Barbet

A female Red-headed Barbet.

Common Chlorospingus

Fantastically, a bird only seen a few times, here he was with several others on the feeder!
Finally, a good photo of him (Collared Aracari).

Social Flycatcher

Gray-headed Chachalaca

A Baltimore Oriole, probably on his way to Massachusetts

And another bird I have never seen on feeders, the Emerald Toucanet

Black Guan

Violet Sabrewing

Silver-throated Tanager

and then there were more.

Crimson-collared Tanager

The next morning, we were driven to the La Selva Verde Biological Research Station,
where we joined our only large birding group of the trip, with a guide. 

Hanging from one of the research buildings

Great Green Macaws
One of the rarest Macaws in CR.

Chestnut-sided Warbler, much to the delight of Sally. 
Again, probably on his way north.

If I had not stopped to see what a group of birders were excited about (I had left the
big group and headed back on my own) and saw I bird I never expected to see in my lifetime, 
a King Vulture!  This is a juvenal, but still majestic. 

And a sought-after bird for many, the White-collared Manakin

A Variable Seed-eater, spotted at lunch time. 

Next Blog: Rancho Naturalista, perhaps the most famous birding lodge in CR.