The best thing about the food in Costa Rica is the fruit.

Pineapple and mango never tasted so good.

The creepy crawlies are good too. These are millipedes.

Unfortunately, the click beetles that emit light continuously at night don’t lend themselves to photography.

The star birds today were probably Rufous-tailed Jacamar and Sunbittern. The latter is really hard to see so not the best photograph.

We have seen thousands of these as they are en route to the US and Canada.

Tomorrow we move on to our last stop. Tortuego is only accessible by boat. Should be interesting.

The rooms here are in blocks of four.  They are on stilts about 7ft up. The site is in the edge of the rainforest by a river.

Big bills to the fore today. Chestnut-mandibled Toucan

And Collared Aracari

There is some very interesting non bird wildlife. Huge numbers of leaf cutter ants

Peccaries everywhere.

and Green and Black poison dart frogs

I couldn’t get a photo of the bullet ants which are 1.5 inches long and to be avoided.

Early morning at Arenal and the toucans showed well.

Finally the volcano cleared a bit and my room view was worth taking.

Nice Black-cheeked Woodpecker on the feeders.

Blacked cowled Tanagers

and Golden hooded Tanager

Now we travel to Selva Verde rain forest on the Caribbean side.  At a stop on the way saw these Silver throated Tanagers.

We arrive after dark. The lodge is built in the forest – you’ll see what I mean with the next post.

Arenal is in the rain forest. Guess what – it’s raining. We did some birding in the morning but after lunch the rain was torrential so we abandoned birding and it gave me the chance to catch up on a few things.

The hotel has feeders for the birds allowing some close views. This is a selection of these. We leave here tomorrow.

Crested guan

Golden crowned Tanager

Great currasow pair

Montezuma oropendola

Black cheeked woodpecker

Green honeyeater

A morning’s birding at the salt pans. Very hot and stifling.

After that we travel on to the Arenal volcano.

In the hotel grounds before breakfast was a Turquoise-browed motmot.

We shared our breakfast terrace with these.

White tailed magpie jay

These have sharp claws – as these people found out.

Coatis

Believe it or not this is a bird.

Great potoo

There are lots of these but they are difficult to photograph

Swallow-tailed Kite

This might be the best view we get of Arenal volcano.

We leave today to go north to the hot dry area.

Before we go I get a photo of the star bird in the hotel grounds.

Scarlet Macaw

This is a great day for owls.

Pacific screech owl

Ferruginous pygmy owl

and best of all

Spectacled owl

In the afternoon we visit a wetland area. The star bird here is Jabiru. It towered over great egret.

Jabiru

It is really hot at our next stop.

We  are down at the Pacific coast.  It is hot and humid. This morning we walked in forest . Loads more birds and our first sloth.

When we got back to the bus our driver had bought fresh pineapple and mango – delicious.

When  I got back to my room there were 2 1m lizards sat by my door. The top right hand corner of the picture is the door.

Boat trip this pm.  Four kingfishers, lots of egrets and herons. The hawk was sat on a stump in the river.

Black and white Owl

Black-crowned night heron

Juvenile Black Hawk

Over 120 species today.

Move to Pacific coast – birding as we go.

Stunning scenery.

Some great birds and monkeys on the way. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is spectacular.  Oops Fork-tailed Flycatcher.  The monkey is on a rope bridge over a major road. They are put there by the government for wildlife.

We are now at the coast and it is hot. Boat trip tomorrow.

Spent in the hills around our hotel and at a nearby site. Weather cold first thing but pleasant.

Lots of hummingbirds.  You could spend all day watching the feeders. The hummingbird nest from yesterday was occupied – mum and baby.

The star bird is the Resplendent Quetzal.  Great birds but hard to photograph.

The Collared Redstart is very attractive.

Other wildlife is available.

We arrived safely on Sunday night and were in the hotel garden at 6 am today.

Clay-coloured Robin is the National bird of Costa Rica.  Not an exciting bird.

After breakfast we headed south to the cloud forest 3500 m up.

Fantastic scenery

At the lodge where we are staying there are lots of hummingbird feeders and dozens of hummingbirds.

This hummingbird nest is no more than 3-4 cm across.  You can just make out the baby bird.

On or afternoon walk we came across this Emerald Toucanet.  We saw many birds – too many to mention here.