Our area is again host to a White-eyed Vireo (Vireo griseus), quite possibly the same individual that stayed faithful to my garden for months last year. Visitors to nearby San Rafael, James and Laetitia Hart, discovered and photographed the bird just a few days ago at a Santa Cruz location barely 2 km from my house in San Antonio.
Not easy, but James did manage to take some convincing photos of the White-eyed Vireo at San Rafael de Santa Cruz de Turrialba
So far, it has not been easy to reliably find the bird, since it accompanies a passing mixed flock that seems not to have a very fixed schedule! Two other migrant vireo species, the Philadelphia and the Yellow-throated, are also typically present, but the White-eyed has been recorded in Costa Rica on only a very few occasions. By way of comparison, here’s a Yellow-throated Vireo (Vireo flavifrons), a fairly common migrant in Costa Rica:
Yellow-throated Vireo, courtesy of Sergio Venegas and the Asociación Ornitológica de Costa Rica
The San Rafael area is very beautiful, overlooking as it does a wide drainage below the Turrialba Volcano that empties into the Río Reventazón on its way to the Caribbean. My first (unsuccessful) attempts at locating the vireo rarity involved some very pleasant birding among pastures and small forest remnants just below the private Espino Blanco Reserve. The following list of 100 bird species that I have identified recently in San Rafael is typical of what you can expect to find:
- Gray-headed Chachalaca
- Green Heron
- Great Egret
- Great Blue Heron
- Cattle Egret
- Rufous-naped Wood-Rail
- Black Vulture
- Turkey Vulture
- Swallow-tailed Kite
- Short-tailed Hawk
- Roadside Hawk
- Broad-winged Hawk
- Crested Caracara
- Common Pauraque
- White-collared Swift
- Blue-and-white Swallow
- Northern Rough-winged Swallow
- Southern Rough-winged Swallow
- Green Hermit
- Green-crowned Brilliant
- White-necked Jacobin
- Crowned Woodnymph
- Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
- Green-breasted Mango
- Red-billed Pigeon
- Ruddy Ground-Dove
- White-tipped Dove
- Crimson-fronted Parakeet
- Brown-hooded Parrot
- White-crowned Parrot
- Groove-billed Ani
- Squirrel Cuckoo
- Blue-crowned Motmot
- Collared Araçari
- Keel-billed Toucan
- Black-cheeked Woodpecker
- Hoffmann’s Woodpecker
- Golden-olive Woodpecker
- Lineated Woodpecker
- Spotted Woodcreeper
- Streak-headed Woodcreeper
- Paltry Tyrannulet
- Yellow-bellied Elaenia
- Common Tody-Flycatcher
- Bright-rumped Attila
- Olive-sided Flycatcher
- Tropical Pewee
- Dusky-capped Flycatcher
- Great Kiskadee
- Boat-billed Flycatcher
- Social Flycatcher
- Gray-capped Flycatcher
- Tropical Kingbird
- Masked Tityra
- Brown Jay
- Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush
- Clay-colored Thrush
- Tropical Gnatcatcher
- Band-backed Wren
- Bay Wren
- Cabanis’s Wren
- House Wren
- White-breasted Wood-Wren
- Yellow-throated Vireo
- Philadelphia Vireo
- Golden-winged Warbler
- Black-and-white Warbler
- Tennessee Warbler
- Yellow Warbler
- Mourning Warbler
- Tropical Parula
- Chestnut-sided Warbler
- Black-throated Green Warbler
- Wilson’s Warbler
- Rufous-capped Warbler
- White-lined Tanager
- Passerini’s Tanager
- Blue-gray Tanager
- Palm Tanager
- Silver-throated Tanager
- Golden-hooded Tanager
- Green Honeycreeper
- Scarlet-thighed Dacnis
- Bananaquit
- Thick-billed Seed-Finch
- Variable Seedeater
- Yellow-faced Grassquit
- Grayish Saltator
- Buff-throated Saltator
- Black-headed Saltator
- Black-striped Sparrow
- White-naped Brush-Finch
- Rufous-collared Sparrow
- Rose-breasted Grosbeak
- Summer Tanager
- Melodious Blackbird
- Great-tailed Grackle
- Baltimore Oriole
- Montezuma Oropendola
- Chestnut-headed Oropendola
