Bird Banding Bonanza in Costa Rica

A week on the avian monitoring project with the San Vito Bird Club was fantastic!  We caught hundreds of of birds in 6 days, at 3 different sites, and here are some of the highlights.  

White-ruffed Manakin (Corapipo altera)

Tropical Parula (Setophaga pitioyumi)

The first day of mist-netting at Finca Sofia was our busiest day - we caught 72 individuals of 25 species - half of them were hummingbirds, mainly Green Hermits and Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds.  Other highlights from the heavily reforested Finca Sofia for the first two days were Smoky-brown Woodpecker, Slaty Antwren, Olivaceous Woodcreeper, Ruddy Foliage-Gleaner, Slate-headed Tody-Flycatcher, Orange-collared, White-ruffed and Blue-crowned Manakins, White-breasted Wood-Wrens, Clay-colored and White-throated Thrushes, a stunning Tropical Parula, Slate-throated Redstart, Rufous-capped Warbler, Cherrie's, Silver-throated and Bay-headed Tanagers, an Orange-billed Sparrow, 4 beautiful Chestnut-capped Brush-Finches and 2 less-common Costa Rican (Stripe-headed) Brush-Finches!

Orange-billed Sparrow (Arremon aurantiirostris)

Saltators proved to be the most challenging because of a horrible bite, and we caught both Streaked and Buff-throated Saltators.  Other hummingbirds included the tiny White-tailed Emerald, Scaly-breasted Hummingbird and Long-billed Starthroat.  Over the 2 days we caught 3 Blue-crowned Motmots, which despite an intimidating serrated bill, are incredibly calm!  Another highlight was a subtly beautiful Scaly-breasted Wren, a new capture for the San Vito Bird Club!

Blue-crowned Motmot (Momotus momota)

For the next two days, we moved the nets over to Finca Cantaros, a private property open daily to the public, who can come to walk the trails, see the gardens, enjoy picnic lunches and a lovely gift shop.  Here, there is a variety of habitats, including roadside, open areas, woodland, and a small lake.  In addition to a number of the forest birds we caught at Finca Sofia, we caught Violet Sabrewing, the tiny Stripe-throated Hermit, Olivaceous Piculet, Black-tailed and Sulphur-rumped Flycatchers, Gray-capped Flycatcher (4 in 1 net!), a pair of White-winged Becards nesting on the property, Rufous-breasted Wren, Buff-rumped Warblers, Gray-headed, Blue-gray and Golden-hooded Tanagers, Bananaquits, Variable Seedeaters, a stunning male Thick-billed Seed-Finch, Yellow-faced Grassquits, and a few Spot-crowned Euphonias!  The highlight of the day though, was a Fiery-billed Aracari that Alison grabbed as it ran through the tramels of the net (more to come on the aracari)!!

Olivaceous Piculet (Picumnus olivaceus)

As Alison and I were opening the nets on the first day at Finca Cantaros, I looked across the pond and saw a white animal, which first struck me as a heron perched on an exposed log.  Then it moved its body and we could see a tail and a head, and it dove into the water, bobbed up and down a couple times and disappeared.  As it turns out, a leucistic Neotropical Otter has been infrequently seen in this pond, and we were lucky to see it!  

White-throated Spadebill (Platyrinchus mystaceus)

Our final station was at Alison's finca, Finca Cortesa.  Here the habitat hasn't been touched and this small property supports a lot of bird life!  The first morning here kept us busy with a constant stream of birds, including a family of Thick-billed Euphonias in the nets which provided a great identification challenge as we dealt with all ages and sexes!  This finca was also full of juvenile thrushes, both Clay-colored and White-throated.  On our last day, we recaptured a previously banded White-throated Spadebill, a wonderful little bird to see up close!  

One of 8 Thick-billed Euphonias (Euphonia laniirostris)
caught at Finca Cortesa

Overall it was a very successful session, everyone was very happy with the finds and we had a lot of fun!  I'm already looking forward to visiting the San Vito Bird Club again and hope to join another mist-netting session in the near future.  

~ Jenn 

Avian Monitoring with the San Vito Bird Club in Costa Rica

I feel fortunate to have had some great field experience in Latin America.  From tracking Harpy Eagles and Orange-breasted Falcons in Central America, to conducting various surveys for birds, reptiles, amphibians, butterflies and more in Ecuador, I have gained a wide range of experience dealing with a variety of taxa, and I feel it leaves doors open for more opportunities.

In February, I was on the Panama Rainforest Discovery Center tower, and I met Alison Olivieri, the president of the San Vito Bird Club in southern Costa Rica.  We chatted for a while on the tower, and she asked me if I had any experience in mist-netting and bird banding, because they were in need of volunteers for their control monitoring session in July.  We swapped contact information and were in touch immediately.  She contacted me in May with the set dates for the session, and I accepted.  It worked out perfectly, since it was to the date of when I needed to exit Panama for my visa purposes as well.  So on July 11, I boarded the night bus to David, en route to Costa Rica.  

Yellow-headed Caracaras (Milvago chimachima) in San Vito

Four buses and a border crossing later, I arrived in San Vito, a small town set in a picturesque valley in the foothills of the Talamanca Mountain Range in southern Costa Rica, not far from the Panama border.  The fresh air was a welcomed break from the heat and humidity of Gamboa, and I got settled in for my week in Costa Rica.  I was met by Monique and Marcel Girard, a Canadian couple from Quebec who moved to San Vito 19 years ago.  Since I arrived a day before the project was to start, they offered me one of their beautiful cabins for my first night there for a very reasonable rate.  They were so lovely - they made me feel like family, offered me lunch (and breakfast the following day), took me on a driving tour of scenic San Vito and the surrounding area, and showed me their beautiful property, where I immediately started birding!  An Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush, Rufous-breasted Wrens, Cherrie's, Silver-throated Tanagers, and Gray-capped Flycatchers foraged in the trees and shrubs, while Swallow-tailed Kites and Yellow-headed Caracaras soared overhead.    

The next day, I met Alison to help set up the mist nets at the first site.  With a good crew, we set up 15 nets in an hour, and we were ready for the next day.  Alison dropped me off at Wilson Botanical Garden and Las Cruces Biological Station in time for lunch, where I stayed during the session days.  The combination of a botanical garden and biological station makes for the most beautiful biological station I have ever seen.  Manicured gardens full of native and international flora, and beautiful trails through primary and secondary forest, attracts a great diversity of wildlife.  That evening, our banding expert - Pablo "Chespi" Elizondo and intern Isabel Martin arrived for the session as well.  We got acquainted and prepared for the next several days of bird banding.

The San Vito Avian Monitoring Project is a 10-year long-term monitoring project that focuses on resident and migrant species.  They run 4 sessions a year, at 3 locations near San Vito.  This session is the control session, in July/August, when there are no migrants present.  What we did expect was young birds hatched this year, and some breeding birds, which take advantage of a high food supply to raise their young when no migrants are there to compete.  The project is in its 9th year.  

View of San Vito from Finca Cantaros

Our first morning at Finca Sofia was fantastic, our best of the 6 mornings and 3 locations - we netted 72 individuals of 25 species, and 35 individuals of those were hummingbirds, mainly Green Hermits and Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds (stay tuned for more highlights).  The other mornings followed with a constant stream of birds as well, and the last morning was the quietest, where we were actually able to stop in between net rounds and eat some breakfast.  We banded 2 mornings at each of the 3 locations (Finca Sofia, Finca Cantaros and Finca Cortesa), and lucked out with the weather, thankfully for the "San Juan Veranillo" we managed to avoid rain every morning.  At Finca Cantaros, a public-use garden, we welcomed a 5th-grade class of "Detectivos de Pajaros" for an up-close experience with the mist-netting project, which challenged our small team in terms of continuing with the bird banding in the morning, as we ran the hour-long program for the kids.  It was a big hurdle for me, as it was the first time I had conducted an education program in Spanish!  I can now check that one off the list and I look forward to more! 

Please read more for bird and other wildlife highlights, and photos!

~ Jenn