This might seem demanding, but you can choose to take me up on this offer or forget it. So I don't mind asking.

Could you do a summary of your Costa Rica locations and the wildlife/birds you have seen, plus when you were there? If you just note the large, colorful birds or birds doing interesting things instead of every winged creature ticked, that's ok too.

Something like this.

Lodge A in Park B in May of 20xx:
animal y doing this
3 animal z's
Birds:
#####
%%%%%
&&&&&

Hotel R in Park S in Dec of 20xx:
etc. etc.

I hope this does not produce nightmares for those of you who did not like Algebra.

Gracias.

Best wildlife we've seen: Cano Negro and Arenal, Manuel Antonio, and the Osa. All our trips have been in July. We've seen monkeys, sloths, and wonderful birds in all locations. Neatest thing we saw in each spot was an albino baby howler monkey in Cano Negro, a peccary in Arenal, capuchins in Manuel Antonio, and all 4 kinds of monkeys, toucans, dolphins, and scarlet macaws in the Osa. If you do a search for my name, my list trip report lists all the birds we saw. If you'd like to know about a specific bird, I can check out my list and tell you, but I have way too many to type. We did see the quetzal in Monteverde; that was really amazing. One of the best things we've done is hire a private birding guide - we saw so many things we wouldn't have seen on our own.

Oh, I almost forgot, we saw anteaters - one in Arenal and one in the Osa; that was pretty neat too!

volcano girl, was most of the wildlife you saw in arenal on cano negro tour?

hmmm, I barely made it thru Algebra! Having gone to CR for the past several years (mostly in May, sometimes in early June) and seen so much it's hard to list exactly when/what and the list would be incredibly long. I will list some standouts though...

May 2006, Hanging Gardens in Arenal - 2 pit vipers

May 2004, Selva Verde in Sarapiqui, fer de lance

May 2007, Selva Verde in Sarapiqui, so many dart frogs on the sidewalks I often had to thread thru them

May 2008, Bosque del Cabo, Osa - a massive column of army ants

May 2008, Bosque de Paz, near Bajos del Toro - huge redleg Tarantula

May past several years, Bosque del Cabo, Osa - too many to count run-ins with howlers, capuchins & spider monkeys, titi monkeys less so, probably 4-5 spottings

I would say, in all, I've seen the largest variety of animals, insects, birds, butterflies etc in the Osa area, specifically at Bosque del Cabo.

c, honestly until this last trip to Arenal, I didn't think there was much wildlife there, but we hired a private guide who spent several hours with us hiking 5 minutes from our hotel where the electric company owns some land, and we saw howlers, toucans, the peccary, anteater, and an ornate hawk eagle. We probably wouldn't have seen much on our own though. In Cano Negro, we saw wildlife around every turn, it's really obvious and easy to spot. But I agree with tully; you can't beat the Osa for wildlife. We saw most of it from the front porch of our cabin. Nothing can compare to it that we've seen. We stayed at Bosque del Cabo too and loved it.

tully, I'm jealous of your snake sightings. The most we've seen is a snail-eating snake - ooh, scary!

atravelynn said: "This might seem demanding, but you can choose to take me up on this offer or forget it."

What is the "offer"? Is there a prize? I prefer cash.

Hotel: Si Como No, (Manuel Antonio area) from S.E. balcony of room 35 looking toward tall tree arising from Rico Tico restaurant, at precisely 4:37 pm, every day 3 February to 12 February, 2008, 3-4 Firey Billed Aricari, posing and strutting on a branch in the setting sun. Aricari tend to do this at the tree in which they roost.

On the other hand, almost all the other wildlife was just passing through, as most of it does anyway.

The prize: maybe you'll get your name in a Fodor travel book and then receive a free copy!

Thanks all.

I have a total of 1593 bird records for Costa Rica which I can send to your Hotmail address as a text file. It can be sorted by date or species. Let me know if you are interested.

volcanogirl,
If possible, please share more info about the private guide you had in Arenal – name, email address (or other way to contact him), price, how long he spent with you, etc. We’ll be in Arenal in February for 4 nights, 3 full days, and a guide to show us wildlife would be fantastic.
Thanks

Gavin, please do send the birds to my email. Thanks!

Hi, xyz; we hired a guide named Zender through Sunset Tours. He was really fun and a great spotter. I think he got as excited about the wildlife as we did. We thought we were just getting him, but they sent two other guys along with him, and they picked us up very early a.m. to go spot the wildlife near the Lost Iguana where we stayed. One man made hot coffee in the van, and they gave us cookies while we looked for the animals. We saw toucans, howlers, the anteater, the peccary, and tons of cool birds - even an ornate hawk eagle. One of the guides even wrote down all the birds we saw for us. I would call Sunset Tours and request Zender. I'm sorry I don't remember the cost, but I thought it was reasonable. I really couldn't believe we saw all that because I've never thought of Arenal as having a lot of wildlife, except for the Cano Negro tour.

I forgot to mention that I got a birding book by Garrigues and Dean before we went. It's called Birds of Costa Rica. I keep a checklist of all the birds we've seen in CR, so if anyone is curious about a certain one, I can look it up and tell you where/if we spotted it. I like having the record of it. At Bosque del Cabo, we did a birding tour with Carlos and really enjoyed that too.

The people on our Cano Negro tour were kind of duds. Zender saw that we had the birding book, so he knew we were really interested in it. The other people on our tour seemed disinterested, so I think he gave us a little special attention. He said he loves showing wildlife to people who really care about it and are interested in it. It just makes it more fun for him. That's how we started talking about hiring him for a few hours on our own.

We were on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica last month and saw quite a few animals:

Manzanillo - sloths, howler & white-faced monkeys, tiger spider, leaf-cutter ants, and the best - a river otter!

Cahuita - sloths, monkeys, eyelash viper, blue crabs, green and red dart frogs

Tortuguero - caimans, monkeys, toucans, tons of other birds, crocodile, sea turtles both large (laying eggs) and just hatched babies

(everywhere: turkey vultures, black vultures, tropical kingbird)


Pacuare River, February 16, 2008:

Sunbittern, osprey, collared aracari

Poas Nat'l Park, February 17, 2008: Poas squirrel, black-bellied hummingbird

La Paz Waterfall Gardens, February 18, 2008: Emerald Toucanet, Prong-billed barbet, numerous hummingbirds

Orquideas Inn, February 18, 2008: Blue-crowned mot-mot

Arenal Observatory Lodge balcony, February 18, 2008: Montezuma's Oropendola, Coati, Silver Throated Tanager, Summer Tanager, Red-legged honeycreeper, Crimson collared tanager, Passerini's (scarlet-rumped) tanager, palm tanager, blue-gray tanager, white-vented euphonia, black guan, crested guan

Muelle and environs, February 19, 2008: Chestnut-mandibled toucan, keel-billed toucan, sloth, several large iguanas

Cano Negro tour, February 19, 2008: Caiman, emerald basilisk, garfish, howler monkey, spider monkey, tiger heron, great blue heron, little blue heron, cattle egret, great egret, snowy egret, white ibis, roseate spoonbill, purple gallinule, Great potoo, green ibis, boat-billed heron, anhinga, neotropical cormorant, wood stork, amazon kingfisher, slaty-tailed trogon, ringed kingfisher, green kingfisher, belted kingfisher, american pygmy kingfisher, mangrove swallow

Cattle country near Quebrada Grande, February 20, 2008: orange chinned parakeet

Monteverde Reserve, (AM) February 21, 2008: several Resplendent Quetzals, prong-billed barbet, black guan, howler monkey

Wildlife Refuge (Santa Elena), (night) February 21, 2008: agouti, leaf cutter ants, armadillo, common possum, yellow sidestriped palm pit viper, tarantula

Arco Iris Lodge, February 22, 2008: A troop of white-faced capuchins moved through the hotel grounds

Ylang Ylang resort, Montezuma, February 22-24, 2008: troops of howler monkeys and capuchin monkeys frequently moved through the hotel grounds, agouti, land crab, several small lizards, orange-fronted parakeet, magnificent frigatebird, brown pelican

Curu Wildlife Reserve, February 24, 2008: White-faced capuchin and spider monkeys (best sightings of the trip), Scarlet Macaws, crested caracara, brown basilisk, turquoise-browed mot-mot, black-headed trogon, coati, bats,

Tarcoles, February 25, 2008: Orange-chinned parakeet, American Crocodile

Oh, and outside the Monteverde Reserve you can see tons of humminbirds at the Hummingbird Gallery

I forgot to add Monteverde night hike - we saw a fox and a porcupine!

Volcanogirl,
Zender sounds great – we’ll stay at Iguana Lodge and also plan a Cano Negro tour. I also found the Garrigues and Dean book on amazon, so I guess I’m set

Need to ask you (and everybody else) another question: how do Lost Iguana grounds compare to Arenal Observatory Lodge grounds, when it comes to birds? I heard that you can see more birds of more kinds at AOL, so I was thinking of taking a taxi and go there for a few hours. Should I? Is it really worth it? Considering that DH does not care about birds, he might not be too keen to go to AOL for another birding trip.

So, if AOL is a lot better in terms of birds than Lost Iguana, then I might drag him there. Otherwise, he might just enjoy the room, the terrace and the volcano view while I explore the Lost Iguana grounds. What do you think? What would you do?
Thanks

I haven't been birding at AOL, but I hear good things about it. I think you might like it. We saw toucans on the grounds of the Lost Iguana, also a euphonia, and some tanagers. The Lost Iguana property is huge with a river that runs through it. It's also right near the lake, so the types of birds on the two properties might be different. Honestly I'm not that great of a spotter unless I have a guide with me. Does AOL feed their birds? Some places will put our fruit and feeders to attract them, but I didn't see that at the Lost Iguana. I think AOL might be worth checking out.

Yes, AOL puts fruit on tree like stands to attract birds. You get the added bonus of coatis waiting underneath for the fruit to drop.

There were at least 20 Montezuma's oropendolas feeding, in addition to other birds, when we were there.

It also has the best view of the volcano and lava flow of any place in Arenal.