birds

[Tad Eareckson]

I'm SO RELIEVED to have an interruption. It's taking me about the same length of time to report on the trip that it did to do the trip. A report on a day consumes a day most of the time. But I feel compelled to continue and I keep learning more about the places we stopped, critters we encountered, some of the people we met.

Sloths... They're a HUGE tourist draw and I was happy to have gotten both species under my belt. And I'd have really liked to have gotten up to speed with our guides and been able to differentiate them upon quick glances. But the stress and fatigue had turned my brain to total mush for just about all the duration - and I knew that at the time. I think maybe by studying descriptions and photos I'll be able get where I wanted to be anyway.

I'm not sure you'd be happy watching them all day though...

- Yeah, there's NOT much going on there. A diet of nothing but tree leaves tends not to translate to much in the way of energy reserves.

- They tend to be pretty high up in the canopy. And that means that if they're not at the edge of a road, clearing, river you're gonna need to be close in and looking up at a high angle. And minus the benefit of a lounge chair that translates pretty quickly to absolute agony.

- They hang back down / face up. That means you're seldom seeing much of the interesting side. And you may have to wait a long time to catch a glimpse of face, hand, baby.

- They're often competing for attention with Howler, Capuchin, Spider Monkeys.

But speaking of sloths - back to the narrative...

2019/01/13 breakfast, pack and organize for departure. Will stage the luggage downstairs at reception, retrieve the car, load quickly with the engine running, get on the road.

Descend on a small gathering consisting of the manager and maybe half a dozen guests at the couches. One of our new birding buddies is holding the little Two-Finger. "Wanna hold him?" "What a stupid question. Gimme."

He's three months old, about softball sized, has a teddy bear, is wrapped up in a towel with some straw. I hold him and gently stroke the fine soft brown fur. (Anybody see the sloth who guest-starred for a while on "The Durrells In Corfu"?) I think that it can't be all that difficult to not run over a sloth in broad daylight on a straight and level stretch of highway. Mom got her head crushed and the perp didn't bother to stop. (Good thing a Selva Verde person got there before the Black Vultures did.)

He's weaned at this point but will require another twelve months of care before he can be returned to his forest. I reluctantly hand him off and continue mobilizing.

116 mostly easy highway klicks to Arenal Observatory Lodge - 2400 feet and almost exactly one mile south of our current latitude. But it's far from a crowflight path.

HM needs to do another ATM stop in La Fortuna 'cause he didn't get the math right in Cahuita. I see some swallows on a nearby wire and put the glasses on them. Guy from the car parked next to me puts his glasses on them. I'm not in Kansas anymore - haven't been for a couple weeks.

Find a credit card in the parking area, shove it in between the doors (it's Sunday). Hope I made somebody's tomorrow a bit less unpleasant.

We approach Volcán Arenal - 5479 feet - at its three o'clock but need to go counterclockwise three quarters of the way around to the Lodge at its six just a bit over a mile and a half from its peak. Driving gets demanding again.

Get up to the main/reception/dining/observation area well before check-in / room's available time, snatch a handicapped parking slot 'cause that's the only option for a halfway reliable starting position, explain the situation to and get OKed by the desk, bring the optical toys to the observation deck, kill time.

Arenal is one very young (~7500 years) and very DANGEROUS volcano...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arenal_Volcano
Arenal Volcano

On Monday, July 29, 1968, at 7:30 am, the Arenal Volcano suddenly and violently erupted. The eruptions continued unabated for several days, burying over 15 square kilometers under rocks, lava and ash. When it was finally over, the eruptions had killed 87 people and buried three small villages - Tabacón, Pueblo Nuevo and San Luís - and affected more than 232 square kilometers of land. Crops were spoiled, property was ruined, and large amounts of livestock were killed.

...and the seismological guys keep a close eye on it. Clouds are wiping out maybe the top thousand feet of view when we arrive but they're lifting and thinning at a pretty good clip and before long we get a mildly misted view of the top. Nice fruit feeder setup a bit off the end to keep things interesting on that front.

Somebody relays to the deck that there are a couple Keel-Bills on a fruit tree right across the asphalt from reception. Battle stations.

I easily get the birds and lock on and for the next hour or so it's a mini-Woodstock. People mob up behind the scope and do rerun after rerun after rerun. There's a kid and a staffer grabs the other end of a bench so's he can get a nice shot without the tripod being majorly reconfigured. Comes in useful for a few other lower altitude type folk who later trickle in.

And the laser was invaluable in locating the birds for folk not currently looking through the scope. And I was painting the lower bird's tail and (s)he couldn't have cared less.

I think eventually the birds moved back in far enough for the views to be crap relative to what everybody'd had already and things dissipated.

We roll for our room at La Casona - 10°26'11.14" N 084°42'50.85" W - 160 feet closer to lake level and a quarter mile closer to lake edge.

[Tad Eareckson]

La Casona is a large building housing five private rooms, reasonably generous shared lavatory / shower facilities, a central commons area. It's low at the end of its line but I've still got about eight feet of vertical to play with to get the car restarted. We move in.

I DESPISE fans. If I'd wanted wind, noise, exposure I'd have stayed outside. At the end of a punishing warm/hot day I want outta the sun and wind, soft light, a little cooler, peace, quiet. Guess who LOVES fans.

Night One at Selva Verde - 2019/01/10-11 - HM's got the fuckin' ceiling fan spinning. After he fades off I try to kill it with a remote. I can control the speed with the remote that also controls air conditioning function. I get the latter neutralized and the fan speed minimized but I can't kill it - or figure out that there's a wall switch that deals with on/off. I freeze awake for hours before HM finally in the wee ones gets cold enough to wake up and do the switch.

So while I've dealt with the car and gear HM has moved into Two and put it into wind tunnel mode. It's the middle of January, late in the afternoon, we're over forty percent of a mile up from sea level... It ain't all that goddam hot, humid, uncomfortable. I give moving in, unpacking, reorganizing in that environment a shot for fifteen seconds, fuck this, relocate to the commons area, bring my efficiency level down to thirty percent of what it would've been otherwise.

The Lodge has vans to shuttle their patrons around the complex. It gets to be dinner time about the same time I realize that I haven't secured the GPS receiver. Must still be on the suction cup windshield mount in the car - which I typically don't keep locked when it's empty and in a fairly secure situation.

I make the call for a Lodge taxi and figure five or ten minutes before it shows up but the goddam thing's already shown up fifteen seconds before I've made the call 'cause somebody else had previously made the call.

I don't wanna hold people up because I've not properly gotten my shit together; it's dark; somebody's gonna hafta see it, wanna steal it, try the door to determine whether or not it's locked; this is a secure facility - you get in (and out) through a gate controlled by a security guy who checks the validity of the incomings.

I THINK I see the receiver in the windshield mount as our headlights hit the glass. If I did it would be for the last time.

After dinner I look and soon start running out of sane still-have-it scenarios. Tear what's left of the car down in the dark, go through every cubic inch of my gear - repeatedly, search the drawers and other places it can't be. I haven't forgotten my Playa Negra hysteria incident but this was the real deal and I phone it in - for whatever that's gonna be worth.

Hours worth of recovery time down the toilet and replaced with stress.

Before the trip I'd thought about what a disaster it would be if something happened to that receiver and had picked up a used duplicate off of eBay, loaded all the stored waypoints. Hadn't loaded the non US maps though 'cause they're about a hundred bucks a pop and are only good for one receiver per purchase. Fell asleep installing the Garmin Central and South American stuff which covered us.

Rechecked the car with benefit of daylight when it next rolled around but no better results.

Garmin nüvi 3590LMT - S/N: 2H8008666. I'd had it for a million years, it had gone everywhere with me and kept me alive. Felt/Feels like losing an old friend. And if that fuckin' fan hadn't been blasting when I'd needed to regroup I'd still have it - along with several hundred dollars worth of maps - and a substantial chunk of the trip would've gone a helluva lot better.

Another thought for whatever it's worth... If I hadn't had a backup receiver I'd have virtually certainly said fuck fifteen seconds worth of minor inconvenience for the driver and four or five other passengers and said "Sorry folks - I need to grab this thing before we roll outta here."

Guess I'd rather have it stolen and be of continued use to someone rather than accidentally backed over or dropped into Drake Bay and destroyed.

P.S. Guess how many people have acquired the nav stuff, learned how to use it, loaded the maps, punched in the waypoints, cared for it on the many legs of the trip. Compare that to the number of individuals who benefit from it. (I get something close to fifty percent. (Plus it's kinda nice to have a dedicated navigator at one's disposal when one is trying to drive through demanding terra incognito.))

[Steve Davy]

Descend on a small gathering consisting of the manager and maybe half a dozen guests at the couches. One of our new birding buddies is holding the little Two-Finger. "Wanna hold him?" "What a stupid question. Gimme."

And you didn't get any photos of that!? I wanna' bonk you on the head for not getting pictures to share.

[Tad Eareckson]

Jan, Steve, probably miguel, undoubtedly the untold scores of ecotourists who used the scope for cool stuff... Yeah, I need to start getting with the Twenty-First Century. No more trips on the horizon but I'll try to get properly equipped and up to speed if I survive long enough for another to rear its ugly head.
---
Start 2019/01/14 in total shit shape - and that's not gonna improve any as the day goes on. We're booked for a Canoa Aventura Caño Negro tour way the hell up 37 plus crowflight miles a little west of straight north from where we're lodging.

Drive up to the reception/restaurant area to pick up alleged bag breakfasts and wait forever for mostly inedible sugar stuff. Then we have to loop back clockwise around three quarters of the volcano base to get pointed back to La Fortuna and the Canoa Aventura base facility. Get on a small bus with piloted by Milton Aguilar with Seydis (pronounced Sadie - hope I have it spelled right) as our guide. About a dozen of us passengers - the rest just general wildlife interest folk.

Weather sucks a fair bit - overcast, drizzle, occasional heavier rain. At first I get a feeling that this is gonna be something of a canned tourist deal but soon find out that Seydis really has her shit together on the birds and wildlife we'll be encountering.

The Caño Negro area isn't on the same planet that the rest of Costa Rica is. We haven't seen any habitat remotely like up to this point in the trip and won't after. Flat, wetlands (world class), squiggly rivers, a lot of it's well north of a substantial chunk of Nicaragua - including the area in which we'll be spending most of our time.

Pick up a healthy handful of sloths - both flavors - along the road. There's a Squirrel Cuckoo - which I really want but doesn't cooperate well enough for a good score, first Spectacled Caiman in a glorified puddle next to the road (there'll be no shortage later in the excursion.)

I call out, "Hawk. White breast." That gets the bus stopped and backed up. White-Tailed Kite. I'd figured there'd be plenty more ahead but it turned out to be the only one for both that tour and our trip.

10°58'37.00" N 084°44'26.45" W - I think it's a hub for several ecotour outfits to switch from bus to Rio Frio boat mode. There's a shelter with lavatory facilities, food, tables. We board our boat and chug downstream. I failed to record our turnpoint but I don't think we got very far 'cause it was a real target rich environment.

The partially undermined trees angled out over bring to mind the wonderful little Proboscis Bats...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proboscis_bat

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Long-nosed_proboscis_bats.JPG

...we had on first full Belize day on the Belize River. I know their game and start looking.

No shortage of Green Iguanas. Seydis brings our attention to a large female in easy view. I comment that she's working on a new tail. Seydis says, yeah, she saw her lose the original to a Capuchin Monkey. (Wow. Small world.)

Thick with Spectacled (only flavor) Caiman. One of them's holding an Iguana partially underwater. They'll leap up and snatch them off lower branches. There's a Black Vulture standing a few feet away up on the bank with a distinctive "You gonna eat all that yourself?" look.

Basilisks. But EMERALD Basilisks. Don't think I knew that such beasts existed until then. Really spectacular.

Anhingas and Neotropic Cormorants. Wood Storks. Three Kingfishers - Ringed, Amazon, Green. Nice Bare-Throated Tiger Herons in addition to just about all the other's you wanna name.

There's a younger couple sitting on front of me and she has a longish camera lens aimed out to starboard. I redirect accordingly and call "Boat-Billed Heron - two thirty." "Great. Thanks." "Thank them." They say they don't know their birds, I say that's OK, you found it.

We get a Potoo. It's a Great but the Common we got on Tobago has a similar range in this part of the country. The view, unfortunately, is nothing like the experience we were afforded with the other bird. This one's high up in a riverside tree - viewing angle is painful, weather and lighting are crap - everything's gray (as the bird itself is supposed to be. Looks like an owl. I get enough face to make it a solid Potoo but I'm not tempted to try to get the position hold extended.

Get our first Costa Rican Howler Monkey's on visual. These are Mantled Howlers, Golden subspecies. Belize has same genus, different species - Yucatan Black.

White-Faced Capuchins, Central American species.

Nicaraguan Spider Monkeys. Seydis says they have no thumbs, binocular says likewise, Wikipedia says reduced or non-existent.

Another sloth or two if I recall correctly.

Seydis gets the goddam Proboscis Bats - I'd forgotten to keep checking the likely overhangs. We get pretty close but they hold position. I do manage to get an individual everyone else has missed - by accident though. I'm scanning the trunk with the glasses too far up, get a single, wonder where everyone else is.

We get a fairly heavy rain at some point in the excursion but the duration isn't very long and it doesn't fall sideways.

Realize my baseball cap from Death Valley National Park with the Peregrine on the front is no longer amongst my belongings. Search the boat after everyone else has disembarked, the bus, the little port facility... Come up empty. Fuckin' fan set me up for getting the GPS stolen, that associated stress set me up for today's item.

Rolling back...

Costa Rica abolished its military 1948/12/01. And with Nicaragua being the neighbor to the north... I've wondered just how sustainable this situation is. And it turns out that I'm not the only one who's been wondering about this. There's a discussion with just about all the other passengers, Seydis covers the issues and questions pretty well. But there's a vulnerability on that front and I think everyone - including Seydis and Yours Truly - feels a little unsettled about it. I ask if they've considered building a wall, get a laugh, then have to immediately duck for cover.

Weather gets nice, sky goes cloudless, we get a great shot of a line of southern volcanos - our home one being westernmost. And that'll be the last shot we get of any of those peaks prior to getting airborne for the flight that's gonna get us about halfway home.

Disembark back at La Fortuna, pop the clutch, drive back around the volcano, park up at reception, go out to the observation deck, top of Arenal's already gone again.

And GODDAMMIT. While we were on our way back from Caño Negro they'd had a goddam KING VULTURE pass through. That's a bird to KILL FOR and it'll probably be ten years before they get another fly-by at that deck - or anywhere else in the neighborhood. (I'd done a not bad painting of one (from a book or magazine photo) in third grade.)
---
Edit
- 2019/02/20 22:55:00 UTC
- 2019/02/21 17:15:00 UTC

[Tad Eareckson]

2019/01/15. Next stop is Albergue Heliconias Lodge at the 10:30 position on the periphery of the next volcano - Tenorio - to the northwest. Ninety clicks on the road, pretty much on the way to our 2019/01/16-18. Thank gawd HM scrubs it in favor of a third night at Arenal in Casona 2.

Had a few things going for it but after the GPS theft disaster and near full day doing Caño Negro another relocation at that point would've killed both of us. This will be our only three nighter for the trip and I would advise anybody contemplating anything like this to consider three nights as an absolute minimum.

Get up to the reception area for breakfast then get all my toys operational on the observation deck. About 09:00 somebody gets a Black (Chestnut) Mandibled Toucan...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chestnut-mandibled_toucan
Chestnut-mandibled toucan


...(Ramphastos ambiguus swainsonii) parked close in on our level to the right/east of the fruit feeder setup in a small tree affording us a totally unobstructed view. (Ramphastos genus Toucans (Keel- and Groove-Bills being a couple others) seem not to do fruit feeders.)

The Black-Mandible is a BIG FUCKING BIRD. This is as big as any Toucan gets. The Keel-Bill is a pretty big fuckin' bird but pales a bit by comparison. And suddenly he's coming straight at my head with the afterburners cut in looking like a bullet aimed right between my eyes. I'm seeing this perfectly symmetrically head-on - yellow upper mandible, a little yellow face and throat, black body and wings.

I have zero concern about being hit but I've never had anything like this happen before. Closest I'd ever come was a Cooper's Hawk taking the shortest route between herself and a dinner prospect low straight behind me and I knew what was going on. But in this one I'm not thinking about what's behind me as I can't see it as being relevant at this point.

Toucan buzzes right over my head, I spin around in a millisecond. Then I see what's going on and scream "NOOOOOOOOO!!!" so loud my throat's sore for the next three days. He's pulled up a good bit and will slam into the restaurant's upper level glass when I've gotten ten percent of my scream out.

The impact is absolutely HORRENDOUS, the bird plummets to the deck and starts spinning, I shout, "Get him!", miss my tackle, somebody scores a second or two later.

There's three of us on him. The other two guys have the body and wings, I have the bill. Bird's struggling but I gently stroke him and he settles down. (Maybe there was a correlation, maybe not.) One of the others starts checking out the bird very systematically - component by component. I say, "You look like you know what you're doing." He says he's a guide but not a vet. The other guy's a serious birder. I have a little blood on my left palm from the right side base of the bill and report it.

After a bit our vet reasonable facsimile recommends we take him back down the hill to the area from which he started, get him perched, back off, pray for the best, keep an eye on him. Looks astoundingly well when we leave him and we keep rotating down to see how he's doing. Pretty soon it's reported that he's starting to look around. After about a half hour Birder reports that he took off and flew "strongly" to the north.

Somebody asks me for a status report a bit later and I hafta choke back tears to get out an answer.

A little later a Black-Mandible comes over from the north at about a hundred feet. Hopefully/Probably our guy.

Later in the day somebody tells me that the Keel-Bills are back in the fruit tree across from reception. "Thanks, but I don't wanna see anything that even LOOKS like a toucan for the next three days."

I discuss the incident with a manager. The Lodge has - after consultation on the issue - installed all over all the glass (on the outdoor side) of all the buildings these curtains of black cords that hang the lengths of windows - overhand knots at the bottom ends. I'd first noticed them at our La Casona lodging and thought they were decorative. They sway in the wind - and there's ALWAYS wind at this place.

Damn. I just did a Google search for: birds glass collisions cord. And look what makes it to the Numero Uno slot:

http://www.birdsavers.com/
Acopian BirdSavers


The manager says this approach has cut their hits to a fraction of what they'd had before. And I shudder to think about what they'd had before. Later it occurs to me that Asa Wright...

http://photofeathers.wordpress.com/2014/01/

http://photofeathers.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/img_0082.jpg

...doesn't use glass. Damn near the same latitude, half the elevation. Yeah, you have to scoop the occasional hummingbird out of your granola but so what?

We have feeders out back and I use what comes into them for scope target practice. Set up in the dining room, shoot through the patio door and over the deck railing. Keep the curtains drawn when I'm not manning the scope to prevent bird strikes. Last November I was having fun with the Juncos and White-Throated Sparrows who'd recently migrated in for the winter. Got complacent about the curtain.

Hear a really nasty sounding impact, jump up, dash out, pick up the little White-Throat. Dies in my hand about ten seconds later. It was a good while before I felt like playing with the scope after that. But now when I've gotten distracted and walked away with the curtain open it doesn't take long for the alarm to go off in my head.

A comment on our Casona lodgings...

The place has got lotsa square and cubic footage, rooms, doors, windows. I'm not long in there before there's a door slam that has me lift six inches off my chair. A fellow lodger says, yeah, you gotta keep all the doors closed at all times cause that's what happens when there's any wind.

Well, there's ALWAYS any wind, mostly fairly strong any wind, I imagine if you put a variometer in any room it would be constantly screaming up and down, and remembering to shut doors isn't working for me. After a day or so I initiate a personal policy of cranking shut all the glass louvers on all the publicly accessible windows every time I detect a problem. End of problem - And nobody dies of asphyxiation.

Observation deck - post Toucan emergency...

Young couple with two little kids - five and three maybe - shows up. Muslim, undoubtedly from one of those terrorist countries with which our (Bob's) president has dealt with his travel ban, fluent English. I let them play with my toys.

He's not an experienced birder but goes totally nuts with what's available there. Hugely appreciative, taking iPhone shots of the fruit feeder stuff through the scope. Enjoyed the company the rest of the day - and neither of the little bundles of energy knocked over my tripod even once.

In the mammals department... Frequently hear a Howler troop moving on the slope to the northwest. Fair sized band of Coatis patrols under the feeder and elsewhere on the slopes around the deck. Not shy of guests strolling the paths. Agoutis.

Birds... Great Curassows are frequenting the feeder and nearby areas. HUGE Galliformes birds - think turkey. And they fly to the raised fruit feeders to snack and look monumentally out of place. Seven tanager species, the last Montezuma Oropendolas we'll have for the trip.

There's a Black-Mandibled in the toucan tree across from reception when the sun's getting low.

Speaking of tripods... At some point in the trip - I'm guessing about here - I notice that my head / balance rail / scope assembly abruptly develops a flop. Left and right a couple degrees. The problem's with the Connection Plate (at the top end of the Center Column.



Shit!

Oh well, I have a backup Swarovski CT101. Swap out the Center Column assemblies, move the DH101 head (which is only gonna hold the binocular) to the floppy Connection Plate, move the PTH for the scope assembly to the backup. Back in gear. Do the warranty hassle back home. See? You WEREN'T too anal prepping for these trips.
---
Amended:
- 2019/02/22 15:00:00 UTC
- 2019/02/22 18:50:00 UTC

[Tad Eareckson]

2019/01/16. Some hours after the Toucan incident I started wondering what our bird was seeing when he initiated that short disastrous flight to the south. So after breakfast, 09:00, sky cover / lighting is the same, out to the far edge of the deck, about-face, I'm looking at a forest.

Horrifying. It's dark tinted glass so the forest is darker than everything else around but otherwise it's a mirror image of what's behind me. We humans know we're looking at glass so just see the glass - and the cords curtain swaying right in front of it. The big picture reflection "far beyond" the surface gets written off, ignored, omitted from the equation. But look at it in bird mode...

We lodged at thirteen establishments in the course of the trip. Dining facilities...

- Savegre, Bougainvillea, Arenal used glass. Savegre at 7200 feet needed it 'cause it can get cold as hell early and late in the day.

- Cascata Del Bosco, Rancho Naturalista, Hacienda Guachipelín, Selva Bananito, Selva Verde, Villa Lapas, Hotel Carara were open - à la Asa Wright.

- Vista Drake and Playa Negra had no dining facilities but the walking distance services we used were open.

- Palo Verde was screened.

Bye-bye observation deck, back down to La Casona to prep to roll.

Get all the luggage staged at the entrance, roll start the car, move it to loading position, leave the engine running, swing open the trunk door, a House Gecko drops out onto the road surface. I reach for him, goddam lizard scrambles for cover under the left rear tire.

I'm pointed slightly uphill and if I drift back so much as an inch when I try to regain forward motion I'm gonna squish him. I very carefully manipulate parking brake, gas, clutch; drive forward several yards; find no squished gecko on the check. They're Asian invasives but still...

La Casona is the original family farmhouse and it has really nice straight-on view of Lake Arenal - which in 1979 got its area tripled with the construction of a hydroelectric dam which supplies the country with twelve percent of its juice. And they have even more renewable juice being generated at a wind turbine farm at the far end of the lake - which doesn't look all that far away (twenty crowflight miles).

Doesn't take all that long after crossing the Arenal Dam (10°28'29.77" N 084°45'39.18" W) to realize that one isn't gonna be reaching that turbine farm anytime soon. The first couple miles are all brutal switchbacks and the relevant terrain's gonna be all the same until you can clear the upstream end of the lake and start losing your couple thousand feet of elevation.

And when we finally do the land gets much drier fast. We're entering a different world.

At Cañas we pick up the Pan-Am to continue northwest and on this stretch it's pretty much like a US Interstate. Environmental issues aside, it's an enormously pleasant change. (And the engine, transmission, gas gauge are a lot happier too.)

Liberia, another three klicks to the turnoff, up the slope towards the caldera of Volcán Rincón de la Vieja - 6286 feet. Last eruption - 2011/09. Hacienda Guachipelín - 1780 feet.

This one's NOT a birding center. We're stalled a fair fraction of forever at reception while the desk deals with a very short line, binoculars are pretty much nonexistent, nobody's talking to or displaying the slightest interest in anyone else. There's a swimming pool out back and a queue for a zip line a few yards beyond just outside the perimeter and across the road. Whitewater tubing, mountain bikes, horses, mountain hiking trails... Maybe stumble across an interesting bird or two here and there. Eventually get golf carted downhill to the east to our room.

Sky is clear, it's hot and - after pretty much about everything else we've experienced prior to this point in the trip - shockingly dry. And there's this horrendous constant wind blasting downslope / from the northeast. And some rocket scientist figured it would be nice to have hammocks strung up in front of all the room entrances. And they're unceasingly being violently whipped, flipped, twisted.

I've never seen anything like this before and figure this wind has to have a name - like Santa Ana. It does:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papagayo_Jet
Papagayo Jet

(Golfo Papagayo is straight west of us.)

The whole setup feels like the beginning of a spaghetti western - atmospheres both meteorological and social. Maybe also a touch of geographical.

I get moved in and wanna play with the scope, set it up close out front. Crappy time of day and conditions for birds but there's a nice moon rising but still comfortably low in the east - five days shy of full (at which time it's gonna get totaled). It's a pretty cool view - despite or possibly because of the fact that there's some atmospheric turbulence induced distortion.

Next door neighbors are mom and dad, ten and seven year old boy kids. Spanish/English bilingual - the latter is flawless, the former undoubtedly so. I invite them to take a view, they take me up.

Very shortly thereafter dad's back in the room and calls to the kids, about the same range out that I am, in English (it just occurred to me), "Come here. I want to tell you something."

Now whatever COULD THAT be? Two guys travelling together. Dangerous perverts. Maintain a wide berth at all times.

Yeah, well fuck you and the horse you rode in on too.

The survival educational moment doesn't seem to have been all that effective for the younger one however 'cause about a minute and a half later (while I'm still out at the scope), clad in bathing suit only, he walks into our room. In an Academy Award caliber display and tone of nonchalance (as my heart starts seizing up) I say "Uh... Wrong room..." at about the instant he's figuring that out on his own.

Consequence of Yours Truly still being in bird people mode in a non bird people environment. Lesson learned... When in an environment with significant hostility undertones then do as the fuckin' Romans.

I act as if I were deaf, stupid, clueless for the rest of our stays. (They arrived and checked out on the same schedule as ours.)

Parrots, as usual, are plentiful and loud but in this drier environment they're a lot more visible in the treetops and thus identifiable. White-Fronted Amazon was the flavor of the day.

HM at this point in the trip is in much worse physical shape than I am. Right leg badly swollen, discolored, oozing (from probable chigger damage on the last one), generally sick. Calls for a golf cart taxi to run us up to dinner, there's supposed to be one within five minutes. After getting out to the road and staring uphill at dark emptiness for a couple I say fuck this and walk. It's not that far and less than twenty feet vertical.

Get a table and wait. And wait. And go to the desk and tell them the situation. And wait. Forty fuckin' minutes before they manage get him transported 120 yards. And I'm totally smoldering.

[Tad Eareckson]

2019/01/17. Park our butts out on the porch area before breakfast. Wind at this time of day is less horrendous than yesterday's afternoon stuff but I still get inspired to undo a couple Bowlines and relocate our hammock into the room. Big improvement. Lotsa bird action in close - and not so.

White-Throated Magpie-Jays are the hardest to miss and fail to identify.

HM gets a Squirrel Cuckoo, I get a less crappy view of it than I did for the one on the Caño Negro excursion but I'm still less than thrilled. And that'll be my last shot at one this trip.

Orange-Fronted and Orange-Chinned Parakeets - neither in the same genus nor similar in appearance.

I get an easy Turquoise-Browed Motmot parked low conspicuously on the nearest available bare branch.

Walk up the hill, get a first-for-the-trip Black Spiny-Tailed Iguana (same species as Belize) who's emerged from his stone retaining wall cave to soak up a little sun and a pair of Hoffman's Woodpecker working their nesting cavity. At breakfast, get entertained by a family of Rufous-Naped Wrens working roof beams, deck railings, tables and not particularly shy of people.

During the day stay within a fairly short radius of the room. Wind ramps back up, social atmosphere seems to thaw a good bit. Folk up the drive appreciate getting good looks at parked parrots through the glasses.

Dad asks me about recent birding experiences. "Lotsa great ones, one really horrible one." (Two days ago at this point, throat's still sore.) Ten Year Old misunderstands me and says, "There are no horrible birds." Stands up to somebody six and a half times his age in defense of birds. Give him a couple points. "I didn't say the BIRD was horrible. I said the EXPERIENCE was horrible." Give them the recount. Dad says some stuff that indicates he's more familiar with birds than I'd been assuming.

At dinner a crowd starts pushing the deck railing behind me, leaning out flashing iPhones. There's a snake - I'd guess six feet with a slender rat snake build - moving on a long mostly horizontal limb fairly close in. But the lighting is such that he just looks silvery in comparison to the limb and branches - I can't get shit in the way of colors or pattern.

Starts descending and go down the stairs to ground level to intercept but the lighting is so poor that I can't tell whether or not one of the vines I'm looking at is a snake. Only too late does it occur to me that I had with me in my backpack a Maglite flashlight I was using to store a pair of fresh AAs for the stabilized glasses. Shit.

[Tad Eareckson]

2019/01/18. Do the birds from the porch thing again, similar traffic. The Motmot shows up at about the same time on precisely the same perch. Neighbors are out and about, I tune them in. Dad can handle the stabilized glasses, Kids can't. I get the scope up and targeted, Kids stand on a chair and score. Mom too (minus chair).

Turquoise-Browed Motmot is a really cool bird. It's the national bird of both El Salvador and Nicaragua - two outta three of the neighbors to the north. Honduras, the other one, has the Scarlet Macaw. Belize is the Keel-Billed Toucan. Mexico is, arguably, the Crested Caracara (although the Golden Eagle is what's on their flag.) Guatemala - Resplendent Quetzal. Costa Rica is the Clay-Colored Thrush. Panama is the Harpy Eagle - we can pretty safely forget that one. But otherwise we're doing really well.

We've had nice Keel-Bills on a number of occasions on our relocation drives. Always good for a morale boost but no need to pull over to really soak them in.

At breakfast last evening's snake hasn't seen fit to make an appearance in decent light but the cool Wrens are again around to help brighten the start of the day.

Neighbors pack and load. Great meeting y'all (not really), hope you have a nice rest of tour. Never got anything but warm, friendly, appreciative vibes from Mom, by the way.

Hammock goes back up for the next guests to "enjoy".

I'd left the car in ideal starting position with respect to gravity but as afternoons wear on other vehicles get packed in in front of it such that exit will only be possible with a running engine. But I figure as morning wears on towards noon checkout time things will thin out pretty nicely. That, in fact, proves to be the case but I reposition anyway to minimize the possibility of getting screwed by a tour bus.

Pack and stage, I bring the car down, still plenty of vertical left for a restart. Roll out, head up the slope for a bit into some more open habitat, score Striped-Headed Sparrow, turn around at the Las Pailas Ranger Station (not that there's a choice at that point), descend back down to the Pan-Am, SE back to Bagaces, south and a bit west on gravel and dirt to Parque Nacional Palo Verde and its Biological Station (Organization for Tropical Studies) - which will provide our next lodgings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_National_Park
Palo Verde National Park

The park protects one of the most endangered ecosystems. It is one of the last remaining tropical dry rainforests that once covered most of Central America. Tropical dry rainforests now exist in less than 0.1% of their original size and are considered to be the most endangered ecosystems in the tropics.

After Bagaces start running through cattle rangeland - Cattle Egrets, Crested Caracara, female Kestrel (only Kestrel for the trip), Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher. Rice paddies - tons of waders.

Enter dry deciduous forest for the final stretch. Ridges within it rise to over six hundred feet but the road dodges them really well. Seems like there's a big Spiny-Tailed Iguana staking out territory on the road every hundred yards. They typically gallop ahead on the left side trying to outrun you for a while before doing a hard left into cover. And I never see a scale's worth of evidence that one has ever been run over.

Reach goal on the southern edge of the forest, find a good parking situation (not much of a trick 'cause we're at the beginning of one of those multi-hundred foot rises), check in at the office. The guy who's checking us in, we find, is Jose - the guide we've had engaged for a bit of the stay. Room's up the hill a not unreasonable bit, move in.

Big male Iguanas stake out territories on the walkways. People just walk around them to get where they're going.

I'm dying to hit the marsh with the scope and have somebody point me to the observation tower I've heard something (not enough) about. It's about 270 yards from the entrance drive west on the road and south through the treeline. I'm less than thrilled when it comes into view. Maybe thirty feet, entirely welded rebar, listing substantially to port, sign designating two as max capacity.

Scope stays on the ground, I go up with the glasses, climb such that my life will never be dependent on a single rung or rail. When I get to the top I get a nice view of the boardwalk to which I SHOULD HAVE hiked. Its end is 270 crowflight yards from my current precarious position.

But this position is pretty good for the only two ducks we'll have for the trip - Black-Bellied Whistling and Muscovy. And the Muscovies are the real deal - not feral domestic stuff. Also not introduced wild stuff. They're from Mexico and Central and South America - nothing at all to do with the old world, despite the name.

Back down the tower with the same technique, emerge from the treeline, encounter Jose. He brings to my attention the troop of Howlers in the branches twenty feet straight over the path I'd just taken. Guess that's why he's the guide and I'm the stupid Yankee ecotourist. Also points out the Palo Verde (Green Stick) tree (Parkinsonia aculeata - a legume) for which the park is named.

We continue west to the boardwalk. The road edges are lined with antlion pit traps. I don't think there's one of them more than two inches from another. And it's like this for gawd knows how many miles. Should've checked on the way back out to see if they extended outside of the forested areas.

Boardwalk is a vast improvement over my first observation point - make it all the way out to the end without ever once fearing for my life. Much better scope platform too. Jacanas and Purple Gallinules rate mentions in the colors department. A nearby pair of Double-Striped Thick-Knees hanging out close in to the east is a nice addition to the species list.

A Macaw comes in to roost close to our east. Sun's low behind us, lighting is stunning. I know where I'm gonna be at this time tomorrow.
---
Amendment - 2019/02/26 02:30:00 UTC

Just two of us remaining out at the end of the boardwalk. The other guy notices a faded green baseball cap strapped to a railing plank. "This yours?" No, but I just lost one not unlike it five days ago." The poor thing looks like it's been getting battered by sun and wind for about a year. "Nobody's coming back for this one." I undo it and bring it back with me. Got a little use out of it on the trip and works for wearing around the house.

[Tad Eareckson]

2019/01/19. Head over to breakfast, there's a mini-herd of Collared Peccaries - three or four individuals I think - attracting attention. They were high up on my to-do list and I waste no time. They've moved from the open in front of the dining building east into the woods pretty quickly and they're being followed by a fair crowd of us. But they're not fleeing us - just foraging through as they would if we didn't exist.

Just learned that they're no longer pigs - which originated in the Old World. They're now family Tayassuidae - a separate branch.

After breakfast we're supposed to be at the west end of the road and a dock on the east bank of the Tempisque River - 10°20'30.26" N 085°21'58.10" W - by 07:30 for an upstream boat tour. Pick up a few more Peccaries en route. Also lotsa little groups of little Ruddy Ground-Doves. They entertain themselves with competitions to determine who can stay ground bound longest without being crushed by the tires. Find a solid parking situation upon arrival.

Down the steps to the dock. In the shadow of and close to the bank I see breaking the surface a snout tip and - way the hell behind it - a pair of eyes. Holy Shit! Note to self: Be very careful when boarding.

Our driver/guide does bird species names in accented English but that's about all for our language. Also has a laminated sheet with names and illustrations of everything we're gonna see so he can point for IDs. And both of us are pretty well up to speed on the local birds anyway so things work out fine.

Sky is clear blue, river is opaque brown. The tide's ebbed a lot recently and that translates to a lot of exposed wet mud - consistency and viscosity of grease - on the shores. TONS - literally - of Crocodiles (American) hauled out and soaking up the rays. Typically as we approach they will very slowly and calmly turn downslope if necessary, initiate a little forward motion, slowly ooze into the river, submerge.

They max out here at about five meters and I'm guestimating that translates to about three quarters of a ton. Our guide's alerting us to the maxes and we never hafta wait very long for the next one. Wanna scare yourself shitless just think about being boatless anywhere in or within ten yards of the edge of the river.

But talk about disturbing wildlife... I'm feeling a little bad 'cause damn near everything we approach slips into the river. But I also notice that they're expending very little energy in the exercise. And based on what I see shortly after we turn back downstream for port they're not taking long to resume sunbathing.

The density is astonishing. It's hard to imagine how that much habitat manages to support that level of apex predator biomass.

We're also pushing a lot of the herons, egrets, ibises we approach into flight. (Compare/Contrast with laser impact.) Oh well, they've been doing this since the beginning of time and things are still looking great.

However, with respect to the crocs, another human based disturbance/interference issue...

http://www.ticotimes.net/2016/08/23/costa-rica-crocodiles-conflicts
Costa Rica's crocodile conflict - The Tico Times

Lindsay Fendt - 2016/08/23

For the last six years, Bolaños has worked with SINAC in the Tempisque River to select crocodiles to kill or relocate before the breeding season. The annual crocodile cull was deemed necessary in 2010 after the discovery of a severe imbalance in the sex ratio.

Crocodile sex, as with many reptiles, is determined by the temperature during egg incubation. Scientists believe that climate change and deforestation are driving the temperature too high and causing a surplus of male crocodiles.

Unable to find mates, male crocodiles have become more aggressive, a trait Bolaños believes endangers the species as a whole.

Wood Storks, Tiger and Boat-Billed Herons, Howlers... Two areas in Costa Rica you can score Jabirus if you're lucky. And we've already struck out at Caño Negro. But at 10°21'32.76" N 085°24'22.09" W one crosses the river from west to east not too high above us so Palo Verde came through. I'd hoped for better but this one wasn't bad. Immediately turn downstream and navigate for the dock. Get our only trip Osprey upon arrival.

[Tad Eareckson]

Back to the Biological Station for recovery, reorganizing, lunch...

Coatis wander through the complex, don't pay too much attention to us bipedals when competing for sidewalk space.

I'm looking closely at one of the Iguanas and notice he's wearing jewelry. Then check around and realize they're ALL wearing jewelry. They have little color coding plastic beads on pins punched through the bases of their crests above their necks (à la earring). The study people keep tabs on who's just showing up, holding or occupying territory, disappearing.

I'm really wanting to do the marsh but there's no way in hell I'm going out on that boardwalk with a high early to mid afternoon sun. But there's a little pavilion in front of the dining hall that affords a little wedge opening for the wet stuff. Maybe a fifty foot elevation advantage. I'll take it.

Set up the scope, start scanning, happy enough with the action. And delighted with the comfort.

A guy comes back in after a short trail excursion and ruins a good chunk of my day reporting all the cool stuff he's just encountered. Boa Constrictor is the one that really stuck. He says it's minimally demanding but I'm in such marginal shape - as usual - that I decide I can't afford to push myself at all.

Before long I discover a REALLY NICE raptor parked low out on a limb extending from the east into my slot just beyond the road. Very colorful, wide open view, sticks around forever. The only thing I can't see is the tail but he's preening and I frequently get excellent shots of that end.

The field guide has a dozen pages of plates with a dozen pages of descriptions in the range of candidates. I figure this one's gonna be brain-dead easy but after I've gone through eighty percent of what's available my heart starts sinking.

OK, let's start behaving like an ornithologist and take field notes. Got the laptop with me:

iris cere yellow (cere with tinge of pink)
black beak
uniform light gray head
orange breast - white barring - fading to white
long rusty black barred tail - white terminal

Also it's kinda small buteo in form.

Eventually takes off to the west but there was nothing more I could've done anyway.

Couple guides come by a bit later and I share my problem and description notes. Did I get a picture? Ahhhh... No. Then they tell me what a fuckin' idiot I am but I've already realized that. Yeah, there WAS something more I could've done and it should've been blindingly obvious.

They show me an iPhone shot of a Crested Caracara they got through a scope and it looks like magazine cover quality. It just never occurred to me to do that. The world's changed and people no longer do descriptions 'cause now everybody and his dog has a digital image of everything instantly.

HM is still in much worse shape than I am but he really needs to get out on the fuckin' boardwalk. Plan... I drive him down. Can't leave the car 'cause everything's flat as a pancake in that area. Dump him and the gear, take the car back up to base and park it, hike just myself down, relocate gear and personnel to the end of the boardwalk. Reverse to get back home for dinner.

Majorly worth it. If I were to have to pick just ONE experience for the trip...

A lot like the previous evening's excursion in terms of what was flying, wading, feeding but lots more time and tons of people with which to share stuff.

HM's gotten a goddam Spoonbill while I was doing the shuttle. Got my hopes up but... I don't know how many decades it's been since I last scored.

The Station was hosting some kind of study group of Dartmouth college kids who were engaging in some reasonably serious scientific stuff. I was eavesdropping on about ten percent of what their prof was feeding them and would've liked to have concentrated more but birds were the priority.

My guides buddies come out packing a Swarovski configuration identical to mine 'cept, as usual, they have a DH101 versus PTH head.

The Thick-Knees pair was back/still at their station maybe thirty yards out. A couple Crested Caracaras decided to keep them company. One of the Thick-Knees became irritated enough to charge one of the Caracaras and bite it in the side of its face. What happens next? Nothing. No retaliation, not the slightest hint of anger, no concern about a follow-up assault. Just continues enjoying the evening.

A pair of Macaws comes in but I don't get the view and lighting of the previous evening's. A little bat action that we hadn't had before.

I retrieve the car pretty quickly and efficiently then to dinner.

I invite myself over to my Swarovski guides' table and they switch to English mode. Their position is that when one's taking clients into the field one owes them the best possible viewing experience.
- Yeah. Well stated. Top quality optics SHOULD take high priority position in budgeting considerations.
- Glad to see we've reached pretty much identical conclusions with respect to equipment selection.

I don't think they understand one of the most important advantages one gains for the extra expense and all the extra weight and bulk of the PTH. Short physics lesson regarding pivot point, center of gravity, stability. Now they get it.

I mention my issue with the floppy CT101 Connection Plate. Up to this point I've been assuming that the Connection Plate was a pressed-in component something's just come a little loose. No, it's threaded. It's just backed out a bit from counterclockwise panning. Duh! Screw it back in tight and it'll be fine.

I did and it was. Shortly thereafter swapped everything back into original configuration, problem solved.

Things disperse after dinner, back to the room. Oops. I don't seem to have the key. I've just locked both of us out and there's not much, if anything, in the way of staff around anymore. Plan B. Big gap in the doorframe, use the car key to depress the latch. Three seconds and in. Then back over to the dining hall to check if I left it there. Chef's still in the kitchen, I'd left it on my Swarovski buddies' table.

But back in the room when reorganizing I find I no longer have the black nylon stuffsack I'd used for my baseball cap and sun protection hat.