Long-billed Starthroat

Cuchillo de San Lorenzo, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

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10-16 April 2015 The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a world famous birding destination, and for very good reason. We first learned of this place long ago, and during our initial trip planning, long before we knew much about anything in South America, the mythical Santa Marta held sway over us and the mention of the El Dorado Lodge seemed so far [...]

The Final Costa Rica Post – La Gamba area, the Osa, and more

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La Gamba, Parque Nacional Piedras Blancas, Rincon de la Osa, and Los Cusingos 14 – 16 June 2014 The Osa Peninsula and the nearby Parque Nacional Piedras Blancas are one of the great birding destinations of Costa Rica. While lacking the huge suite of Caribbean slope specialties, there are some very range restricted endemics here, the best lowland [...]

Cloud forest birding in Costa Rica (Cerro de la Muerte, Providencia, Mirador de Quetzales)

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7 – 11 April 2014 Our first stop in Costa Rica was the Talamanca Range south of San Jose for a little cloud forest birding with a good friend. We set up a base camp at Mirador de Quetzales at Km 70 along Hwy 2. Mirador de Quetzales and Paraíso del Quetzal are a well-known birding destinations and are great places to find cloud forest and [...]

Guatemala – a Little bit of everything – Fuentes Georginas, Los Tarrales, Finca el Pilar, and Cayalá

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8 – 16 March 2014 A little bird (named John Cahill) told us that he had heard several Maroon-chested Ground-doves at Fuentes Georginas, and that there was a lot of seeding bamboo there, so we pretty much had to go check it out. In 8 months on the road we had thus far found essentially zero seeding bamboo, which is where rare, elusive, nomadic [...]

The Pacific slope of El Triunfo – Tres de Mayo, Paval, and Limonar

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3-5 Dec 2013 Having spent an amazing week in the higher areas of El Triunfo, we were also keen to visit some of the lower areas on the Pacific slope. Fortunately, this is readily done from the town of Mapastepec, giving easy access to tropical deciduous forest where great birds such as Tody Motmot, Long-tailed Manakin, White-eared Ground-Sparrow, [...]