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For me, the southernmost end of the Baja, is all about the estuary in nearby SanJose Del Cabo. I am old enough now, that the wild parties, and crazy Cabo bar scene hold very little appeal for me.
However, if you have time for some birding much closer to SanJose, this choice hummingbird is also regular at one of the newest Costa Rica birding spots on the block; the intriguing Nectar and Pollen reserve. Located on the main highway between SanJose and Limon, Nectar and Pollen is easy to visit by car or even public bus.
As soon as you leave the airport near SanJose, unless you are coming from the southeastern states during the summer months, you won’t help but notice the higher level of humidity. SanJose Traffic : Ouch! Most birding time in Costa Rica is spent away from SanJose so no problem there.
Even if you had to spend a few frustrating days stuck in the urban wonderland of SanJose and surroundings, you still share the streets and parks with screeching Crimson-fronted Parakeets. Proximity – Although this area is fairly close to SanJose, the nearness in this case is all about the birds.
The following are twelve such species of hummingbirds easily seen after an hour or so drive from the SanJose area: Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. We need to travel a bit lower in elevation for this little beauty but it’s still quite accessible with an hour or so drive from SanJose. Coppery-headed Emerald.
Zamora Estate protects acres of unspoiled habitat within one of the fastest growing sections of SanJose, a holding that has sustained four generations of the Zamora family. Zamora Estate offers the ideal launching pad for adventures in the Central Valley and both the Pacific and Caribbean slopes.
A field guide I’ll have to study on a long flight from Europe to SanJose. There are some other things to finish, but I am highly unlikely to make it before the trip, so it’ll have to wait for my return. There will be no chance to do it earlier!
The most common urban parakeet, this is the one that has become adapted to nesting on buildings, including the center of SanJose. These are the species that call or fly within my sphere of birding nearly every day: Crimson-fronted Parakeet.
It’s sort of stuck between SanJose and Cartago and since it’s a volcano, it doesn’t stop at dominating the skyline. Irazu is the name of a volcano in Costa Rica. In fitting with proper volcanic decorum, it must loom or lord over a nearby populace with either a hint or a fistful of menace.
The original idea involved a roundabout trip that went from the SanJose area to the wet foothills and lowlands of the Caribbean slope, then back up to cloud forest, high-elevation forest, way back down to the hot habitats of the Pacific coast, and then up to SanJose.
Meanwhile, in SanJose, Calif., If you’ve got some downtime between barbecues and fireworks (or, outside of the U.S., obsessing over World Cup matches), here’s some bird news to peruse: Loss of suitable habitat , instead of insecticides, seems to be the culprit in declining numbers of grassland birds.
Getting to our lodge is easy from either SanJose or Liberia, and once here you can take advantage of our extensive trails, multiple birding observation platforms, two feeding stations, and a 35-foot high bamboo canopy tower (seen above), where you can easily observe and photograph colorful toucans, euphonias, honeycreepers, and hundreds more.
Located in the mountains that overlook crowded SanJose, this beautiful site acts as a welcome green escape for anyone interested in a cloud forest experience, and for the birder, you could hardly ask for more exciting birding so close to the capital.
The Road to Irazu – An easy road that passes through cultivated fields before eventually reaching patches of good forest past San Juan de Chicua. Higher up, it also accesses paramo with Volcano Junco and Timberline Wrens. Dry Forest Costa Rica has plenty of good dry forest birding.
And in the late afternoon of Wednesday, October 11th, I landed at the Juan Santamaria airport of the capital SanJose (I’ll be honest with you – before I was invited to the country, I didn’t know the name of its capital).
That gave me Sunday morning off to re-visit the estuary at SanJose Del Cabo for the first time since Hurricane Lidia struck the area. Last weekend, my work had me driving to the very southern end of the Baja.
The Ornate Hawk-Eagle was noticed at the last minute on our drive towards SanJose through the dense rainforests of Braulio Carrillo National Park. An Ornate from another day. Buff-fronted Quail-Dove on a feeder. Not a rare bird but like all quail-doves, a professional skulker and thus typically glimpsed as it scurries into hiding.
This can be a long drive from SanJose, especially with road construction and slow and seemingly eternal truck traffic, but once you get there, the voyage is worth it.
From the SanJose Mercury News. Fascinating spotlight on an activist known for freeing imprisoned animals. He was himself eventually imprisoned for two years as a result.
In Costa Rica, that would mean the Sarapiqui area because this is where we find the closest Caribbean lowland forests to SanJose. It takes about four or four and a half hours to drive to Casa Calateas from the SanJose area. The Scarlet Tanagers in fall have shed their scarlet appearance.
This foot-shaped piece of land in southern Costa Rica is just about as far from SanJose as you can go without leaving the country. In Costa Rica, one of the best “end of the road” places for birding and getting crazy with biodiversity is the Osa Peninsula.
The defense demanded that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) be struck down as unconstitutional before Judge Ronald Whyte of the United States District Court, Northern District of California in SanJose. Here's a summary.
One involves a windy, leisurely ride through mountains south of SanJose, the road eventually becoming gravel with occasional pot holes as it descends to Mastatal, the main village next to the park. Cangreja sees rather few visitors for a good reason, it lies well off the beaten track.
Located less than an hour’s drive from SanJose, this latter spot also offers some of the most exciting and accessible birding near the capital of Costa Rica.
The wet lands around SanJose Del Cabo and Todos Santos are the primary areas for the population, but I have seen them in Agua Caliente and as far north as La Purisima. I have no doubt that they could also be seen in the extensive marsh areas of Magdalena Bay, Puerto Lopez Mateo and even up to San Ignacio.
At some stage, almost standing still in a traffic jam on the highway towards SanJose, I was calling a fellow 10K beat writer Pat O’Donnell, enquiring about the chances to meet in my hotel. At some later, similar stage ( Turquoise-browed Motmot , Hoffmann’s Woodpecker , Scarlet Macaw , Streak-headed Woodcreeper , etc.),
Arrive at the airport near SanJose in the day and you could easily see them fly overhead. Take a closer look and you will probably see some leaves in motion, leaves that become parakeets carefully moving through the foliage as they feed on flowers, fruits, and seeds.
San Francisco averages two-tenths of an inch for the month, while SanJose only averages half that much. I had set aside the morning of Sunday, June 10th to cross the San Francisco Peninsula to the Pacific Ocean town of Half Moon Bay, a mere 25 minute drive away, for a few hours of birding.
From the SanJose Mercury News. If the incident is insignificant, then why deny access? A Menlo Park research facility Monday refused to allow a humane society representative to check up on a monkey that bit a female lab worker the day before.
From SanJose, it takes four to four and a half hours but given the excellent birding opps on the way, you might want to allocate a bit more time. Although a straight fast road might not seem to be a big deal, it’s a rare, welcome occurrence in seriously mountainous Costa Rica.
I began the trip with a rather long drive from the airport hotel in SanJose to Punta Uva on the southern Caribbean coast for a couple of “free” days before joining the actual tour. I recently returned from a twelve day birding tour of Costa Rica with Lifer Tours guided by an incredible birder, David Rodriquez.
If you want to go the relaxed route, don’t worry, there’s still plenty to see in hotel gardens in and near SanJose. Introductory birding or happy madness : Do you want to ease into birding in the tropics or leap into the bio-craziness with binoculars at the ready?
That’s where most of Costa Rica’s population resides and because of that, it’s also why we headed out around dawn, happily leaving the long line of vehicles on their way to SanJose in the rear view mirror. of Ornithology being in our vehicle, eBird lists were a constant.
We wrapped up the trip with our last day birding, sadly on our way to SanJose and the airport, with stops that Susana helped us to coordinate, at Paraiso Quetzal Lodge, and at the newly created Casa Tangara Dowii Reserve. For more information you can find their website here.
I sample birding on Poas more often than at other sites in Costa Rica because it’s close to home and makes for a worthwhile guided day trip from the SanJose area. The Poas area offers up some easy, excellent birding, especially for birders staying in the SanJose area with just one or two free days.
Although a lot of beautiful rainforest was replaced by bananas, cattle pasture, and other ag-lands many years ago, at least we can still enjoy great birding at a number of sites, most of which are easily accessible including Sarapiqui, the most visited site in the lowlands north of SanJose.
Some other insider questions to think about before birding in Costa Rica include things like, “How can I avoid traffic in SanJose?”, If not, don’t worry, you won’t be alone in wondering if the bird is actually a myth. ”, “How can I tell Barred Hawks from Black Vultures ?”,
Well, it is around SanJose and on the Pacific slope but not on the Caribbean side of the mountains. Ask for an early entrance the day before and you might be able to get into the forest at dawn. Dry season, schmy season : Yes, it is the dry season, and no, it is not the dry season.
After landing in SanJose ay close to 10:00 PM, we made our way to our first Air BnB just north of the airport. As many of might know by now, we have covered a lot of ground this year, with Costa Rica being our ninth country visited.
The conference is held in beautiful SanJose, California, which means you can spend any downtime in the city's ever-evolving downtown (San Pedro Square is a popular choice). You could also venture to over San Francisco, which is just a short train ride away.
After 14 hours of flight / 20 h spent travelling to reach Costa Rica from Eastern Europe, I landed in SanJose in the rain. It was close to 5 a.m., the best time for city traffic to eat me alive. I naively trusted Google Maps’ claim that it takes a little over two hours to drive the next 100 km.
This is how we saw 300 plus species in three days on day trips out of the SanJose area and it’s only one of several options: High and middle elevations. Only an hour and a half drive from SanJose, this major intersection of bio-craziness never fails to deliver. A day in the Carara area.
For years I heard the estero at SanJose del Cabo was the place to go to see Belding’s Yellowthroat, another Baja endemic. The thrashers are very fond of native desert scrub and thorn forest and are not afraid to perch out in the open.
This beauty is fairly common in cloud forest, even on the volcanic slopes that overlook the urban conglomeration known as SanJose. In Costa Rica, most of the six toucan species are fairly common, and one of those is the green, blue, and chestnut Northern Emerald Toucanet. Some call it the Blue-throated Toucanet.
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