Tim Holt's Trip to Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica 2-13 Jan 2009.  Wildlife seen and some short notes.

List of animals:

Butterflies:
blue morpho – It was fantastic to finally see a mythical beast of my readings in youth.  They seemed so strange, rather like an animated figure with electric blue above and brown below, bouncing up and down with its slow flaps. The tropical new world!!!
Many other butterflies (e.g. Narrow wings with bright red spots with yellow and black, some red like small monarchs....). Strangely even walking off the trail I only saw a few spider webs compared to what I expected.   I suspect the birds and bats clean up both insects AND spiders.  

Mammals:
Howler Monkeys - lone males that gave short warning barks and clambered past and one started full vocalizations right above me (rain forest!).
Squirrel monkeys.   They squeak and chitter more than capuchins but do not seem to fight as much.
Capuchin monkeys -  Many.  Just listen for leaves shaking and sticks cracking overhead and look.  Black and white and quite aggressive.
Three toed sloth.  I have to admit I found these by gazing up at what others were looking at (one instance where I owe the guides sharp eyes).
Squirrels of two kinds (one large and black with russet).
Raccoons were quite aggressive during the day (people cause problems from raccoons and capuchins by feeding them).
Agouti (large small dog like rodent, just crossing the trails here and there alone and unhurried). 
Tamandua (tree anteater) - not in the park but on a side road near Quepos.  I just looked up after hearing a twig snap.
White tailed deer - very tame ignoring or even coming up to lick people for salt.  One allowed children to chase it but bucked and hoofs look sharp to me.

Reptiles:
Iguana and various lizards which I did not know the names of (alas).

Birds (in order or memory and sighting here):

1) magnificent frigate birds.  Soaring effortlessly over the beaches and coasts along with vultures when in thermals.  They make me think of the tropical seas and sailing ships and pirates.  The largest wing area/weight of any bird with long hooked bill and long forked tail, these pan-tropical seabirds that live by stealing seem alien and prehistoric somehow.  2) black vulture
3) turkey vulture - very common with several in sight in the skies at all times.
4) laughing gull
5) spotted sandpiper
6) laughing falcon - Just watched one fly to a tree over the road.  A bird I had always wanted to see and it stopped in perfect view haughtily looking at me and two tourists I showed it to.  Heard one in the morning several days 
7) white winged dove
8) ruddy ground dove
9) inca dove
10) rufus piha - loud call and hard to find and see.   Sounds a bit like somebody whistling loudly for a dog.  Sound carries and loud.
11) stripe throated hermit (hummingbird) - Noisy (groups of males - leks).  Seen low down and best encoutered sitting down at 3 feet up.
12) violet crowned woodnymph (humming bird).
13) great crested flycatcher (very common with a loud "Wheeeep!!"  and a bird I remember well from hot Maine summers in deciduous woods).
14) plain xenops (seen by walking along the main entrance road and just looking hard.  Upturned sweep to bill and almost nuthatch habits).  It has a common call that sounds like the cowbird with staccato bubbling call.  And leads me to believe it is more common but not so easy to see.
15) black hooded antsrike.   Very common with a comical almost Kookabura like call: “he-he-he-he-he-he-Whoo”, and was heard all about.  It was an odd dark bird not so easy to see.
16) bananaquit - common - one was near a red-legged honey creeper. 
17) woodthrush - another bird from the hot summer moist deciduous woods I remember from Maine and silent here but a beautiful singer.
18) Tennessee warbler - migrant - very common along with chestnut sided warblers.
19) chestnut sided warbler - migrant  - many warblers I could not identify from distance and lack of remembering the diagnostics from years ago.
20) red eyed vireo - yet another bird from the hot summer moist deciduous woods I remember from Maine.
21) great kiskadee flycatcher - Common in town and in the park.   I first met this on a cruise to Bermuda in the Training Vessel State of Maine.
22) streaked flycatcher - just being observant on the main entrance road
23) shining honey creeper (blue and pretty up high with warblers in a flowering tree)
24) red-legged honey creeper (also blue and seen nearly over head at mid day near the beach - legs are VERY bright red).
25) orange chinned parrot - common with narrow tails.  Small with chittering calls zooming about.  Squirrel monkeys have a similar tone.  
26) tropical kingbird 
28) barred antshrike (really one of the first birds odd tropical skulking type birds I spent some time to see and a so an early joy to find out what it was.).


Another day:

29) yellow olive flycatcher (really wide bill and odd harsh lisping monotonous whistle)
30) orange billed sparrow - more complex and loud calls than any sparrow and seemed too exotic to have the name
31) red crowned woodpecker
32) (chestnut backed?) woodcreeper - but cannot be sure - associating with the red crowned woodpecker and same size.
33) white necked jacobin (hummingbird) - (Seen just by walking up a streambed and sitting beside a pool quietly.)
34) ruby throated hummingbird (a migrant remembered well from my youth in Maine.  (Seen just by walking up a streambed and sitting beside a pool quietly.)
35) northern water thrush (Seen just by walking up a streambed and sitting beside a pool quietly. Another migrant I remember from Maine well).
36) blue throated goldentail  (hummingbird - bright orange straight thick bill) (Seen just by walking up a streambed and sitting beside a pool quietly.)
37) rufus tailed hummingbird.  Noisy and sounded like the cheeping call of the ruby throats I remembered years ago.  On my final walk out of the park.  Just an area around a forest flowering.
38) chestnut backed antbird.  - next to black hooded antshrike the tee-twee and wray!! of the antbird sculking in the low plants dominates.
39) green kingfisher  (Seen just by walking up a streambed and sitting beside a pool quietly. Odd to see a kingfisther diving into a pool a few inches deep in the forest.


Many calls I wished I could see.  A bird with a weee-boing! like call that was low and very ventriloquistic in the rain.  A metallic synthesizer like buzz - zrrriing.    Loud calls that were strange and made me think toucans or parrots.... One could spend many many years learning these things, but alas life is not la la land.   

Later days after the above first 2 in the park:

Finally noticed the common squeaky bird that seemed common as house sparrows in the US (how I could have just not looked or heard):
40) Blue grey tanager (dominant in town with the kiskadees).

In the gardens of hotels Manuel Antonio waiting for the park to open at 7AM:
41) summer tanager (pair)
42) cherie's tanager (bright red lower back on black male and orange chested female - another bird that turned out to be very common in gardens.
43) pale vented pigeon
44) clay colored robins (national bird of Costa Rica and common in woods and trees)
45) house wren (native to costa rica and has a shorter less ebuliant call than the ones I know in Maine).

In the park:
46) mangrove black hawk.  
47) slate headed tody flycatcher
    ospreys called near the gemelas beach and seemed another reminder of Maine in summer
48) tropical gnatcatcher (wheezy 'wrayy' - again, once I got used to the antshrike/antbird/hummingbird etc noise other birds turned out to be everywhere).
49) three wattled bell bird I was able get to the tree where it was singing with the very loud metallic EEENK!! and high pitched eeeeee!!! and see it just as it jumped from a branch and flew off. So shy.  I will not say I left the trail to see it but I will say the hunting instinct is still strong in humans and sometimes....
50) ruddy quail dove (just next to the path, walking along on the forest floor - odd to see a dove there).
51) whippoorwill (rounded wings, with white spots on the sides of the tails.  It flew away from me twice (again I will not say I was not on the trail).
52) roadside hawk.   Looking very impressive with the larger female accepting a kill from a smaller male on my way out of the park.

Another day (getting toward the slightly less common and harder to see and find birds after learning the common ones).
Outside the park in the gardens:
53) golden hooded tanager (turquoise blue bars on black with a blue face in golden yellow).
In the park:
54) white collared seedeater
55) blue crowned motmot   (just standing on a hill looking at another howler monkey male passing above and trying to track down another bird, the  hooot-hooot of a motmot far off made me feel "no chance" when one just showed up and sat in a tree 100 feet from me.
56) northern barred woodcreeper (near some clay colored robins that were scolding a capuchin monkey, and was much larger with uniform brown brown above and no evident spots or strips.
57) red capped manikin (black with red - a delight to see, making small squeeze toy like squeekings and seeming a bit mad - greenish females also showed up).
58) buff throated foliage gleaner (spent too long trying to see this one but doing so led me to the manikin, a howler sighting and the motmot.  solid bill, large warbler size, buff breast face and supercilliary line.  The call like a quiet bomb decending whistle with an interposed tremulo or perhaps a fast series of monotonic notes with a downward trend.  Hard to see but common calling about.

Around a tree with fruit newly ripe:
59) golden naped woodpecker
60) white vented euphonia
61) fiery billed aracari (toucan) (5 looking very impressive red bands on white and black etc. and a delight to see a toucan at last).
62) groove billed ani (pair) bill smaller in comparison to head than a smoothbill.

Outside the park:
62) social flycatcher (common and like a small kiskadee)

Another day with the park closed I walked up to the gardens and entrance roads of houses and hotels and did not see much for my efforts
Tamandua (tree anteater) just in a tree above a driver just off the main road to Manuel Antonio.  A surprise to see and nice.
63) plain wren 
64) double toothed kite 
65) palm tanager (black wings and olive - another bird that I saw but thought: "No distinguishing marks - need to see better" but getting a sense of tanager [other than the scarlet I know from childhood] I finally remembered there was a dull tanager in and it again turned out to be common.

Last day (the day I took the bus to San Jose to fly the next day) I rented the room to keep my bags in and went one last time to the park to see if I could sort out the vireos better and really see the trogon well (first yes second no).

66) yellow green vireo (the guide said that they returned from South America late January but there were vireos singing all over the park.   I finally went to an area I remember them being common and with trees not so high and say it was the yellow green vireo singing (like a red-eyed but shorter song).  And while I think I saw solitary (blue headed) and red-eyed vireos, I am sure of this one.  It is in full song by January 6 in Manuel Antonio.   Vireos really take patience to see well, often when they drop down to catch a fallen caterpillar or insect.

I tried to call several violaceous trogans but while I got one to get closer and give very quiet short versions of its song/call I did not get a good look.

From the main road:
67) Pale thoated pigeon
68) thick billed seed finch
69) cocoa woodcreeper (really saw a lot of woodcreepers of the smaller sort but just could not see them well).  My final few hours I spent on the main road in the park trying spotting what ever new called or flitted by.   This wood creeper just stayed on one tree and from a open space on a road gave me time.




 
Some description of my short visit:

The best time to hear and see birds is before 9AM.  Things quiet down drastically after that.  Rain seems to re-animate birds.  Sitting by a pool in a stream up off the beaten path was a wonderful thing to do giving me a really good look at two new hummingbirds
Bring at least 2 liters of water with you.  It is a very pleasant and an easy place to visit.  Guides will pester a bit at the park entrance.  But, despite feeling a bit sad for them and getting one comment ("Nice book, man, but the problem is finding the animals....") I knew that I could not afford to drag a guide about for 2 days to show me the birds and that 2 hours would be way too little to time and in the end being alone with the strange sounds and flittings about was marvelous.

Given that there were no mosquitoes at all and the heat was not unbearable walking on the trails of Manuel Antonio park was more than pleasant.  I stayed at Hotel Sanchez in Quepos near the bus station for $10/day with shared bath.  It made it easy for me to get a coffee at cafes (Jungle Foods or Sugar) that have Wifi for free in town and pleasant to watch the tourists go by while talking on Skype to my family.   The hotel was quite adequate for me and very polite folks and guests.  AC was really not needed.  In fact, I needed to use my large beach towel for a blanket to add to the thin one provided on a few nights.
    
The bus to Manuel Antonio takes about 20 minutes and cost 50 cents in dollars.  It fills up most times I saw, but standing is not hard given the short distance.  Again folks are courteous and make room.    The park opens at 7AM and closes at 4PM which is really too small a time since birds really quite down by 9AM and are most active at dawn (6AM).    Getting off in Manuel Antonio at the main beach it is not clear where the park entrance is and I had to ask.  The main beach outside the park is flat with light gray sand and very pretty like all the beaches past the muddy one in Quepos proper where the river outlet is.  8ft tides mean the beach runs way out at low tide.   Stalls to sell food and towels etc dot the road side along the main beach and Massage kiosks etc are setup on the sands.   Many tourists from US/Germany/UK/Ireland/Sweden/Brazil/Argentina... and, of course, Costa Rica.

Getting in line with 4 other people at 7am to get a ticket, a strange animated bright blue space creature flapped by in a way like a slow motion bat. I really wondered if it was artificial.  A Blue Morpho butterfly (strange, electric blue above and brown below flapping heavily and bouncing up and down like on a string and many more up and down the road).  The last of the rain cloud mists were clearing.  It was great to be able to walk alone and discover birds and animals on my own.  A laughing falcon flew above me and stopped.  Howler monkeys howled sounding like big dogs barking loudly but I only saw the squirrel and capuchin monkeys (the latter quite agressive expecting food which is prohibido).  I saw one stripe throated hermit (hummingbird) and realized that the squeaking all about was the males in leks in small groups here and there.  I sat down and finally saw them zoom around me (impossible to spot otherwise). Another hummer the violet crowned woodnymph looked all black but would be green/violet in sun.  Winter migrants from home in Maine like Wood thrush, great crested flycatcher, warblers (Tennessee etc) were common.   Strange calls led to strange birds like barred antshrike and black hooded antshrike.  More: rufus piha, throated flycatch, plain Xenops, bananaquit, shinning honey creeper, red legged honey creeper (both bright blue), orange crowned parrot (small and green) and rufus piha.  Mammals agouti, raccoon, monkeys and squirrels.    

The next day I walked up to a cataract (a dribble) but saw orange billed sparrow, river wren and chestnut backed antbird.   I spent much time waiting for birds to come to me.  Walked up a small stream bed away from the trail and sat down by a small pool.   It was getting hot and had not rained in the night.  Hummingbirds and other birds flitted to the pool.   White necked Jacobin, blue throated goldentail. more stripe throated hermits (one hovered about me in consternation), and a ruby throated from home.  Also a northern water thrush, and a chestnut sided warbler from home.  At points I got feelings of being in the hot humid woods in Maine in summer.  Only it was not so hot (I stayed dry if I did not move much in the shade and there were NO mosquitoes.   I got bitten by about 6 mosquitoes in Hawaii.  Here I have not seen ONE.  It makes me wonder and worry (is it just high competition for food in the dry season? Stagnant water abounds. I got two sand fly bites near the breakwater in Quepos ( otherwise nothing).   I have run into a couple spider web strands but less then I encounter any day just walking out my OWN door in the morning.   Really wonder if they spray or is it natural?       With a rufus-tailed hummingbird I have seen four native hummers and feel happy but have no intention of following the addiction to endless hunts and listing and renting cars and guides and ....   No. But It was nice to visit.  Something to think of for future getaways.

Today I noticed the squeaky birds on the wires in town were not some sparrow but a blue grey tanager (grey with blue wings and rather beautiful).  It seemed to be a tanager day.  Arriving early at the park I walked past the hotels on a garden road and saw bright red backed Cheries tanagers and a pair or summer tanagers (red male, green female), alone with a singing house wren.      I followed a three wattled bell bird that makes a strange very loud electric sounding BRRRING call, and waited to see it.  Meantime howler monkeys started barking far off and then one just near me started to cough in threat.  Eventually, it showed itself: big, swollen cheeks, and large white gonads (odd), and started to howl as well just above me.   I had a second try to see the bell bird in the afternoon and had to walk right under the tree and see it fly off (brown with white head and size of a pigeon). 
When listening for it on the main road, many guided groups passed by.  One guide had never seen one and another said it had been 8 years.  

I saw about 15 more new birds on this day.  Tropical gnatcatchers etc.  It is nice to walk down a road and know most of the songs and calls (something I remember feeling long long ago when 14 or so).   Strangely white tailed deer showed up and were extremely tame.  One licking people for some reason and following them to the beach (likely wanted salt but did not remember the ocean was what had it). I worried for the children that were being allowed to follow it closely.  One well landed kick and you could have a good gash. 

  Another nice day in Manuel Antonio.  Golden hooded tanager (black with turquoise bars and gold on blue head) near the hotels.  Tanagers are like sparrows here.  Hooop-hooop of a Motmot and did not expect to see.  I was just standing on a forest hill.  A howler monkey warned with a cough and clambered by.  Then a blue crowned motmot just showed up silently (large green with blue head and tail with two racket like feathers).   A small black scarlet-capped manikin, sounding like a squeeze dog toy, appeared while I looked for 2 hours for a trilling bird (very plain buff throated foliage gleaner - frustrating - a bit). A band of 5 fiery billed aracari's (toucans), very bright and strange to see in the same tree which had ripe fruit:  Two groove billed ani.  A white vented euphonia (blue with yellow belly). A yellow-naped woodpecker.   In the afternoon, several violaceous trogons in the high trees with repeated clear monotone whistles a bit like a cardinal. Saw one but in flight.  As you get used to the sounds more new things are heard (dominant calls are chestnut backed antbirds and  black hooded antshrikes which both have amazingly varied calls they use at different times of day.  The bell bird was back so as I watched the howler monkey and the motmot a bell bird was calling 
and I felt truly tropical (perhaps a blue morpho should have flapped by). 

Treated myself to dinner (peanut butter and wheat tortillas was my hiking meal of choice) at sunset in the town of hotels/restaurants and beach stands called Manuel Antonio.  Eating full tourist is just as expensive as California.  Back to Quepos.  I wish I had traveled in Latin America when I was young with a girlfriend as I see so many doing - Oh well.  Got some mosquito bites at dinner.  Still wonder what the bluish haze is in the streams here. They explain the near lack of mosquitoes by citronella plants but is does not sound right. 


Back to real life and getting another job after 6 months of traveling (France, Maine, Hawaii, California, and Costa Rica).