Taking up a suggestion from new Tico friend and expert guide Steven Masis and his Spanish wife Deyanira, I drove down with neighbour Fabio to the Osa Peninsula in the south of the country to visit Bahía Drake (Drake Bay). The connection with Sir Francis Drake, who is celebrated as a national hero in my native England and reviled as a pirate by the Spanish, seems tenuous at best, but the area probably conserves the main features that the Devonian would have seen on his circumnavigation of the globe in 1578-9. The modern-day boat ride from Sierpe to Drake, after a beautiful stretch down the Río Sierpe, takes you into the Pacific itself and sometimes involves negotiating some hair-raisingly rough and large waves where the Río Térraba empties into the ocean.
Drake’s party certainly would not have been able to miss the Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao), probably the most striking bird species both then and now, and still abundant in the area.
The Scarlet Macaw is making a spectacular comeback in several regions of Costa Rica
We stayed at the Iguana Surf House, which I can highly recommend, located 45 minutes’ walk from the boat dock. Actually, there is no boat dock; you hop out of the boat directly on the beach.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
How I wish we could have stayed longer: a week, a month, a year! Hummingbirds abound, and the White-crested Coquette (Lophornis adorabilis) is among the cutest and probably the smallest that we found in the area.
Male White-crested Coquette, tiny but spectacular
Many thanks again to Richard Garrigues for his kind permission to use the pics in this post. Remember, if you’re visiting Drake and need a local guide, be sure to contact Steven Masis at stevenmadi09@gmail.com
Here’s my list from the rather sporadic birding that I was able to do. It includes the town of Sierpe, La Perla del Sur (Pearl of the South!), and the river trip.
- Great Tinamou (voice)
- Gray-headed Chachalaca
- Neotropic Cormorant
- Brown Pelican
- Magnificent Frigatebird
- Storm-Petrel (sp.)
- Laughing Gull
- Sandwich Tern
- Green Heron
- Little Blue Heron
- Great Egret
- Cattle Egret
- Snowy Egret
- Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
- White Ibis
- Willet
- Spotted Sandpiper
- Sanderling
- Purple Gallinule
- Black Vulture
- Turkey Vulture
- Roadside Hawk
- Broad-winged Hawk
- Crested Caracara
- Mottled Owl (voice)
- Vermiculated Screech-Owl (at Sierpe)
- Common Pauraque
- Swift (Chaetura sp.)
- Mangrove Swallow
- Gray-breasted Martin
- Charming Hummingbird
- Garden Emerald
- Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
- White-crested Coquette
- Pale-vented Pigeon
- Ruddy Ground-Dove
- White-tipped Dove
- Crimson-fronted Parakeet
- Orange-chinned Parakeet
- White-crowned Parrot
- Scarlet Macaw
- Red-lored Parrot
- Mealy Parrot
- Squirrel Cuckoo
- Gartered Trogon
- Blue-crowned Motmot
- Ringed Kingfisher
- Fiery-billed Araçari
- Black-mandibled Toucan
- Red-crowned Woodpecker
- Chestnut-backed Antbird
- Dusky-capped Flycatcher
- Panama Flycatcher
- Great Kiskadee
- Boat-billed Flycatcher
- Social Flycatcher
- Tropical Kingbird
- Brown Jay
- Clay-colored Thrush
- Tropical Gnatcatcher
- Riverside Wren
- House Wren
- Northern Waterthrush
- Yellow Warbler
- Chestnut-sided Warbler
- Cherrie’s Tanager
- Blue-gray Tanager
- Palm Tanager
- Golden-hooded Tanager
- Red-legged Honeycreeper
- Bananaquit
- Blue-black Grassquit
- Variable Seedeater
- Summer Tanager
- Melodious Blackbird
- Great-tailed Grackle
- Baltimore Oriole
Birds for Beer 