After spending the morning travelling and
birding in the foothills, Gloriela and I took a deserved nap at our hotel room in Volcan before heading to the town of Las Nubes for an afternoon walk. We visited
La Amistad International Park , famed by its biodiversity and for being the only of our parks shared with Costa Rica. We first had lunch at the excellent restaurant in the entrance of the
park, accompanied by Violet Sabrewings, Magnificent Hummingbirds and
White-throated Mountain-Gems attending the feeders. Then, we moved to the administrative installations were we paid the entrance fee. From there, we took El Retoño trail, a 3-km loop trail that reaches 2305 meters above sea level. The forest is exhuberant and the journey is very entertaining through beautiful landscapes, several creeks and bambu patches... and the birding is excellent too. Because of the time of the day, the forest was quiet... but we found scattered species, most of
them quite common inhabitants of the cloud forests. Eventually, we found a nice mixed flock, first noticed by the presence of two (probably more)
Collared Whitestarts. These curious little guys are confident enough to stay close to you while you are taking pictures, making them really good photogenic birds! A group of four Black-cheeked Warblers accompanied them, as well as two
Flame-throated Warblers, or I should say Parulas? Yes, this warbler is a
Parula, a striking one as you can see in the photo, endemic to the highlands of Costa Rica and Panama. Others members of this flock were the finches. We first noticed three or four Yellow-thighed Finches following the flock, but then two Large-footed Finches jumped in front of us... a lifer for Gloriela! As the parula, both species are also endemic to Costa Rica and Panama. A good highland mixed flock is not complete without
furnariids, and another endemic made our day on that regard: a
Streak-breasted Treehunter was a little less skulkier than usual, allowing great pictures. WOW, I never expected to have a good photo of such a secretive species, and Gloriela simply added another lifer to her list! Some Red-faced Spinetails and two Spot-crowned Woodcreepers also accompanied the flock, the same as both Yellow-winged and Brown-capped Vireos, the resident species of vireos in these forests. Reluctantly, we left the site in order to complete the loop, hearing Silvery-fronted Tapaculos and Black-faced Solitaires... but the best bird of the day was about to come. Suddenly, a red and green figure appeared right in front of us to perch in a nearby mossy branch, a male
Collared Trogon! That was only my second sight of this bird
(the first one more than 12 years ago) and a beautiful lifer for Gloriela! This trogon is not rare... but somehow have eluded me all these years. The red belly was specially contrasting and bright, and the bird stayed for a while inspecting us before flying away into the forest. Curiosly, we saw later an Orange-bellied Trogon (distant views of a male), but failed to locate a quetzal this time. Anyway, that Collared Trogon was gorgeous! It was a long day, and after 18 hours in the field, we finally arrived to our room in Volcan in order to rest for
our next (and last) day in the highlands.
After spending the morning travelling and birding in the foothills, Gloriela and I took a deserved nap at our hotel room in Volcan before heading to the town of Las Nubes for an afternoon walk. We visited La Amistad International Park , famed by its biodiversity and for being the only of our parks shared with Costa Rica. We first had lunch at the excellent restaurant in the entrance of the 
park, accompanied by Violet Sabrewings, Magnificent Hummingbirds and White-throated Mountain-Gems attending the feeders. Then, we moved to the administrative installations were we paid the entrance fee. From there, we took El Retoño trail, a 3-km loop trail that reaches 2305 meters above sea level. The forest is exhuberant and the journey is very entertaining through beautiful landscapes, several creeks and bambu patches... and the birding is excellent too. Because of the time of the day, the forest was quiet... but we found scattered species, most of 
them quite common inhabitants of the cloud forests. Eventually, we found a nice mixed flock, first noticed by the presence of two (probably more) Collared Whitestarts. These curious little guys are confident enough to stay close to you while you are taking pictures, making them really good photogenic birds! A group of four Black-cheeked Warblers accompanied them, as well as two
Flame-throated Warblers, or I should say Parulas? Yes, this warbler is a Parula, a striking one as you can see in the photo, endemic to the highlands of Costa Rica and Panama. Others members of this flock were the finches. We first noticed three or four Yellow-thighed Finches following the flock, but then two Large-footed Finches jumped in front of us... a lifer for Gloriela! As the parula, both species are also endemic to Costa Rica and Panama. A good highland mixed flock is not complete without furnariids, and another endemic made our day on that regard: a 
Streak-breasted Treehunter was a little less skulkier than usual, allowing great pictures. WOW, I never expected to have a good photo of such a secretive species, and Gloriela simply added another lifer to her list! Some Red-faced Spinetails and two Spot-crowned Woodcreepers also accompanied the flock, the same as both Yellow-winged and Brown-capped Vireos, the resident species of vireos in these forests. Reluctantly, we left the site in order to complete the loop, hearing Silvery-fronted Tapaculos and Black-faced Solitaires... but the best bird of the day was about to come. Suddenly, a red and green figure appeared right in front of us to perch in a nearby mossy branch, a male Collared Trogon! That was only my second sight of this bird 
(the first one more than 12 years ago) and a beautiful lifer for Gloriela! This trogon is not rare... but somehow have eluded me all these years. The red belly was specially contrasting and bright, and the bird stayed for a while inspecting us before flying away into the forest. Curiosly, we saw later an Orange-bellied Trogon (distant views of a male), but failed to locate a quetzal this time. Anyway, that Collared Trogon was gorgeous! It was a long day, and after 18 hours in the field, we finally arrived to our room in Volcan in order to rest for our next (and last) day in the highlands.
Posts
LOVE The Collared Whitestart - one of my favorite birds ever - Claudia
ReplyDelete@Claudia: it is one of my favorite birds too: smart, colourful and photogenic!
ReplyDeleteIsn't that a collared 'restart'?
ReplyDeleteThe name redstart literally means red tail, and this genera of birds are characterized by its white flashes in the tail. There is an ongoing debate about this topic... oficially the name is redstart, but I prefer whitestart. Changing oficially the name to whitestart means to change a traditional name to ONE species that reaches the USA (Painted Redstart), and no many people like that!
ReplyDelete