Drew Monkman: A return to Costa Rica, Part 2

My morning routine in Costa Rica is always the same: get up at dawn, hop on my bike, and head out to enjoy peak birding hours.

Invariably, an exciting experience awaits me. If not a new bird or an amazing photo, then maybe I’ll meet a local who will help me find a bird. People also want to tell me what other wildlife might be around.

That’s how I learned about the location of a large green macaw nest from Luis, who lived nearby. He even invited my wife and I to come for a tour of his beautiful tropical garden and to see up close the agoutis – a large rodent – that he keeps.

It’s experiences like these that brought us back this winter to the Puerto Viejo area on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast.

Bill and Ricky

One advantage of returning to the same area each year is getting to know the local “Ticos” (native Costa Ricans) and regular visitors like my American friend Bill Sedivy. Bill spends half the year in Costa Rica and the other half leading river rafting tours in Idaho and surrounding states. All life!

I also met Bill’s close friend and partner Alric Emory Allen-Lewis. Better known as Ricky, he has a wealth of knowledge about every aspect of birds, plants, culture and local history. His family has lived here for generations and his grandmother was indigenous.

I learned a lot from Ricky about which trees attract which birds, how chewing the leaves of jackass bitters (Neurolaena lobata) gives you energy, and that when dragon’s blood trees (Pterocarpus officinalis) are in flower, turtles will come ashore . nest.

Bill, Ricky and I have birded many times together. This year, we had a wonderful morning in and around the small town of Manzanillo. We found 50 species, including a rare breasted antpitta. On another occasion, we explored part of the Puerto Vargas road at the entrance to Cahuita National Park.

Our first birds of the morning – three black-breasted grebes – were most memorable. We watched in amazement as one of the jays struck a vine snake it had just caught. The snake was at least five times longer than the bird. We were also fascinated by a hundred or so broad-winged hawks flying just above the treetops as they migrated north.

Unfortunately, Cahuita National Park is not bird friendly. It doesn’t even open until 8am, when the best morning bird activity is almost over.

House of Calatea

Bill and I also had an incredible birding breakfast at Casa Calateas, located on the mountainside near Cahuita. Our friend Jason Westlake, who owns a yoga retreat, had organized a guide. To fully appreciate the richness of Costa Rica’s birds, many of which are secretive and only found by knowing their song, a guide is essential.

Costa Rican guides are highly trained and most are licensed by the government. Not only do they know and often can imitate all vocalizations, but they have the ability to detect their range in birds in seconds. Jason found us a great guide in Erick Vargas.

It was a quintessential Costa Rican morning with sunny but cool weather, rich forest habitat and abundant bird song. Our target bird was the black-crowned antpitta. Except for Eric, none of us had ever seen one. Antpittas are small, fat, long-legged birds that tend to be shy and extremely difficult to see in dark rainforests.

As we walked along the road, Eric played a recording of the antpitta’s ridiculously long call. Suddenly, one answered. We were ecstatic. He eventually pulled it out by the road, where we got frustrating, partial views of it hiding, half-hidden behind a log. Finally, he ran across the street in plain sight. High fives were shared by all.

At the end of the road, a ruined platform offered a sensational view of a great valley. We spent at least an hour watching swifts, hawks, kites and even a majestic vulture – all against a backdrop of cloud-capped mountain peaks and mostly undisturbed forests. All the while, we were entertained by another life bird for me, a White-fronted Nun. His loud and varied repertoire of sounds never stopped.

To cap things off, a stunning red hooded male mannequin posed just feet away for at least two minutes. With five live birds and 15 new species for the trip, I decided to set a goal of finding 200 species before heading home to Canada.

I was so in love with Calateas that I went back a second time with Jason and Erick. One of the highlights was identifying 10 different species on a tree full of fruit. They included everything from North American red-eyed vireos and chestnut-sided warblers to spectacular resident species such as

We were also treated to a majestic black eagle, a falcon flying over the observation deck. The Hawk-Eagle was one of six live birds of the day and brought me to 146 species for the trip.

Moving to Cahuita

On March 13th, we moved into our second rental, this one located about half an hour’s bike ride west of Cahuita, near the beautiful Passion Fruit Ecolodge. The house was quite secluded and nestled among tall fig trees with large buttress roots. The property resounded with the songs of woodpeckers, aracars, fruit crows and oropendoles during the day and pauraques (a close relative of the whip vole), spectacled owls and great reed owls at night.

As in the first house, I decided to talk to the gardener, Francisco. Like many Ticos, he was quite knowledgeable about the local nature. He said I should come back when the chilamate fig is fruitful. He described a relentless feeding frenzy on everything from turkey-crested guans to monkey-like kinkajous.

And, like many people I’ve met here over the years, he went out of his way to help me.

When I told him that my bike had a flat tire, he jumped on his motorcycle and went into town to buy a new inner tube and pump. He quickly repaired the apartment and I had to twist his arm to get money for his expenses.

Sandra Candela

My passion for learning Spanish started with wanting to get information from local people when I was out birding. However, it soon developed into a fascination not only with the language itself, but with Latin American culture in general. The investment in time and effort has paid off handsomely.

I have to give a lot of credit for finding an excellent Spanish teacher, Sandra Candela, who lives in Cahuita. She is also a consultant on sustainable agriculture and cocoa agroforestry and sells cocoa products such as pods and dehydrated beans.

I meet with Sandra both in Costa Rica and via Skype from home. She continues to help with the still challenging language stuff, especially Costa Rican idiosyncrasies like the many ways to use the famous term “pura Vida.” It is as much an emotion and an attitude as it is a statement.

I also learned a lot from her about local indigenous and Afro-Costa Rican culture, cacao and all its derivatives, Tico politics, and how climate change is affecting the Puerto Viejo region. This includes rapidly rising sea levels with shrinking beaches, a major loss of beachside palms, more frequent and longer droughts, and how agriculture is far more precarious as traditional rainfall patterns no longer apply.

I’ll wrap up this series next week with my most memorable Costa Rican experience ever.

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