Birding the Area Near the Talari Mountain Lodge

Roadside Hawks have been the default perched hawk in our area.

Marian and I took a 3-day 2-night trip to an area just uphill from San Isidro over the last 3 days. It was nice to get off on our own for a few days, really nice to get out birding with a great local guide, Andres Chinchilla, and finding lots of new birds was really fun.

Broad-winged Hawks are starting to show up overhead in northbound migration.

On Thursday we drove to an Quebradas, an area described in our Finding Birds in Costa Rica book as good birding with steep trails. The steep trails part was highly descriptive, and we barely scratched the surface of the area. I struggled to ID and find birds, but we did ID one legitimate Costa Rica bird, Slaty Antwren. Our list was only 7 species, but honestly we spent most of the time looking down at the very steep, at times slippery and difficult trails. Scenery with a rushing river, dense jungle, and lots of fauna was really nice.
After our trek there we found a great little bakery for lunch, where we sat, cooled down and had a nice relaxing lunch before going to the Talari Mountain Lodge.

Tanagers, like this Golden-hooded are the color highlights most days.

The lodge is quite a place. I agree with the guidebook describing it as a great place for beginning tropical birders. The grounds are heavily planted with fruiting plants, the feeders well stocked, the deck a great place to bird from, and overall an easy place to get good looks at relatively common birds. Lots of photographers like the place, but our first day we were the only guests, Friday several more joined us including a couple from the SE U.S. who are annual visitors to the American tropics.

I finally learned this Lesson’s Motmot’s two-hoot song after trying to figure out what owl or dove I was not seeing.

Friday Andres met us about 7:30, and we birded Talari for 55 minutes, listing 41 species including Smoky-brown Woodpecker, White-winged Becard, and Stripe-tailed Hummingbird. From there we went to a fabulous feeder setup just above the entrance to Parque Nacional Chirripo.

Red-headed Barbet

The owner Rolando has a great hummingbird feeder setup along with a fruit feeder, nice plantings, and a short trail down into a canyon. It was a great place for really good looks at the birds we saw, 36 species in total, but 11 lifers, essentiall all with very good looks, many with photos. IMO the best birds were Red-headed Barbet, Red-faced Spinetail, insanely colorful Violet Saberwings, Garden Emerald, Speckled, Golden-hooded and Silver-throaed Tanagers, and Scarlet-thighed Dacnis. It’s a place that could serve cervasa, and charge by the hour. Instead it is 2000 colones to park (about $3.20 USD) and a treat to the senses.

This photo does not do justice to the fabulous iridescence of these Violet Saberwings. Marian”s favorite hummer.

Today we got mixed up directions from Carlos, the owner/operator of the lodge. He arranged for us to use Andres again today to visit Cusingos, but didn’t tell Andres until this AM (he works an evening shift at a Kombuchca factory in Covid times) and didn’t tell us to meet him at Cusingos not at the lodge. This led to not getting to Cusingos until about 7:55 and missing the best 2 hours of the day for birding. Still a great day and really cool place. The famous and late-great Dr. Alexander Skutch bouth ther property there in 1941 (Andres says 75 hectacres for $10. USD) and rehabilited what was a cow pasture into what is now a second growth rain-forest. It is price as CR places go with a $20./ person USD entry fee, but has a nice gift shop, good easy trails, and great birds. In 3 1/4 hours there we saw 56 species including lots of lifers, with more great looks at great birds.

Scaled Pigeon

Highlights for me were a much better looks at Scaled Pigeon than we had at Talari early this AM, soaring Double-toothed, Short-tailed and Broad-winged Hawks, Russet Antshrike, Bicolored Antbird, three species of manakins, Rufous Spadebill, Rufous Piha, Golden-crowned Spadebill, Ochre-bellied Flycatcher, Golden-winged Warbler, Gray-headed and Bay-headed Tanagers, and maybe coolest of all an army-ant swarm. These ants are just tenacions, with a column maybe 100 ants wide steadily marching along just climbing over and past anything in their way.

Double-toothed Kite

We managed great looks without any bites, which Andres describes as “very strong.” An experience I did not regret avoiding.
We finished with a road overlooking a big farm, with nice looks at a Mourning Warbler, and more looks at previously seen species. We finished around noon, made a couple of errand stops in San Isidro coming home, and cooled off in the pool here.
A nice trip. I finished the trip with a CR list now of 308, 295 so far on this trip, 138 lifers, and so far feeling like I’m getting better if not at all good at birding here.

Speckled Tanager was Andres trigger bird. I can see why!

Rest tomorrow, to San Isidro Monday for Covid testing to allow us to fly home Thursday, a mangrove swamp boat ride Tuesday, then off to San Jose Wednesday for a flight to Florida Thursday. The trip is winding down and I feel like it has been a huge success in all regards.