ok bird nerds.....i heard a quetzal over the weekend......

[Gato Moteado]

....but i didn't see it. i'm going back to the same area (near san gerardo, costa rica) in a few weeks to try to find and photograph some quetzals.

this weekend, however, i did get very close to some cool birds but unfortunately i didn't have my camera. i saw some of these guys, the golden-browed chlorophonia:



i also saw three of these guys close up, black guans:

[blindpig]

1. Nice work.

Costa Rica was my 1st overseas trip and I didn't do as well as I might have. If I remember correctly I listed a pathetic 70 or so species.Did manage to see Scarlet Macaws at that crocodile reserve north of Quepo, courtesey of a guide who had a spotting scope set up. Lots of hummingbird species on the slope of Poas. Probably missed as many as I listed over all.

I recall from an old post that you were thinking about starting a guide/tour service. Have you done so? Also, do you have any expertise with reptiles & amphibians? On that same trip I managed a really miserable 27 species of herps, with my now accumulated experience I'm sure I could do better but local intelligence would help a lot! There is a market for that sort of thing, Bill Lamar leads several trips a year to Costa Rica along with his Amazonian trips, there must be money in it.

[Gato Moteado]

2. hell you could see 70 species looking out of my apartment window....

...in san jose.

just kidding.

yeah, it's hard to spot birds in the rainforest, especially if it's primary forest. too much canopy to obstruct the view. and the little birds move so quickly in and out of view it's really difficult to catch more than a glimpse of them.

i imagine you saw the scarlet macaws in carara national park. that's very close to the tarcoles river where you can see the crocs from the bridge. next time you come to costa rica, come in the fall and head to the north part of the country so you can see the green macaws. i have them on my sarapiqui property. and also, head up to the higher altitudes, like tapanti and san gerardo....it's a whole different group of birds up there.

as for herps, i see a lot of iguanids and anoles and geckoes. lots of ameivas as well. the thing i see most is frogs. it would take weeks to try to identify all the frogs in the leaf litter on my quepos property. there are days when you see 4 or 5 different ones jump every time you take a step. most are tiny.

i don't have any kind of an ecotour biz set up yet. money and time are factors right now. but, it's in the future plans. i'll have to contact bill lamar and see what he does down here. is he still living in texas?

[blindpig]

3. He was in Costa Rica last week.

He's got another trip to Costa Rica in mid August. At $1895 pp it's a bit rich for my blood. I believe I've seen 100 species guaranteed in ads for his Amazonian trips(Reptiles Magazine), doable for sure but promises like that beg to be broken. I managed 57 on a non-herp oriented tour in 99 during the dry season.

He's still with GreenTracks.

[Gato Moteado]

4. if you have a phone number for him, please pm it to me

i haven't talked to him in years and i'm sure he wouldn't remember me. but i'd like to meet up with him on his next venture down here. i bet he'd love to check out the primary forest on my sarapiqui finca. we've got crocs in the river that borders the property.

[blindpig]

5. I don't.

You can probably contact him through GreenTracks.com.

[Gato Moteado]

6. will do.

nt