The ultimate birding vehicle challenge is making a Big Day. In addition to birding for hours, it also incorporates various birding challenges. You can, for example, put your ears to the sky to listen and identify the faint chip notes of nocturnal migrants. On a Big Day, that can really help (provided there are nocturnal migrants and you can spot them)!
On birding days, you’re also encouraged to enter extreme birding Zen focus mode as you encounter fast-moving rainforest canopy flocks. You can also call owls on a hopeless night.
Then there is reference to Empids and other birds alike, no doubt, and perhaps calling shorebirds by their vocalizations at 0 dark thirty or some other funny hour. Any of those quests are pretty tough on their own but enjoying the mental burn in the same 24 hour period seems like a bit much. Asking why this is still being done?
With many other, easier birding practices, the concern is valid! Why challenge yourself for such extreme birding? I suppose the answer is the same as why people climb mountains or run marathons or play speed chess. I don’t know, I guess it’s all for something to do, to see how far you can push yourself, to see what you’re capable of within your personal area of expertise.
Or, maybe just see what happens if you give it a try!
I mention all this because, recently, Marilen and I embarked on another Big Day. It included some of the birding challenges mentioned above but as it also involved a silent dawn chorus and not enough birds in the morning to break any records, we ended up converting the Big Day on a Big Morning.
Better and memorable. There were challenges, things were learned and we still identified more than 200 species of birds. Here are some highlights of the events:
Windy Weather in Poas!
I was determined to bird Poas, intending to take screech-owl, pygmy-owl, and nightjar. I also want to be there at night because maybe, on one of those nights, we’ll document Unspotted Saw-whet Owl.
Well, nothing happened on Friday night. It’s just too windy! The loud gusts of my owls scattered to the four corners and the birds were too smart to come out and play on a night like that. We took the hint and left the area ahead of schedule.
Bare-shanked Screech-Owl and a Tapir!
I hoped that the road of San Rafael de Varablanca would be calmer and that wish came true! It was a beautiful moonlit night accompanied by beautiful silence, the sounds of an unknown frog’s croaking that filled the cloud forest, and the anxious sounds of snapping branches!
Imagination influenced by the magical darkness of the night, I felt like jumping back into the safety of the car. As the longed-for Bare-shanked Screech-Owl answered and flew, I also remembered one of those animals that can break branches in the middle of the night. The next moment, sure enough, it’s there! Baird’s Tapir!
The large herbivore grazes on the leaves at the edge of the forest and then slowly moves through the trees. Based on the number of shriveled branches, I suspect two. A great start to an unforgettable night!
A Pleasant Nocturnal Drive in the Lowlands
After the tapir incident, we headed down route 126, to the lowlands. It’s a nice, easy ride that’s blissfully free of mist and the many cars that pass this road during the day.
It also lacked Dusky Nightjars and other birds but oh well, at least we tried.
Owl Road paid off
Our next destination was a road through the rainforest in the Pueblo Nuevo lagoon area. This is an exciting place where I often have success with owls and other night birds! I expect they are also obliged to an hour and a half before morning.
Although they didn’t call as much as other nights, thankfully, the birds sounded just enough to almost clean up. My “BAWK!” The impersonation of a Great Potoo was quickly answered by the listless grunt of the real deal. In response to other imitations and calls, a Middle American Screech-owl whimpered softly, a Black-and-White Owl called like a cat, and young Spectacled Owls vocalized excitedly.
Later, we also heard the typical calls of the adult Spec. Owls, a distant Crested Owl, and the skin of a Mottled Owl! In addition to our evening birding treat, the Central American Pygmy-Owl tooted several times and the Short-tailed Nighthawk gave a few short whistles.
Uniform Crake, Green Ibis, and a few others didn’t join in but we still had opportunities for those wild and crazy guys As I had hoped, we were effectively cleared of target birds at night, including a sweet bonus bird.
A Common Faith Flew In to Say Goodbye!
I have never heard of Common Potoo on this road. Anyway, I know it should be there so I always try. I do my best to whistle sadly like Common Potoo and as sad as the song is, no one responds.
Early Saturday morning, my potoo whistling finally paid off. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what the bird was. Instead of giving the whole whistling song, it just sang the first two notes!
I thought it was probably a Common Potoo but it sure was good to confirm when here, this long-winged thing pulled a tapir and flew overhead! I almost passed it off as a Short-tailed Nighthawk before noticing the long tail. Fortunately, it made it to the top of a telephone pole for great views!
Dawn Marsh Madness
Next on the agenda was the sunrise. I was hoping to scan a swamp before moving on to the main chorus area at dawn. However, our scan was hampered by a thick blanket of marsh mist!
How can we see birds climbing? What about stork shapes? Well, at least the birds are calling, there are a lot of them! Olive-crowned Yellowthroats and Canebrake Wrens, Northern Barred Woodcreeper, and other birds. Because of the volume of the birds, I thought we would do some early morning birding around until it was light enough to see the wet grass.
More birds called and came out; parrots, a pair of Great Green Macaws spotted (!), Pied Puffbirds, and more! It got light enough to check the quiet parts of the water and we saw a few things but then it was time to move on, time to get to Chilamate, a major forest area 20 minutes away.
Chilamate Birding is Always Great
On the way there, we picked up more birds calling and perching in the trees; the three saltators, Gray-headed Chachalaca, and various others. On reaching Chilamate, the river has Amazon Kingfisher and relies on Fasciated Tiger-Heron (!) but not much else.
Luckily, scanning the forest canopy below the road provided us with tree toucans and one of our best birds of the day, a male Snowy Cotinga. This is why you take that scope to a Big Day-scan and you’ll see!
Back in the forest, though, things have been quiet. It’s warm and a bit dry and the birds don’t like that very much. We still had some species but not as many as other days in the same area.
However, highlights included a Northern Royal Flycatcher that responded to my whistle, a surprise American Kestrel, a beautiful female Hook-billed Kite, called Purple-throated Fruitcrows (uncommon there), and a beautiful canopy flock with Black-striped Woodcreepers, Rufous Mourners, White-fronted Nunbirds, and several other birds.
Nunbirds are entertaining. For their own coral-beaked reasons, they make loud cackling noises while pumping their tails up and down. It’s pretty crazy.
Eventually, Rufous Motmot, Slaty-breasted Tinamou, and a few other birds called but we left the area missing a group of key birds.
Warm Weather and Few Birds on the Foot
Yes, Saturday was warm and sunny. Although we humans often have such times, rainforest birds do not! At the foot of the forest on the road from San Miguel to Socorro, we had some birds but not like other days. It was very quiet as we continued through the middle elevation forest beyond the Albergue Socorro. Our best bird is probably the White Hawk.
Ditto for the Socorro Forest
At this point, we figured that if we couldn’t find a group of birds soon, there was no point in continuing for the whole Big Day. The forests above Soccoro were our last hope but no, they were quiet too, the quietest I’ve ever seen for that common birding area.
Anyway it was a beautiful place and we saw some birds but few. By noon, we couldn’t deny, it was a very quiet day for bird activity. Better to call it a day and enjoy some lunch in beautiful surroundings.
Navigating Holiday Traffic
Ending a Big Morning turned out to be a good idea. Although we wanted to go ahead with the grand original plan, we were seriously slowed down by holiday traffic.
Holy Week is like Spring Break for all of Costa Rica. That means traffic lines, busy beaches, and crowded roads. We had to wait a while in a traffic jam at the Peace Waterfall (where the consolation is called the Sooty-faced Finch), witnessed a funny group of people at the Cinchona Hummingbird Cafe, and saw many people in the rivers and everywhere.
In other words, it’s a classic happy behavior of Semana Santa- fun but not so much for the Big Days.
Lessons learned
Fortunately, we got home safe and sound where we could sleep and reflect on the Big Morning. On the bird front, I remembered that nunbirds are unique, Common Potoos don’t need to sing their full song, and birds are pretty quiet on hot, sunny days.
In other fields, I’ve learned that you may not have to start a Big Day in the middle of the night. Losing a bird or three isn’t worth losing all that sleep. It’s also best to avoid Big Days on holiday weekends, and hope for cloudy weather.
Is it worth the effort for a Big Day in Costa Rica? If you don’t mind a local Big Day, yes! A record breaking all out Big Day? Given the multiple factors that must fall into place, and the reduced bird population, I’m not sure.
To learn about the birding sites mentioned above and dozens of other birding sites in Costa Rica, you may like my ebook, “How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica”. Hope to see you here!
