Costa Rica 2025 – the conclusion on 70 not out

Fiery-throated Hummingbird

 

Now if you asked me when I was, say 18, if I would make it to three score years and ten on the 17^th of November 2025 I would probably have laughed  in your face and said of course not. But here I was celebrating hitting the milestone in some style at the end of my wonderful Costa Rican adventure.

 

We had planned a leisurely departure from the Savegre complex before a day’s birding on the way back to the capital for our flight home on the next day. Our plans, however, were thrown into the air when we discovered that the only long winding road out of the complex was going to be shut for the day for road works! We hence had a hurried breakfast and departure before we were trapped for the day the wrong side of the road works. After passing the road works we all relaxed a little and looked forward to our final full days birding in paradise. 

 

We stopped at the lovely Miriam’s Café where we enjoyed the hummingbird feeders while drinking a refreshing cup of Costa Rican coffee. Acorn Woodpeckers, arguably the most attractive of the many Woodpeckers we saw on our trip, were particularly showy on the fruit put out below the viewing balcony. We were again surrounded by many hummingbirds darting to and fro amongst the feeders including White-throated Mountaingem, Volcano Hummingbird and many Fiery-throated Hummingbirds. The latter is near endemic being only found in Costa Rica and Panama. It is, again arguably, one of the most attractive of the local hummingbirds being blessed with an iridescence  that covers every colour of the rainbow.  The iridescent nature of the colouration leads to an interesting effect whereby side views show very little colour apart from green. From front on it totally transforms and you would be forgiven for thinking you were looking at an entirely different bird as a glittering royal blue crown is revealed. The centre of the throat is also revealed in all its fiery brilliant rosy coppery orangeness. A violet-blue patch on the centre of the breast finishes off its truly beautiful and stunning plumage.

Acorn Woodpecker

Talamanca Hummingbird

Before we left I browsed the little shop and brought myself a lovely holiday memento, a poster of the hummingbirds of the mountains of Costa Rica which now hangs in a frame on my study wall.

 

On our first full day of our trip way back at the gardens of the hotel Bougainvillea we had spent some time trying to view a loud singing Rufous-browed Peppershrike buried in a tree to no avail. So when Paco heard another one singing outside the café we all shot out hoping to lay eyes on it. This time this somewhat unusual looking bird gave us excellent views. Its rather dumpy profile and the overhanging upper mandible were reminiscent of our European Shrikes but the plumage colouration, as befits a Costa Rican bird, was much more brightly coloured in shades of green, yellow, blue and ochre. 

Rufous-browed Peppershrike

On leaving Miriam’s Café we drove up to the mountains to one of the highest points in Costa Rica. Here the views back down to the central valley were amazing. One of our target birds here was the Volcano Junco and we eventually had good views as a bird perched up in the open and then proceeded to have a bath in a puddle. It was very similar to the Slate-coloured Junco, a bird I have seen many times in North America and one that is on my UK list curtesy of a vagrant I saw in Wales in 2020.

Volcano Junco

I found a mushroom that bore an uncanny resemblance to one of the most delicious and sought after wild mushrooms in Europe, boletus edulis, or Cep to give it its common French name. I’m sure that it was a boletus of some sort but I certainly did not taste it!

 

After another short drive we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Quetzal’s Paradise. Again the viewing balcony was host to numerous hummingbirds buzzing frantically around the feeders. While lunch was being prepared I again took much too many photos at the hummingbird feeders.

Talamamanca Hummingbird

White-throated Mountaingem

Lesser Violetear

Volcano Hummingbird

After lunch some of us went on a walk along the restaurant trails with Paco and this was very productive even yielding a few new birds for the trip.  We saw Black and yellow and Silky-flycatcher, Sooty Thrush, Black-billed Nightingale-thrush, Streak-breasted Flycatcher, Long-tailed Silky-Flame-throated, Black-throated, Green and Black-cheeked Warblers, Ruddy Treerunner, Hairy Woodpeckers ,Ochraceous Wren, Black-thighed Grosbeak Northern Tufted and Black-capped Flycatchers. Where else in the world would you see such a wonderful collection of birds in a 45 minute walk! Some even posed extremely well for photos as per my pics below. A fitting way to end our last birding excursion in Costa Rica.

 

Long-tailed Silky Flycatcher

Black and Yellow Flycatcher

Black-billed Nightingale Thrush

Hairy Woodpecker

Black-capped Flycatcher

Large-footed Finch

We reluctantly left Quetzal’s Paradise to make the long journey back down the mountains to where our birding adventure had started almost 3 weeks ago, the hotel Bougainvillea on the outskirts of the capital San Jose.

 

The next day our flight was not until the evening so we had time for a little bit of final birding around the grounds of the hotel where it all started. Afterwards, we met for a farewell lunch and a final update of our bird lists before making our way to the airport for our overnight return flight to Gatwick.

  

Montezuma Oropendola

The whole adventure vastly exceeded my expectations, undoubtably helped by having such a knowledgeable and truly friendly bird guide in Paco. It’s always a bit of a lottery on these trips what the fellow guests will be like but our group was a truly excellent bunch and we all got on very well.

 

So, would I recommend the trip to the keen birder – one hundred and twenty percent! Costa Ricans are a very friendly and welcoming people and the countryside and birds are a living paradise. Its hard to imagine a better place on this earth to spend almost 3 weeks birding celebrating my 70^th birthday.

 

Would I go again, yes definitely but I wouldn’t want to do the same trip and itinerary, it can’t possibly match this so why bother!. Would I go to Costa Rica again, yes definitely  but I think I would take one of the tours of the southern region near Panama, an area we did not explore on this trip. The other option might be something like Nicaragua.

 

The downside of such an incredible trip is how hard its been getting into UK birding again, doubly so with the atrocious weather that now seems to have lasted forever.

 

Going forward, I guess it’s a case of never say never, but I think I’m all done on the annual Shetland trips. The Costa Rica trip has really opened my eyes as to whats possible with foreign birding making 2 weeks in harsh weather in Shetland for the high of one or two new UK ticks less appealing. I’ve also seen many of the Shetland specialities, Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler, Lanceolated Warbler, White’s Thrush etc, so it’s starting to feel like a law of diminishing returns. 

 

Autumn is also an increasingly difficult time to be away from the small holding for long periods leaving my long suffering wife to slog through the mud to keep things going.

 

I’ve been thinking of where my next adventure will be and, of the options I’ve looked at, Gambia is presently the most appealing and I probably going to book up with Nature Trek for a Spring 2027 trip. I’ve actually “done” Gambia before in what was a combined wildlife and winter sun trip with my girlfriend at the time way back in the 1980’s. My paper tick list from this trip is, however, sadly, long lost in the many house moves I have had since then. 

 

 

Until the next time then ……

Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!