After we left La Fortuna it was only a 3 hour drive to Cano Negro but the road in is not for the weak or faint-hearted. We knew it would be bad. Everyone we mentioned to that we were going to Cano Negro asked the same question – which road are you taking? Be prepared for a flat tire even if you drive slow. I was nervous but I was still going to go – we had a reservation after all. The first 90km were nice, paved road and not a lot of traffic. A surprise police stop for a drug search of a car in front of us was a bit strange but then we were very close to the Nicaraguan border so we figured this must be the reason to stop all trafiic both ways and have police dogs sniff around cars. The poor guy in front had to get out, empty pockets etc while they searched his car and everyone else sat and waited patiently while this transpired. Eventually, he was allowed back in his car and we were all waved through.
Shortly after we turned off the main highway and the road rapidly became worse and worse. My videos do not give the full extent of the road – the deep crevasses, yes crevasses, not little indents, it was lose your car in the crevasse. OK, maybe a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea. We did not go above 10-15km an hour. It was a long, hot, dusty drive with me keeping my fingers crossed that we did not get a flat, and acting as the navigator around holes.
In between that we stopped for birds along the route. We were now in different habitat, grasslands and marsh. We ended up seeing a Roadside Hawk, Crested Caracaras, White-tailed Kite, Groove-billed Ani’s, all not lifers. As well as Meadowlarks and Red-winged Blackbirds. We did see our first Morelet’s Seedeater and I got a picture of it as it was on my side of the car. The Roadside hawk was also my picture since it was on my side of the car. I point it out as there are so few bird pictures of mine. We just birded from the car as getting out into the heat and dust of the road was not appealing at all.
We did arrive finally, with the vehicle in one piece! and no flat tire but we did have to drive back out in two days. The owner was friendly and welcoming, as they all are, and he let us know that we were the only guests for that first night. This lodge is not as well-appointed as previous places. It was older and the rooms were a little tired looking. Very clean and still more than adequate but not top of the line. The restaurant area was beautiful.
We had a nice walk around and added a few lifers down by the river. We saw a distant Bare-throated Tiger-Heron, a Black-collared Hawk flyover, a Pale-vented Pigeon, Black-headed Trogon and a group of Olive-throated Parakeets. We saw all of them! The difference between forest and river birds. I won’t post pictures as they were all quite distant and Jerry took much better pictures on the boat ride.
We had a yummy dinner prepared by his wife. Tilapia in white-wine sauce for me and Jerry had a Seafood with FRESH made Pasta! Served with fresh baked bread. To be in the middle of nowhere and get that kind of food is really wonderful.
We went to sleep early as we had the boat tour for 6am. It was only a five minute drive away but as we have been finding it is not always easy to get our rental car going in the morning. There is an issue with the gear changing and so it will go into reverse but when Jerry tries to put it into drive the engine just revs. It seems to only be in the morning and he moves the shifter around, back and forth and eventually it will start to go and then is usually fine the whole day but it is becoming more stressful as the days go by and the problem seems to be taking longer to resolve.
The boat trip was just us and a guide in a long boat equipped with rotating seats. It was fantastic! Our guide pointed out anything he saw or heard along the shore or in the water and he slowed or stopped the boat so Jerry could try for pictures.
We had stellar views of Bare-throated Tiger-Herons, Southern Lapwings, we added lifer Nicaraguan Grackle, a bird that is only found in this area of Costa Rica.
Many heron species, Tricoloured, Little Blue, Green, Snowy and Egrets.
We saw 4 species of Kingfisher, Green, Amazon, Ringed and American Pygmy. The American Pygmy was the toughest to see as it is so tiny but after carefully checking all the branches from where the calls were coming from we found it.
Really, truly the highlight of our trip even though we did not see that many lifers, just 11 out of 78 species seen. BUT it was just so cool being out on the water and really seeing so many different birds well even though many were birds we had seen previously. We felt incredibly grateful to be able to have experiences like that. I hit my 1,000 bird on the trip with seeing the Green-breasted Mango, a hummingbird.
We saw the Russet-naped Wood Rail that is almost identical to the Gray-cowled Wood Rail but easily determined by geographic area and call. We had a relatively close Black-collared Hawk that was content to let us take pictures and video.
Better looks at Green Ibis
Good looks at some land birds – Black-headed Trogon, Cinnamon Becard, Barred Antshrike, Mangrove Swallows and a Yellow-tailed Oriole, Olive-headed Yellowthroat and our first Prothonotary Warbler of the year.
We traveled through narrow canals giving us close views of Herons as they flushed on our approach. We added a lifer Boat-billed Heron roosting in the trees.
The water was quite low and so low that in order to access the back marsh area we had to anchor the boat and walk through a back area to view the marshland from land instead of water. It was in the marsh lands that the vast number of birds were congregating. Among them 26 Jabiru’s! A huge bird that I wish had been a tad closer.
There were also many Wood Storks, Egrets, Spoonbills and Various Herons in a vast group of 800-1,000 birds. Crested Caracara flew around the periphery. Vultures congregated along the waterways.
On the walk back to the boat our guide pointed out a few species to us – a Black-crowned Night Heron and then suddenly he heard and then saw a Tropical Royal Flycatcher!! That is a mega bird to get! Not easy. Sadly he did not raise his “crown” for us but still a fantastic bird to see and to get decent pictures of.
Once we were back in the boat the guide told us we had to watch the shoreline closely for a Sungrebe and so we started looking and within a minute we had a Sungrebe. Another much sought after species in Costa Rica. Stunning!
Soon it was time to head back and we could see on our return how much quieter it was for birds out on the water and how many more people on tours were out looking for birds. I was happy we had gone early. There were other critters along the river.
The tour ended at 10 and we were back at the hotel a few minutes later for a lovely breakfast accommpained by Mambo Number 5. All the music in the lodges has been from the 80-90’s and it feels like I am listening to my CD collection. I constantly feel like I should be dancing, it was weird and wonderful to hear the soundtrack of my life playing at every meal.
We chose to take some pool time since we were the only ones at the lodge and managed to add a lifer Spot-breasted Wren that we had heard briefly yesterday but we didn’t add it because we were not 100% sure. By the pool we saw it well and Jerry photographed it.
We spent the rest of the afternoon by the fountain in the restaurant with some cold beers and finally making some headway with the picture backlog. I spent time making blog notes, FB posts and helping Jerry sort pictures and update ebird lists. There is the temptation to think that we should be out there birding, we are in costa Rica after all but i didn’t want this trip to be about the race to see things and so I have been fine with taking hours to sit and relax, and be ok of the potential misses if we had rushed off here or there.
In the late afternoon we birded the garden a bit more but did not add anything new. We had another delicious dinner along with a number of other people who had arrived and it became quite a party atmosphere in the restaurant as more people arrived from what appeared to be a tour bus.
We were super tired though and headed to our room to pack up a bit and fall asleep way too early. In the morning we birded the road out front of the lodge and Jerry got pictures of a small bird that turned out to be an Oliveaceous Piculet – a tiny woodpecker the size of a Nuthatch. Another lifer.
We finished with another awesome breakfast and spent 5 minutes or so waiting for the car to decide to work and then headed out to tackle a different road to leave by. Different by direction but not by what it was like to drive on. Craters, divots, ruts, depressions, slab breaks, whatever you call it, just like the road on the way in.
Cano Negro 45 birds added to the year list and 19 of them lifers