Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja)

The Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) (sometimes placed in its own genus Ajaja) is a gregarious wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family.  I’m kind of partial to pink birds!

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They have quite a large range all over Mexico, Central America & South America.  Look for them when you visit eco-lodges along rivers in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. I saw this one near the large parrot clay lick near Napo Wildlife Center.  I also saw quite a few on the Tarcoles River in Costa Rica.

spoonbill

LEARN MORE ABOUT ROSEATE SPOONBILLS

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Audubon

VIDEOS

Check out the gorgeous colours close-up!

 

A pretty slideshow

 

Slow-mo in-flight!

 

Puntarenas, Costa Rica – The Ultimate “Birding From A Cruise Ship” Port

Costa Rica is one of the world’s great birding & eco-tourism destinations and really deserves a full land-based trip such as we did in 2013.  But if you happen to find yourself on a Panama Canal cruise, make sure Puntarenas (or nearby Caldera) is included!  Most ships will offer a good choice of eco-tourism options if you want to book with the cruise line.  Here are a few from Princess to give you an idea.

Scarlet Macaw Sanctuary, Boat Tour & Country Drive

Carara National Park, Pura Vida Gardens & Lunch

Rainforest Aerial Tram, Tarcoles River & Lunch

There is also a new Scarlet Macaw Sanctuary (not sure if this is where Princess is going now, they used to go to El Manantial) called the Ara Project.  They used to be based in Alajuela but recently relocated here.  I have pretty extensive posts on Carara & the Tarcoles River Cruise when we were there on a land trip so in this post I will give my advice for a shore excursion when you have limited time.

Puntarenas is one port where you are better off organizing a private trip.  You can sometimes recruit others to share the cost if you join your cruise’s Roll Call on Cruise Critic.  We ended up on our own but the price was reasonable even if we did pay it ourselves.  After much online research, I chose Odyssey Tours and Travel and it was an excellent choice!  The guide knew the local birds well and he took us to a great local place for lunch that had no other cruise people so it was really authentic.  They also have a tour sharing service.

In the map you can see our customized itinerary.  We started from the port (Puntarenas Excursions on the Google map), drove to Carara, spent the morning there, had lunch at that little restaurant on the beach (black line), went back towards the port stopping at the Molas souvenir shop and finishing at the El Manantial Sancturay (roughly “unnamed road”), then back to the ship.

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Warning, there is a ridiculous number of photos to follow!  I probably should have split this over 2 posts but I am trying to show you what you can do in just ONE day in this port!

Pre-dawn arrival and we were first off the ship.  Our guide picked us up and we hit the road to Carara to get to the Scarlet Macaws asap.

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We caught the Scarlet Macaws in time for breakfast.  This was a young family, we could tell by the way the young macaw kept going back and forth between his parents.  Since we had such a good view, we hung out here for over an hour.

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Reluctantly leaving the macaw family, we walked through the park looking for any kind of wildlife.

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We had lunch a bit early to make sure we had time for the afternoon program.  The food was delicious an it was only us and one other private tour group of 10 people here.  After lunch, we wandered down to the beach to watch sea birds.

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We had a quick drive through the town of Tarcoles then a quick stop where the crocodiles hang out under the bridge.  Some tour groups feed them.  Being Aussies, we weren’t all that fussed about seeing crocodiles.

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The Molas Souvenir Shop was about halfway back to Puntarenas.  They take all credit cards so I went a bit nuts here!  I would have been even worse if we hadn’t been limited for room!

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I really wanted those tables but didn’t know how to get them back to Australia.

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Enroute to the sanctuary, we lucked upon this beautiful motmot and trogon.

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Final stop was El Manantial Sanctuary.  The birds were rescued from smugglers or in some cases donated by pet owners who couldn’t keep them anymore.  You can see where the Great Green Macaws, Scarlet Macaws and Orange-fronted Parakeets have been set free but still hang around the facility to steal food from their still captive friends.  Only the species that are native to Costa Rica are set free here, others such as the Cockatoos and Hyacinth Macaws will stay in the aviaries.

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Here’s the end of the tour, a quick drive through Puntarenas and we were dropped at the end of the small market that pops up to serve cruise ships.  We did end up buying still more bird themed souvenirs!

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The ship docks at the end of a very long pier so they have a cute little train to get us back to the ship.  My poor husband was exhausted!

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I was more exhilirated after such a successful trip!

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Getting From Tarcoles To Savegre With Public Transport

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post on getting around Costa Rica.  This route is a perfect chance to show you how easy it is to get from one Costa Rican birding Mecca to another.  You do not need prior reservations, just hop on the next bus.  None of the buses we took were full, but we were traveling in the slow season.

A – Tarcoles
B – San Jose
C – Savegre

The bus stop nearest to our accommodation at Villas Lapas is on the main road and buses travel every hour to the capital city of San Jose.  There are no direct buses to Savegre, as in most cases you will need to change in San Jose.

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Across the street from the bus stop is a small shop.  I went over there to get some drinks and was surprised to hear the squawking of a parrot nearby close to the ground.  I played “dumb tourist” to investigate further.  I was dismayed and shocked to see a forlorn looking White-fronted Amazon and Orange-fronted Conure in tiny cages.  I really wanted to let them out but feared repercussions with the law so I snapped a couple pics quickly before the people in the house came out.

IMG_0973 IMG_0969 IMG_0968I knew at my next destination, Savegre; someone would know how to report this to the authorities and if they didn’t, Ara Project would.

IMG_0975The bus came and we bought tickets from the driver for around $8-ish.  The ride to San Jose is nothing special as it goes on the highway, but there were some interesting views.

IMG_0978 IMG_0980 IMG_0981Once in San Jose, we had to change from the Puntarenas bus station to the Musoc bus station.  We bought some sandwiches from Subway to bring with us for the 2nd leg of the trip, then used a taxi to get to the Musoc station which has moved from where it shows on the map below.  Unfortunately, there is no central bus station in San Jose so you have to use taxis to get from one to another.

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We bought tickets for a bus leaving in 15 minutes (service is roughly every 60-90 minutes) and had to scramble to find a payphone to call the Savegre Lodge so they could meet us at the drop off point.  We couldn’t find one so the ticket lady finally made the call for us.  The buses go to San Isidro de Perez Zeledon and you should buy a ticket for the “indirecto” or “colectivo” service.  Make sure the driver knows to drop you at Km 80 for San Gerardo de Dota.

IMG_0982 IMG_0984 IMG_0985 IMG_0986This journey was beautiful with the spectacular mountain scenery.  One stop was made at a small cafe for snacks and pit stops.  Half an hour later, the bus pulled over to KM 80 (we had asked him to let us know as we were tourists and unfamiliar with the area) and the truck from Savegre was waiting for us to begin our next adventure!

If you Google map this route, it looks like you are being dropped off in the middle of nowhere.  Actually, there is a small cafe at the junction.   The road leads to the small town of San Gerardo de Dota.

 

 

Mangrove Birding Tour, Tarcoles, Costa Rica

Although there are several tour operators for these Tarcoles River cruises, only one caters to birders.  It’s called Mangrove Birding Tour but the hotels such as Villa Lapas will know it better if you tell them you want Luis Campos.  He is a specialist in birding cruises and knows all the local species quite well.  His boat is smaller than the main ones that cater to tourist groups so he can get into smaller inlets and closer to shore.  You will see the difference in the photos below.  If you don’t have a car, he will send someone to pick you up.  The driver took us down to the beach beforehand to see Scarlet Macaws and fishing boats (what fishing boats, LOL).  You will be picked up around 7am-ish and it’s about a 2 hour cruise.

I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story!

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Other Sights & Shopping In Tarcoles, Costa Rica

Carara may be the major draw for eco-tourists to Tarcoles but there are other places to see as well.  See my post on how to get there if you haven’t already.

TARCOLES VILLAGE

Has restaurants, shops & tour operators.  You can book a Tarcoles River cruise here.

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Contrived & touristy but since it’s on the way to all the other attractions you might as well take a look.  If you do a Crocodile Man tour, you will see them jump for food.  I didn’t bother with this, not my cup of tea.  There are a couple small shops nearby.

IMG_5559 IMG_5557 IMG_5561 IMG_5562MOLAS & CAFE

Large souvenir shop with an attached cafe.  Molas actually come from Panama but you can get them here at reasonable prices (but more expensive than Panama) and the shop takes credit cards.  If you come with a guide, they will get a commission but if you are on a cruise ship stop, you won’t have time to avoid this.

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El Manantial Sanctuary, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

El Manantial is a project dedicated to the conservation of macaws native to Costa Rica. The main focus of the project is the Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) and the Great Green Macaw (Ara Ambigua), who once flew freely in many areas of Costa Rica. In 1994, individuals concerned with the status of these endangered species decided to create a project for their conservation; with the sole purpose of the project being the reintroducing of Macaws back into the wild, striving to increase their population numbers.

It’s very easy to organize a visit here whether you are on a cruise ship or land based.  Information on how to get to Puntarenas/Tarcoles is covered in my post on Carara National Park.

A guide will take you around the sanctuary.  You will see birds in aviaries and some wild birds who were either former aviary residents who were set free and decided to stick around or local wild birds who know a great place to find free food!

PHOTOS

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Carara National Park, Costa Rica

Carara National Park in Costa Rica is one of the best places in the world to see Scarlet Macaws.  They flock to the palm trees to eat the nuts and their bright red feathers make them stand out.

GETTING THERE

First see how to get to Costa Rica using a Central America award.  Then you can either rent a car or take the bus or tourist shuttle bound for Jaco and get off at the park entrance.  You can also get a bus from Puntarenas which is a popular cruise ship port.  On a previous visit, we were on a Panama Canal cruise that stopped in Puntarenas and booked a private tour with Odyssey Tours which I highly recommend. Our guide, Alvaro from Odyssey Tours  showed up before 7am and handed us to his birding guide-Nestor who studies biology and knows birds very well. We headed off to Carara National Park to see the scarlet macaws, this is one of the rare places in the world where they are common and can be easily found. The trails were muddy because the first rain of the season had been the previous night and we were struggling to stay on our feet. My husband was the first to fall flat on his back-not hurt but got all muddy. I later fell on my side because I was protecting my camera.

Location of Carara National Park

If you are on a land based trip, I recommend you stay at Villa Lapas.  Yes, it is older and could use some renovations but if you are there for the birds, you can’t beat the location on the south side of Carara National Park and chance to see the macaws and other birds on the grounds.   You can walk to the main part of Carara from here as well if you don’t mind the heat.

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In the map above which I found on Go Visit Costa Rica, I have highlighted the path you need to follow to see the macaws.  You will need a ticket first which costs $10 at the ticket office.  Then walk or drive to where I indicated “Path to palm trees”.  Go as early in the morning as possible to see the macaws fly in and enjoy a breakfast of palm nuts.  We spent about an hour here watching a family of Scarlet Macaws fly back and forth bringing nuts to another apparently more comfortable tree to eat them.  Then we went back to the main office area and took the trail to the right (yellow highlights).  By this time it was getting closer to noon when birds tend to take a siesta so we didn’t see much, just some leaf cutter ants and a cool looking frog.

When we did the tour with Odyssey, they took us to a local Costa Rican diner for lunch, then in the afternoon we saw more birds including a Violaceous Trogon and Turquoise-browed Motmot (the one with the long racquet-tail).  A complete bird list can be found here.

PHOTOS

There’s a lot here as I just couldn’t get enough of the Scarlet Macaws!  Lighting was poor but I did my best!

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Lodge Review: Villa Lapas, Carara, Costa Rica

Villa Lapas is adjacent to the Carara National Park.  From their website:

We are a rainforest-resort, located in the pacific coast of Costa Rica. We have become one of the Costa Rica’s top tourist choices, becoming a favorite of birdwatchers and nature lovers.

Our Hotel features 58 rooms surrounded by lush tropical gardens sitting in the midst of a private 500 acre rainforest reserve, with a beautiful river flowing alongside the resort complex.

A replica Of Costa Rica’s historical past, the Santa Lucia Town in Villa Lapas adds a quaint, charming touch to it’s natural surroundings. Santa Lucía includes a church, a local cantina, a lake, restaurant, two souvenir shops and other points of interest, perfect for weddings and private events too. And the Villa Lapas Canopy tour, where your adrenaline flows while you zip through the jungle.

 

We arrived in the early afternoon from Monteverde after being dropped off by the bus.  The grounds are beautiful as one would expect from being next to Carara.

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The reception, bar & restaurant are in a breezy open air area with views of the garden.

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The rooms are on the small side which was fine as we spent most of our time outdoors watching the birds.  The buildings have a Spanish colonial style.

IMG_0780 IMG_0784 IMG_0781 IMG_0782 IMG_0783You won’t have to go far to start birding.  You will find the same species here as you do in Carara but they can be easier to see with the wide open spaces.  We watched Scarlet Macaws flying to and from Carara & their roosting grounds.

IMG_0785 IMG_0786 IMG_0805 IMG_0807 IMG_0808 IMG_0811 IMG_0813 IMG_0815 IMG_0816The swimming pool was small and full of leaves so we didn’t go swimming though we did dangle our feet in the water to cool off.  We were amused by the iguanas running around, sometimes upright!

IMG_0795 IMG_0788 IMG_0787We walked across the bridge to the Santa Lucia Village just in time for an afternoon shower.  It’s a beautiful scenic walk past a small stream.

IMG_0790 IMG_0791 IMG_0793 IMG_0794 IMG_0796 IMG_0801On the opposite end of the property were some buildings that looked like staff quarters and an unused massage hut that would actually be better used as a bird hide.

IMG_0802 IMG_0803Dinner & breakfast are served as buffets and there was a decent variety of dishes-meat pasta, some local dishes that I found a bit spicy, soup & salad.  I forgot to bring my camera to dinner so no pics, sorry!  It started raining as we walked back so had to borrow an umbrella.

Although some hotel booking sites will show a link to Villa Lapas, they never seem to have availability so it could be the property isn’t using them anymore so no airline miles or Ultimate Rewards points.  They have an onsite secure booking form which gets the job done.

The staff are very friendly and helpful.  Although it’s a beautiful property, it does need renovations.  If you are a dedicated birder, you won’t care because the birdlife is amazing but if you are used to Sheratons & Intercontinentals you will probably be disappointed.  The reviews on Trip Advisor are pretty mixed.  Birders love it, normal tourists didn’t.

 

Traveling From Monteverde To Tarcoles Via Limonal

Last week, I did a post about the various types of transport in Costa Rica.  In this post, I will show you in detail what the trip is like between Monteverde and Tarcoles (Carara National Park).

I really should have booked this online but I waited on purpose so that Cala Lodge could make the booking and get a small commission as it would have cost me the same in any case.  As it turns out, they don’t have that set up so I might as well have booked it online.  I chose Grayline because it had the latest possible departure from Monteverde and I wanted to have the early morning to visit Monteverde’s Cloud Forest Reserve.

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Although Jaco is the main tourist area in southern Costa Rica, birders would be heading to Carara National Park to see the magnificent Scarlet Macaws.  Carara doesn’t appear in the drop-down menu, nor does Villa Lapas Lodge or Tarcoles.  Just pick the closest drop-off point and explain to the driver where you really want to go.

The minibus was right on time picking us up at Cala Lodge.

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Not sure of the name of the place but we picked up some other tourists there and I loved the stained glass windows!

IMG_0754aI had been expecting that the same minibus would take us all the way to Tarcoles/Jaco and was somewhat annoyed when I found out we had to change buses in Limonal, a place I was not familiar with.

A – Monteverde
B – Limonal
Yellow circle – Palo Verde National Park

My annoyance quickly changed to excitement when we got to the restaurant at Limonal were we did the changeover.  It turned out to be a short distance from Palo Verde National Park and frequented by wild Scarlet Macaws!  Unlike the clipped-wing Yellow Naped Amazon from the other trip, these birds were free but chose to hang out here, probably to steal food left by passengers.

IMG_0769 IMG_0755 IMG_0763 IMG_0766 IMG_0767 IMG_0770I finally managed to tear myself away from them long enough to buy a couple sandwiches, chips & drinks to take on the next bus to Tarcoles.  This was a larger bus and had the free wifi which was good because the scenery wasn’t so interesting on this leg, at least not until Puntarenas.

A – Monteverde
B – Limonal
C – Tarcoles

You can see how twisty the road was from Montverde as we came down the mountain and I was really glad that I wasn’t driving.  The road from Limonal to Puntarenas was a typical highway which got narrower between Puntarenas and Tarcoles.  The driver dropped us off at Villa Lapas which is right next to Carara National Park.  I really liked the door-to-door convenience of these shuttles even if they were more expensive than public buses.  From Montverde, the public bus left way too early, around 6am so wasn’t an option.

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Yellow-naped Parrot (Amazona auropalliata)

The Yellow-naped Parrot or Yellow-naped Amazon (Amazona auropalliata) is an Amazon parrot sometimes considered to be a subspecies of Yellow-crowned Amazon, Amazona ochrocephala (Gmelin, 1788).  This one in the photo is a captive wild parrot who would have originated in northern Costa Rica.

IMG_0638 IMG_0635Amazona auropalliata is found in Mexico and Central America, occurring along the Pacific slope of the isthmus in southern Mexico (Oaxaca and Chiapas), Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and north-western Costa Rica, the Bay Islands (Roatán and Guanaja) of Honduras, and the Caribbean slope in eastern Honduras and north-eastern Nicaragua (Juniper and Parr 1998).

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Probably the easiest place to see them logistically is in the Guanacaste or Tarcoles area of Costa Rica.  Use a Central American award to get you here.  When I blog about Tarcoles, I will go into more detail about where to see them in that area.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS PARROT

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

VIDEO

Nice mini-doco with some interviews in Spanish with English subtitles.  I especially love how they are encouraging the local communities to support eco-tourism and leave the birds in the wild!