We stayed in a hotel that was a reasonable drive away from the next day's destination, since it would be a very early start. As we sat on the patio having a few drinks, we looked out into the total darkness of the grounds, until we heard this rumble that turned into a deep, loud, thunderous noise. I thought for sure there was a troop of wild pigs just around the corner. This was my first experience of the howler monkeys!
The grounds were home to a few other critters too:
 |
| Gecko in the light fixture! There was a row of these lamps, and each had one or more in it. |
 |
| Agouti |
 |
| Rufous-naped wren |
We reserved a Palo Verde Boat tour well in advance. Palo Verde is birding mecca and I had high
hopes to spot a Jabiru, one of the biggest birds in the world, and I had
visions of roseate spoonbills dancing in my head when I went to bed.
We had a nice morning, walking around the grounds looking for birds and animals, and got a pretty good head start to drive to the place we were supposed to catch our boat, which Google told me was 45 minutes away (or so I had written in my notes). This is where things started to go horribly wrong!
I put our destination in our GPS and it told me it would be twice as long to get there (going by the main road). Unfortunately, this day was highly scheduled and we couldn't be late of the boat would leave without us. There seemed to be a more direct route of smaller roads and we had to make a decision to see if we could cut time by racing down the back roads. We gambled on the back roads and were making up time fast, until the road became more and more rough, and then we made a few wrong turns that set us way back, and then we were really in The Middle Of Nowhere, Costa Rica. I asked some guy driving a tractor and he just shook his head at us. We clearly weren't going to make it to where the boat tour company is headquartered, so we decided to just go straight to the park and hope to catch up with them there.
We get to the park, well before the tour is to start, so I think we are ok. There's nothing there but a little hut and a guard and I explain the situation and he lets me call the tour company to let them know we'll just meet them there--no problem. He tells me it's the only entrance to the park--so I figure they have to come through here. And we wait, taking the opportunity to look at the birds there at the park entrance, even though it was HOT and DRY.
 |
| Scissor-tailed flycatchers and doves on a wire. |
I recalled when a scissor-tailed was reported in Pelee and we went nuts
looking for it, and here they are just perched on a wire like it's
nothing. I discovered I don't really enjoy chasing birds! This feels so
much more natural.
 |
| Swainson's hawk (dark morph) |
Except about an hour goes by and they definitely should
have been there by now, and after way too long on the phone
we figure out the boat doesn't come here. PALO VERDE BOAT TOURS doesn't
go to PALO VERDE NATIONAL PARK. It goes to
El Refugio de Vida Silvestre Dr. Rafael Rodríguez Lucas Caballero (which is adjacent, but still misleading). I really start to doubt my Spanish and go over and over the conversation on the phone but I'm certain I was clear about where we were.
They apologized profusely but we finally got to where we needed to be and they put us on a later tour. We weren't going into Palo Verde, so I was pretty
disappointed. And in addition to that, we missed out on Barra Honda caves because you have to get to them by 11, and that's why we had picked the first boat tour of the day (in addition to being the best time of the day to see things).
Nevertheless, we did see some great stuff. The boat driver
was better than the actual guide and had crazy eagle eyes. When he
spotted something good he's use a little mirror to reflect at the spot
where it was.
 |
| Green iguana |
 |
| Also a green iguana, which turn orange when excited! |
 |
| These guys were hanging out on a tree over the river.....bats! |
 |
| Doesn't this guy look like a dinosaur? Basilisk |
 |
| Tree swallows |
This guy was doing an amazing job of hiding out, but the boat driver was amazing at spotting things. Unfortunately we didn't get a better look than this.
Not far away this guy was hanging out, and looked like other birds I've seen, but that black bill and orange eye mean it's something special--a yellow-crowned night-heron!
There were many others things hiding out in the trees:
 |
| Little Blue Heron |
 |
| Snowy Egret |
 |
| Lots of things lurking in the murky water! |
During our ride, it was interesting listening to the conversations of the other people on the tour. It was pretty clear they had all been picked up on a bus from resorts and their experience so far had been SOOO different from ours. Since we came in our rental SUV, we drove out of the park in front of their bus, which didn't stop for more than a second when we pulled over to check out some monkeys. After a few minutes I noticed something different about one...and realized it had a baby clinging to it. And that is why I don't like being on anybody else's schedule!
We made the absolutely crazy decision to drive all the way back over to Palo Verde to see what we could find, though we had very limited light left and it was so much driving back and forth. For what was supposed to be a relatively light day of driving (about an hour and half), we ended up driving about six hours :(
The guard at Palo Verde laughed at us and wouldn't even let us into the park since the cutoff time was 4pm. But I begged him in Spanish and he finally let us in as long we promised to be back not a second past 5:30 when he locked the gate. Unfortunately you can't hire a boat there (it has to be pre-arranged, and we didn't have time anyway) so we couldn't get out to where we needed to be to look for Jabirus and Spoonbills. But there was a little boardwalk and we found these amazing little birds that look like they have buttercups on their heads (the males)
We spotted this bird flying overhead and I couldn't even find it in the book. It took a lot of research to figure out that it's a female anhinga. I always thought I would see my first in Florida, but here it is!
 |
| #369: Anhinga; Palo Verde National Park, Costa Rica; December 2015 |
 |
| #370: Limpkin; Palo Verde National Park, Costa Rica; December 2015 |
 |
| Melodious Blackbird |
Finally at the end of the day, the sun started to set and we made our way to the ocean, finally. Jabiru, I will come back for you one day.
We drove through cane fields that they were cutting (they were really tall...like 12 feet high), filling the canes into massive trucks, and burning off whatever was left on the ground (the guard at the gate told me it was to put nutrients back in the soil). They had massive fires everywhere and the air was dry and full of smoke. And this is how they make sugar! I then realized how dirty this process is, with the fields getting burned off and the product burned at the mill too.
Eventually we got to the main highway, and drove in the dark (again) to Samara. The day was crazy and not what we expected at all, but there wasn't much we could do about it. Whatever, just go with it. There are worse things that could happen. We saw seven new birds! PURA VIDA!
The last part of the trip wasn't really going to involve much birding, but we still managed to see quite a few more, so I think there's one more post in this series!
