North-west Costa Rica Birding
The Sagahawks - October 2007
This is
perhaps the only birding trip report on the internet that is based entirely in
the North-west corner of Costa Rica (The Guanacaste region, plus a one day
trip to adjacent Alajuela).
This holiday was inspired by First
Choice’s (
http://www.firstchoice.co.uk
) decision to offer all-inclusive holidays in Costa Rica at a reasonable price.
They fly direct from Gatwick to Liberia in the north-west province of Guanacaste. The
hotels they use are on the Pacific coast around the Gulf of Papagayo. The Guanacaste
Cordillera comes within 35 km of the coast at this point so both the dry coastal forest
and the highland areas were within easy reach. Because this region is rather distant from
San Jose it is relatively unfrequented by birders and the bird tour operators. None of us
had visited Costa Rica before.
Hotels
El Nakuti Resort (
http://www.1-costaricalink.com/hotels_guanacaste_costa_rica/hotel_nakuti_resort_costa_rica.htm
)
This was our base. It lies on
Panama Beach which is in the Bay of Papagayo and consists of
single-storey blocks scattered around the grounds. The rooms are well designed,
comfortable and air-conditioned. The food was only average and the beer was horrible. The
grounds were quite extensive with mature trees and was home to Hoffmann’s
Woodpeckers, Cinnamon Hummingbirds and many more widespread species.
 El Nakuti Resort - Plenty of trees and shrubs to attract birds |
 |
 The glum look is because it is teeming with rain. |
We stayed here for one night. It
provided simple, comfortable rustic accommodation and good food. The grounds consisted of
open grassland with scattered trees and a couple of ponds. The flowering shrubs at the
entrance attracted hummingbirds. The approach road was an unsurfaced
track which crossed the Colorado River via a rocky ford. To reach it a good 4 x 4 is
essential, at least in the rainy season.
See
Rincon de la
Vieja page.
Las Espuelas (www.1-costaricalink.com/hotels_guanacaste_costa_rica/hotel_best_western_las_espuelas_costa_rica.htm)
We stayed here for one unplanned night.
This Best Western Hotel lies just east of Liberia on the Pan-American Highway. It was a
very pleasant motel-type hotel with good food and drink. The grounds were surprisingly
productive with Gray Hawks in one of the trees near the road, Turquoise-browed
Motmots and a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet.
Car hire
We hired a large Toyota 4 x 4 from Avis
(
http://www.avis.co.cr/avis_locations_liberia.htm
) who have an office a five minute drive from Liberia Airport. They were waiting to meet
us when we arrived and were generally efficient. But there are many car hire places near
the airport though none are within a reasonable walk.
Weather
It rained every day, often for most of
the day. This made the birding difficult and uncomfortable although it did keep the
temperature to a pleasant level. This weather was caused by a tropical storm which hit
Nicaragua very hard so it may be that, while Guanacaste is supposed to be the driest
province in the country, the rest of Costa Rica may have fared better. But on our
experience we cannot recommend going to Costa Rica in October.
Photography
The high humidity meant condensation on
our optics, while the heavy cloud meant that Mike, with his mighty Canon DSLR, often had
to go to 1600 ASA.
Travel
We found the Pan-American Highway a
perfectly reasonable road to travel along except at night when bicycles without lights
viewed through teeming rain were a considerable hazard. The roads between our base hotel
and the highway were fine but the roads into the cordillera were usually unsurfaced and
had to be treated with caution. Traffic was generally light except in the vicinity of
Liberia, although even this was a lot easier than Slough during the rush hour.
Guides
We hired one guide for one day - Carlos
Jimenez who is based in Coco Beach. He was an excellent guide who spoke good English. We
had a very good day with him, mostly in the cordillera, in spite of the terrible weather.
We used Birds of Costa Rica by Garrigues and Dean
which had just been published by Helm. It is a very good field guide although some of the
illustrations might be slightly pale. We discovered a few species outside the range
described in the book. We also used the maps in Globetrotter Travel Atlas Costa Rica from
Rowland Mead (published by New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd. ISBN 1 84537 380 4) to
navigate. They proved invaluable.
Contact Details
If
you wish to contact any of the trip members please email
Mike Collard,
Dave Ferguson,
Dave Parmenter or
Jim Rose.
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