View from Hotel Montana at around 05:55 when the sky looked clear but the rain was swiping down the valley
Richard, David and I met at
06:00 to explore the grounds of the hotel in rather unpleasant conditions with
some fine rain and a very fresh north-east wind. We entered an area of woodland just below the
hotel and managed to get out of the wind.
As we walked down a narrow path we came to a small scrubby area where we
had brief views of White-eared Ground Sparrow and then realised that there two
more birds in the same area and with some patience we had good views of two
Rufous-and-white Wrens. We saw nothing
else in the wood until we were making our way back to the hotel when we found a
quail-dove on the path that turned out to be a Chiriqui Quail-Dove, which was
the third new bird of the morning excursion and we didn’t see any of them again
during the trip.
After breakfast we drove the
short distance to the Monteverde Rain Forest Reserve and needless to say when
we arrived it was raining again. There
were a few birds in the area near the restaurant including a Spotted
Woodcreeper, Mountain Elaenia, Yellowish Flycatcher and several Common
Bush-tanagers.
Once the entrance fees had
been paid we began walking one of the tracks leading into the forest. It was quite a wide track and so gave everyone
a good chance of seeing what was being found.
It rained most of the time and heavily on at least one occasion but we
did see some rather good birds. At the
lower level we saw several Prong-billed Barbet, an Olive-striped Flycatcher, a
Black-faced Solitaire and a Slate-throated Whitestart. As we walked further up the slope we found a
mixed party of birds that included two Red-faced Spinetails, two Spotted
Barbtails, a Ruddy Treerunner, a pair of Slaty Antwrens, an Ochraceous Wren, a
Golden-winged Warbler, a Black-and-white Warbler and four Three-striped
Warblers.
We saw very little at we
returned to the centre but an Azure-hooded Jay was heard calling but proved
very illusive, although I might have seen it briefly as a silhouette.
On reaching the restaurant a
hot chocolate and cake was most welcome before we went to the hummingbird
feeding area, which proved spectacular.
Hummingbirds were everywhere and we added a couple of new species, Purple-throated
Mountain-gem and Magenta-throated Woodstar.
There was also Green Hermit, Green Violet-ear, Green-crowned Brilliant,
Violet Sabrewing, Strip-tailed Hummingbird, Copery-headed Hummingbird and
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird.
Female Green-crowned Brilliant
Female Purple-throated Mountain-gem
Stripe-tailed Hummingbird
Violet Sabrewing
We returned to the lodge for
lunch and there were several hummingbirds visiting the feeders outside, one of
which, Steely-vented Hummingbird was new for the trip.
After lunch we went back to
the cloud forest but this time we took a different path, which was narrower and
surprisingly it was raining again. We
hadn’t gone too far when we looked for an owl but couldn’t find and so we
continued along the path seeing very little before we met up with another guide
who provided additional information on the owl.
There was a brief discussion after which it was decided that we would
complete the circuit and then look for the owl again. We saw very few birds but it did prove to be
a good decision as we found four Resplendent Quetzals in close proximity. When we got back to the owl site it started
to rain quite heavily and we got a good soaking, which was rewarded with good
views of a Mottled Owl.
As the weather was showing no
sign of improving we went along the road we would take tomorrow when we were
going west to the coast. We hadn’t gone
too far before we lost the rain and were now in brilliant sunshine and we
eventually stopped to walk along the road looking for birds. There was an area of scrub rising to the left
of the road that appeared to be alive with birds and we had a Common Squirrel-cuckoo,
several Social Flycatchers, quite a few Tennessee Warblers, a Summer Tanager, a
Yellow-faced Grassquit and at least twenty Baltimore Oriole. We drove a little further along the road
before heading back to the lodge and saw our first Groove-billed Ani, with nine
feeding amongst some cattle.
Other birds seen during the
day were Turkey Vulture, American Black Vulture, two White-fronted Amazon,
Tropical Kingbird, Blue-and-white Swallow, Blue-grey Tanager, Rufous-collared
Sparrow and Great-tailed Grackle.
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