Trip Reports

COSTA RICA - 2011

This was a recce trip in preparation for future group tours. We intended to visit as many of the lodges that we could fit in and map out an exciting route so that we could provide an interesting and exciting tour for years to come.

We listed just under 300 species in 8 days birding, most of which were with a local guide, Roy Orozco, this shows what a great birding location Costa Rica really is.

we stayed at 4 lodges and spent several hours visiting 6 more, which restricted our birding time. We were also aware that it was still the rainy season so we expected to get wet in the Rain forests, this also reduced our birding activities. Our future trips will take place in February, well into the dry season!

It wasn’t just birds – we saw a great variety of butterflies, some fascinating flowering plants included several epiphytic Orchids. There are a great many mammals on Costa Rica, over 200 species have been recorded! 

Many are nocturnal bats and small rodents, but we did see Neotropical River Otter, Tayra, Three-toed and Twotoed Sloth, White Nosed Coati, Northern Raccoon, Varigated Squirrel, White-throated Capuchin, Howler Monkey, Common Opossum, Collared Peccary, Red Brocket Deer, Agouti and Red-tailed Squirrel.

There are also a huge variety of reptiles and 150 amphibians including 135 frogs and toads!! Of the 220 reptiles we saw a good number of unidentified Anoles and several Lizards, but the most surprising was the gigantic American Crocodile.

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