For the last days we moved to another resort hotel, the spectacular Rio Perdido. Built around some hot springs and backing onto an unusual, for Costa Rica, dry “dwarf” forest. This made for another set of unique bird sightings.

Black-headed Trogon

Banded Wren

Lesson’s Motmot

Turquoise-browed Motmot, same bird as the header image

There was a nest of the Double-toothed Kite close to the buildings, and this youngster was calling for food.

This chestnut capped Warbler caught his lunch on our windowsill.

On an outing to another National Park, Rincon de la Vieja, there was a flock of Orange-fronted Parakeets, and we saw 2 Trogons

Slaty-tailed Trogon

Gartered Violaceous Trogon

Back at the lodge, one of the absolute highlights for me, of the wildlife viewing part of this trip, and of my life’s birding experiences, was to see the Long-tailed Manakins (one example of a male above) doing their lekking dance.

With the low morning light, the many branches in the way, and a handheld camera with a telephoto lens, the video is of very limited quality, but I wanted to share it anyway, you can see the 3 males jumping over each other, flapping their wings as they descend while squawking at the choosy female. If this had not been the last day, I would probably have returned with a tripod and cut away a branch or two to be able to focus more easily…

For a better video showing the dance, I am sure this videographer had to prepare the site, and probably had a hide also.

We then had to go and get our last breakfast at the lodge, during which one of the servers ran over and alerted us to a bird in trees just beyond the balcony.

My final bird of the trip was this Hook-billed Kite.

Costa Rica has protected over 1/3 of its entire territory to aid biodiversity. Clearly some of the impetus for this is to encourage tourism, but the results are very encouraging, with such amazingly diverse wildlife easily accessible. Some parks are rather over-visited, but there are large numbers of smaller parks that are well worth the visit, and where we saw almost no-one else.

Thanks again to Rey Vargas (afriendincostarica.com) for his organisation, his assistance, his driving, and unfailing good humour. Thanks to my family for putting up with my wildlife and photography passion during this family vacation.

The next 3 days we spent at the Trogon Lodge, in the cloud forest in central Costa Rica, in a region known as San Gerardo de Dota.

Two early morning outings were rewarded by sightings of the iconic Resplendant Quetzal, that you can see in the header image, and below.

The female is also impressive, but without the resplendant tail

Another new Hummingbird is one confined to the higher elevations of the Talamanca Cordillera, the range of mountains in central Costa Rica, the highest range in central America.

Talamanca Hummingbird.

Long-tailed Silky Flycatcher. This bird is also restricted to the higher elevations of the Talamanca Cordillera.

The Sulphur-winged Parakeet is also found only in this region.

This photo better illustrates the reason behind the name, the sulphur colour not being very evident when they are perched.

While here there were some great hikes, and an outing to a gardens, the “Batsu Gardens”, which have been created by a birding enthusiast and guide, specifically with the goal of attracting as many bird species as possible, and which also have feeding stations. Interestingly, he doesn’t promote the gardens on social media, as he wants to keep the gardens quiet, but if you don’t tell anyone else…

Here, I saw some birds in close up, that I had only glimpsed previously, and also saw a spectacularly beautiful bird that I had never heard of before.

The Volcano Hummingbird is a tiny hummer, with a restricted range in this region, around the Talamanca Cordillera, a Volcanic mountain range.

The Scintillant Hummingbird is restricted to the same range, the males are even more scintillating, but were not evident during my visit.

This Golden-browed Chlorophonia is related to the much more widespread Euphonias, of which there are about 8 species, but is restricted to these central highlands and is an amazingly beautiful bird.

This is a female Golden-browed Chlorophonia

Here are a pair, male in the foreground, on a feeder at the gardens.

In the same gardens I was able to take several photos of the Slaty Flowerpiercer, with some closeups showing how it uses its specialised beak to pierce flowers to extract their nectar.

This is the male

Here is a female

Here is how he pierces the flower with his beak

The Lesser Violetear is a much more widespread hummingbird.

This was a family holiday in an all inclusive resort, which had a few native bird species on the property, including the endemic Hispaniolan Woodpecker below. Just before leaving I spotted the critically endangered Hawk, the Ridgway’s Hawk, which is the header image for this post.

There were many Palmchats, who build large communal nests.

I took the opportunity to have one day birding, which was actually not a success. The trip was advertised as being a 1 hour 45 minute drive from Punta Cana, where we were staying, to the Los Haitises National Park for a birding walk with a guide. It actually took nearly 4 hours to get there, and 3 hours to get back, for a 2 hour birding walk with a guide who had limited knowledge, and mis-identified some birds.

We did manage to see the following on the walk:

Then we had a 1 hour boat ride to see a cave, travelling through the mangroves.

Back at the resort, there was a Kestrel frequently hunting on the property

And many Ruddy Turnstones forming mixed flocks on the beach with Sanderlings

The Ridgway’s Hawk was banded, as you can see, and probably came from “Reserva Ecologica Ojos Indigenas”, situated about 6 km away, and which has a rescue program.