Pura Vida VIII: Palo Verde #363-370

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.

#363: Scissor-tailed Flycatcher; Palo Verde National Park, Costa Rica; December 2015

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. 

#364: Swainson's Hawk; Palo Verde National Park, Costa Rica; December 2015

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.

#365: Boat-billed Heron; Tempisque River, Costa Rica; December 2015

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!

#366: Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (juvenile); Tempisque River, Costa Rica; December 2015

 There were many others things hiding out in the trees:

Little Blue Heron

Snowy Egret

#367: Bare-throated Tiger-heron; Tempisque River, Costa Rica; December 2015

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)

#368: Northern Jacana; Palo Verde National Park, Costa Rica; December 2015

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!

YOLO in Yelapa (#295-299)

Yelapa...was like a dream. One of the first places where I felt like we were someplace different, and finally got away from everything. The only access to Yelapa is by a 45-minute water taxi from Puerto Vallarta. Yelapa just got electricity 10 years ago, and there are no roads (since there are no cars), just little paths zigzagging all through the village. I'd been wanting to go there since about five years ago when I stumbled on the website for one of the casas (private rental--there aren't really any typical hotels there). It took me forever to refind the place on the Internet, but I did and we spent three glorious days in Yelapa.

It's such a neat little spot and I'm sure the ex-pats there would kill me for spreading their little secret. We met some great people (a group of older folk who showed up at Tacos y Mas and there were no tables left...since we had seats left we asked if they wanted to join us at our table and they did. They told us about what not to miss, and we ended up seeing them all over...it's hard not to in that little village!)

There is a combination of indigenous people and ex-pats, and it's just kind of slow and lazy and great. There's not much going on, so no need to plan, but there is certainly an odd rhythm to this little village. As soon as the sun rises (which was amazing from our suite which was overlooking the ocean, and no windows or walls--basically a massive covered balcony---so it was just like us, the end of our bed and then OCEAN), you could see all the fishing boats heading out at the crack of dawn, and coming back into the pier a few hours later with the bonitas they'd caught. Sometime after the tourist boat from Puerto Vallarta gets in, but most of the tourists just come for the day and stick to the strip of sand across the river, so it gets busy (but not really) until the last water taxi leaves around 4 or 5 and then it quiets down again. Then if you want, there are a few restaurants (basically these patio affairs with plastic chairs in a yard), but you have to know which day of the week it is because there are usually only one or two open per day, and at certain times. And at night, there might be live music, or not, but everybody knows where to go on which night of the week.

On our first full day in Yelapa, we went for what was supposed to be a short walk around the village The thing I have discovered real time and bird time is like real time and football time. As a child I'd ask my dad how much longer, and he'd say 2 minutes. And then 2 minutes later it would still be a minute left. How did that make sense? Well, what's supposed to be a short walk quickly becomes a four-hour adventure when you have a camera and binoculars in your hands.

On our first walk into the village, we spotted a really exciting bird...black vultures on the ground, so close to us. It didn't take long for us to realize that there are black vultures everywhere in Yelapa.

 #295: Black Vulture; Mexico, February 2014

Black vultures and pelicans in the background...not shy around here

On the way into the village, this poster was on a tree, asking people not to poach the parrots.

And it was nice that just across from that poster, we saw a parakeet, wild of course. This picture is of a parakeet we saw later. You always heard them before you saw them, and they blend in so well, you could stare at the tree five minutes before you found them (and sometimes you still couldn't!)

#296: Orange-fronted parakeet; Yelapa, Mexico; February 2014

Their bulgy yellow eyes often made them look funny.

This really handy posted was posted in town, and was how I managed to figure out the parakeets we saw earlier in Sayulita. The mini guide I'd brought didn't have all these birds so I took a picture!

 

And how apt that we were staying at Casa Pericos? (House of Parrots)

There is a river that runs through Yelapa, splitting the beach from the village. The directions in Yelapa are not typical and quite interesting..."it's upriver," "it's down river," "past the tortilla place," "on the way to the telephone tower," "it's by the point," "near the second water taxi dropoff."

Map by "Map Jeff" who we met on the water taxi.

You can cross the river at the bridge by wading through it, or you can cross farther up at the bridge. Following the river is an excellent choice, and the basin behind the sand bar has excellent birding opportunities!

Juvenile little blue. Easy to confuse with the egrets and other herons!

Little boy blue

Little blue - big awesome

Following the river, you get some water-loving birds in the river, but other birds on the sides of the trail too. Golden-cheeked woodpeckers were really common in this part of Mexico and we often saw them in pairs.

I don't think I could post all these pictures from Mexico and not include a great-tailed grackle...they are as common there as the common grackle is at home!

The caciques were ubiquitous as well.

The caciques were most amusing when they tossed up their lids.They are incredibly loud birds.

#297: West Mexican Chachalacha; Yelapa, Mexico; February 2014
I didn't realize it at the time, but we saw a different type of chachalacha in Yelapa! Apparently I cannot read Mexican range maps...we were farther south than I realized!

It's amazing that even when you don't know the bird calls of birds in a place you're not familiar with that you can still recognize a sound you haven't heard yet.

Looking through the mini guide that I had on the plane, Matt and I loved picking out random birds we never heard of, and the ones with the weirdest names ("Yellow-throated euphonia!" "Montezuma's Oropendola!" Black-headed saltator!" Pauraque!" "Squirrel Cuckoo!" "Blue-crowned Motmot!"). It made it all the more wonderful when we spotted some of these birds, as if the oddness of their names made us incredulous of their real-life existence.

#298: Squirrel Cuckoo; Yelapa, Mexico; February 2014

#299: Elegant Trogon; Yelapa, Mexico; February 2014
The elegant trogon was one of the most majestic birds that we spotted in Mexico. It was on my list of the ones I really wanted to see. I saw them only on a couple occasions, and they were always pretty quiet, except for our last day in Yelapa when I had a chance to see one feeding. Seriously fantastic. Sometimes in awe of the beauty of some of nature's little beings.


Well, I don't mean to be a tease and it makes no sense to stop here but I have actually reached the limit for tags for this post. You may have noticed I stopped at #299.....!