Late one afternoon, Glenn guided us to a roaring creek where he had seen them earlier. Here below are all the important members of our tour group watching this bird. From left, Sharon, Niño with Don’s camera, Glenn with one of mine, Win (partially blocked), Don, Jo (partially blocked), Joan, and Bill.

Avid Birders Who See a Bird

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How a Sunbittern (Eurpyga helias) Usually Appears, When It Does

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When the Sunbittern Jumps, its Colors Begin to Appear

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But When the Sunbittern Flies, We Can See the "Sun"

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Another dramatic bird is the araçari. We had seen the fiery-billed species at the beginning of the trip, but this was a new one for us in Costa Rica.

A Collared Araçari (Pteroglossus torquatus) Perches in a Tall Tree Beside a Trail

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We all appreciated the next big bird that sometimes came around to the feeders in the Rancho Naturalista gardens. And we also appreciated its name and the way that Glenn always pronounced its family name with rolling r’s.

This is a Montezuma Oropendola (Psaracolius montezuma)

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This Brown Jay (Cyanocorax cucullata) Also Visited the Lodge's Gardens

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I Found this Green Honeycreeper (Chlorophanes spiza) When I Visited the Lodge Owner, John Erb, in his Garden

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All of these birds have a special sort of beauty. But I doubt if anyone (except another bird of the same species) would call the one below beautiful. I include it because it is so hard to see when it perches, looking very much like an extension of the tree. This fairly uncommon bird unfairly has the word “common” in its name.

This is the So-called Common Potoo (Nyctibius grieseus) -- In Fact, It's Two of Them, Including the Baby on the Mother's Back

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Rancho Naturalista also was the best place to see hummingbirds. They were all around the feeders and flowers. Of the 26 species we saw on the trip, we saw 15 species of hummingbirds at Rancho Naturalista. That’s more than half of all the hummingbird species in the country.

Hummingbirds were so easy to see at this ecolodge that one afternoon when I was minding my own business as I checked my email in the main building, I got a visitor. A hummingbird had flown in through one of the many open doors and couldn’t find its way out. I tried to point it to the door, and when that didn’t work, I tried the next best thing. I shot it.

My Shot of a White-necked Jacobin (Florisuga mellivora) Trying to Get Through a Window

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Finally, I found Lisa’s husband, Mario. He says this happens all the time, and he captured this little bird in both hands and took it outside.

This Black-crested Coquette (Lophornis helenae) Stayed Where It Belongs

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A Male Green-breasted Mango (Anthracothorax prevostii) Hovers

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The Female of the Same Species Prepares to Land

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With this we also had to prepare to land back home. Our trip was an unqualified success in every way. We saw 333 identified species of the 800 species found on the mainland of Costa Rica that Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean included in their Birds of Costa Rica book. We had a great guide, driver, and tour companions. We all had a great time.

We ate very well too. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had gained up to five pounds. But because of all our exercise my weight went down from 156 to 153.8 pound in the 12 days I was away from home.

During the time I was away from Boulder, late season storms dumped a total of 36 inches of snow on half of the days. In Costa Rica it didn’t snow once! This was a good time to be away from home and a great time to be in Costa Rica.

This wonderful lodge sits just below 3,000 feet, 12 miles from the town of Turrialba, and just east of the Cordillera de Talamanca, the mountain range that includes Costa Rica’s highest peaks. An American family owns this small lodge, which is situated on 125 acres of protected rainforest. From the highway it’s a 10 minute drive up a steep, rough dirt road.

This is truly an ecolodge with wildlife, flowers, and trees all around. It has just 14 rooms, and for the first two of the three nights we stayed there we were the only guests. The main building is in the traditional Spanish colonial style. We ate all our meals in the outdoor dining area where we were out in nature as we ate. In fact, several times I jumped up from the table and grabbed my camera when I saw something special in the garden.

The manager of the lodge is Lisa Erb. Her father, John Erb, bought the land many years ago. When some of us visited his home, which is a few minutes below the lodge, I had a chance to discuss one of his biggest interests, hyperbaric oxygen therapy. He showed me his hyperbaric oxygen chamber and gave me a copy of us book about how to build one. He attributes his good health to his getting a minimum of one hour of this therapy per week. In fact, he proved to me what good shape he is in when I took this photograph of him, smiling no less. Unfortunately, I cut off the bottom of his feet (but only in this photo), but I can assure you that nothing but his arms held him up.

John Erb Demonstrates a Degree of Fitness That's Not Bad for an 82-year-old Man

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Lisa also lives near the lodge.

The View from Lisa's Home

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One of the Flowers Growing in Lisa's Garden

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One of the Flowers Growing near the Lodge

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A Flower in the Garden After a Shower

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I Had to Stop Eating Lunch When This Emerald Basilisk Lizard Appeared

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An Owl Moth -- Not an Eyeball

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Another Masterpiece of Moth Disguise

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This Guava Skipper Butterfly Feasted on Flowers in Lisa's Garden

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But where are the shots of birds? Their absence here doesn’t mean there weren’t any at Rancho Naturalista. They are coming next.

After passing through San Jose, which is Costa Rica’s capital, we took a section of the Pan-American Highway. Then, we turned off onto a steep dirt road in the highlands of San Gerardo de Dota. We stopped for lunch at the aptly named Quetzal Lodge, where a local guide told Glenn that a pair of Resplendent Quetzals was nesting about three miles back.

This was the bird that all of us most wanted to see in Costa Rica. Since the Resplendent Quetzal is near threatened, I didn’t really hope to see this beautiful bird, which many people consider to be of the world’s greatest beauties. It is sacred to the Mayas and is the national bird of Guatemala.

So right after lunch we drove back as far as possible and then hiked about a half mile down a steep path. The male, which has exceptionally long and beautiful tail feathers, was sitting on the nest, while the female was off somewhere else enjoying her lunch. But all that we could see was his tail feathers, because the nest was on the opposite side of the tree from us. Just in case that was all that we could see of the quetzal, I took several shots and waited. And waited. Probably half an hour.

We expected to see the female fly in so the male would leave to eat. But with no mate in sight, all of a sudden he flew off. We were able to follow him to four locations, at all of which I got adequate shots. Finally, he flew back to near the nest. There I got the photo that I went to Costa Rica to capture.

We weren’t able to use flash, so I cranked up the ISO to 3200, which I had to do in the dim light of the forest. Since I wasn’t using flash (which takes time to recharge after every few shots), I was able to take a lot of pictures — 157 of them to be exact. Of course, the exposure was grainy, but my software took care of it quite well.

A Male Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno) Was What I Most Wanted to See in Costa Rica

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At this point I told Glenn that as far as I was concerned we could stop the trip because I had already seen far more than I had hoped to see in Costa Rica. Nevertheless, we drove on. At once stop a little bird got in a fight with itself.

A Sooty-capped Bush-Tanager (Chlorospingus pileatus) Fights with its "Rival" in the Rear View Mirror of our Bus

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I think we witnessed this fight at the place where we saw this little fellow below that always makes me smile. Somehow, this bird reminds me of a little old man wearing a red skull cap.

An Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus) Looks Back

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The Collared Redstart (Myioborus torquatus) is Endemic to Costa Rica and Western Panama

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Our residence for the next three nights in Costa Rica was Savegre Hotel, a lovely ecolodge within the Los Santos Forest Reserve at about 7,300 feet. Bird feeders surround the lodge.

A Male Flame-colored Tanager (Piranga bidentata) at One of the Hotel's Bird Feeders

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We passed the flower below several times as we hiked a trail down from the hotel.

This Bright Flower Grows in the Dark Forest Just Below the Hotel

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One sunny day when several tour participants hiked high in the mountains, I felt like being alone. So I walked down the river from the hotel.

The Savegre River is the Most Pristine Stream in Costa Rica

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On another day when we took a hike in the mountains above the hotel the clouds rolled in.

Sometimes the Clouds Covered the Mountains Above the Hotel

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The hotel is so high in the mountains that we had to heat our rooms. But one day we even went much higher. In one of Costa Rica’s national parks, we drove up to 11,379 feet, near the peak of a dormant volcano. We walked around a little bit, but the elevation made breathing difficult for those of us who don’t live in the mountains. We didn’t see another person, but we did see this appropriately named bird.

The Volcano Junco (Junco vulcani) Is Endemic to the High Mountains of Costa Rica and Western Panama

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I still don’t know how Glenn does it. But he spotted this little owl high in the dense canopy of the forest.

The Costa Rican Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium costaricanum) is Found in the Mountains of Costa Rica and Western Panama

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After a day in Costa Rica’s major metropolitan area, three days on the Pacific Coast, and then three more days in the highlands, we had seen a great variety of this country. But much more was to come.

Together by the Tárcoles River: Two American White Ibises (Eudocimus albus), Two Northern Jacanas (Jacana spinosa), and 14 Black-necked Stilts (Haematopus palliates)

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Close up of a Northern Jacana (Jacana spinosa)

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I know that I included a photograph of the bird below in my previous photo essay, but this one is better. For one thing, it shows its distinctive tail in its entirety.

A Turquoise-browed Motmot (Eumomota superciliosa) including its Entire Tail

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The bird below came to Costa Rica only about 15 years before I did. The Birds of Costa Rica says that it is “very uncommon” there, and I am so glad that it arrived before I did. I remember seeing one of them two years ago in Panama, but I didn’t get a photo of one then and was so pleased to see this one in Costa Rica.

This Colorful Bird, a Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis), is a Newcomer to Costa Rica

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This pair of birds at the water’s edge gave me a kick. As our boat drifted past them, they just stared at each other, paying not the slightest attention to us. And when Glenn told us the name of these birds, we thought that he was putting us on.

Double-striped Thick-Knees (Burhinus bistriatus) Actually Do Have Large Knee Joints

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A Pair of Juvenile Yellow-headed Caracaras (Milvago chimachima) Look for Dinner

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A Crested Caracara (Caracara cheriway) Is Another Raptor Waiting for its Dinner

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Where the Tárcoles River Meets the Pacific Ocean

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Thus ended our fourth day in Costa Rica, during three of which we had explored the area near the Pacific coast of the country. Now we went on to see a totally different part of Costa Rica.

I Saw and Photographed this Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) on One of Our Forest Hikes

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The Yellow-naped Amazon Parrot (Amazona auropalliata) Lives Near the Pacific from Southern Mexico to Costa Rica.

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Like this Blue-diademed Motmot (Momotus lessonii), All Motmot Species (Except the Tody Motmot) and Both Sexes Have This Distinctive "Racket" Tail

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This Turquoise-browed Motmot (Eumomota superciliosa) was in Costa Rica's Guacimo Dry Forest, but it is the National Bird of Nicaragua and El Salvador

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A Male Orange-collared Manakin (Manacus aurantiancus), Endemic to Costa Rica and western Panama, Eats

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A Male Black-headed Trogon (Trogon melanocephalus) Lives in the Open Forests of Central America

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A Chestnut-mandibled Toucan (Ramphastos swainsonii) Mostly Eats Fruit with its Large Bill

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The Fiery-billed Araçari (Pteroglossus frantzii) is a Toucan Endemic to Costa Rica and Western Panama

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After returning home, I had to write Glenn to ask him to identify the bird below. We had noted it on our daily checklist, and it’s included in The Birds of Costa Rica by Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean, but the head-on angle of this shot threw me off. I especially wanted to include it here because a good friend of mine loves birds that are blue, and I love the unusually patterned background too.

A Male Red-legged Honeycreeper (Cyanerpes cyaneus) Perches in the Forest

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Seeing all of these colorful birds delighted me. But one bird that is much less colorful gave me a special pleasure. Two years ago when I toured Panama, I heard but never saw a Black Guan. Glenn was my guide both in Panama and in Costa Rica. And this time he found me a guan.

Crested Guans (Penelope purpurascens) are Large Birds Related to the Mound Builders of Australia

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At Punta Leone about a quarter of an hour after sunset, I got one of my most interesting shots. It would not have been possible without my camera’s external flash and my “Better Beamer.”

A Female Pacific Screech Owl (Megascops cooperi) and Her Owlet in the Nest

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After our group took a long hike one evening, only Sharon, Glenn, and I wanted to look for an owl that we heard. Glenn spotted the female owl in a dead palm tree, and I approached close enough to photograph it with my 100-400mm lens. After taking about a dozen shots, I started to go back to where Sharon and Glenn were waiting. But just then they yelled “Baby!” They were watching with their binoculars, and I couldn’t see it with my naked eyes, but I went back and took more photos, including this one. Pacific Screech Owls are strictly nocturnal, enlivening Central American nights with their call, which I wouldn’t call a “screech.”

En route to Punta Leone we stopped at the town of Orotina to go birding in its park. High in one of the park’s trees Glenn located a species of one of my favorite order of birds, the owls. These are a pair of Black-and-white Owls, which I had never seen before. The smaller one is the male.

A Pair of Black-and-white Owls (Strix nigrolineata); the Male is the Smaller One

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Our next stop was so we could walk across the long bridge over the Tárcoles River, where we boated later and which forms the northern boundary of the Carara National Park, where we hiked later. We could have driven over the bridge, but it was more fun to walk across it so we could view the wildlife below. The major attraction there is a large congregation of American Crocodiles.

American Crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus) Vie for a Piece of Meat that Someone Threw from the Bridge

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When we arrived at the hotel in the early afternoon, the reptiles and mammals there were much less dangerous. One of them ran away from us when we approached. People call this basilisk lizard, endemic to Central and South America, the Jesus Christ lizard for its unique ability to walk on water.

This Pacific Basilisk (Basiliscus basiliscus) Can Run on Land or Water

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Most other reptiles and mammals we encountered had no fear of us.

This Green Iguana (Iguana iguana) Posed Nicely for its Photo

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I had heard of but had never seen a coati before. This one came to almost every meal that we ate at Punta Leone’s outdoor restaurant.

The White-Nosed Coati (Nasua narica) is a Member of the Raccoon Family Living in Central America

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I had previously seen Capuchin Monkeys, the most intelligent of the New World monkeys. But I had never got as close to them as I did in the restaurant.

A Family of White-headed Capuchins (Cebus capucinus) Waits on the Roof of the Restaurant

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On one of our hikes through the forest a few miles from this restaurant we not only heard (easy) but also found another monkey mother and child.

A Mantled Howler Monkey (Alouatta palliata) Baby Gets a Ride in the Forest

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New to me, however, was an animal that quickly crossed the trail in front of us on another forest hike.

A Central American Agouti (Dasyprocta punctata) in the Forest Near Punta Leone

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On the same forest hike we found an animal that flies but is not a bird. This was the rarest animal we found in Costa Rica.

A Northern Ghost Bat (Diclidurus albus) Roosting on Palm Leaves

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Of course, we also saw a few birds during our three-day visit to Punta Leone. But I am saving my photos of them for the next photo essay.

Just a few feet from the entrance to the gardens at the back of the hotel, the first birds we saw were a family of Inca Doves on a nest.

This Inca Dove Chick (Columbina inca) Tests its Wings as it Prepares to Leave the Nest

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A little later I saw and photographed an even more common bird of Costa Rica, a Great Kiskadee, one of the largest of the tyrant flycatchers. We saw at least one of these birds on seven of the 11 days that we birded in Costa Rica.

A Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus) Perches in the Garden

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A squirrel was, not surprisingly, the first mammal I saw. They seem to be everywhere, but this one is a Variegated Squirrel that is endemic to Central America.

A Variegated Squirrel (Sciurus variegatoides) Enjoys a Big Piece of Fruit

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Even more common than these birds and squirrels are people. We had a small group of seven participants on our Wildside Nature Tour, the second that I have taken with the outstanding guide and naturalist Glenn Crawford and third that I have taken with this firm. One of the participants was a botanist from Australia named Win. Here he is carrying my binoculars, which I loaned him because he had forgotten his in the airport in Lima, Peru.

Win (Standing) Is Three Weeks Older Than I Am, So He Called Me "Junior"

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But more plentiful than birds, squirrels, and people were the exuberant flowers in the hotel’s gardens.

Hotel Bougainvillea in the suburbs of Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose, is so luxurious that the transition from Colorado was easy for me. But now came the time to see the country.

They can stay underwater so long because they have more oxygen capacity than any other songbird. In the rest of the world are four other dipper species, but the American Dipper lives only in Western North America on streams where the water is clear and unpolluted.

That’s where I found one yesterday. I watched it for an hour as it fed in Boulder Creek in Boulder County, Colorado.

We now call them American Dippers (Cinclus mexicanus) because they jauntily bounce their bodies up and down as they look for food. But for at least 800 years we called them Water Ouzels, and some people, myself included, still prefer the old name.

This American Dipper or Water Ouzel lives year round on Boulder Creek, where I had found it before. But I got my best photographs of it yesterday.

The day was chilly and windy, but the sun shown brightly. However, most of the creek where I found the dipper was in the shade, so I waited patiently for the bird to move into the sun.

An American Dipper Takes a Break for Some Sun

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Up for Air after Finding Some Food Under Water

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As I watched the dipper from the bank of the stream I was cold in my down jacket and gloves. But even in water barely above freezing it was all in a day’s work for this remarkable bird.

Since both my Canon 7D and my 100-400mm telephoto zoom lens are at the local camera store for cleaning, I had to rely on my backup equipment: a Canon 50D (which I recently bought to replace the one destroyed by water damage in the Galapagos) and a 300mm prime lens with a 1.4 teleconverter. The 7D takes more frames per second and the 100-400mm lens focuses faster, but the backup equipment will do in a pinch.

The temperature reached 72° here at 4:15 p.m. in the shade. I guessed that might be a record, but back in 1925 it had reached 76° on this date.

Anyway, I didn’t go out for the photos. The day was so unseasonably warm that I took my Kindle Touch, where I am reading Ron Chernow’s new biography of Alexander Hamilton, to a bench in Tantra Park where I sat and read.

One passerby asked if I had got any photos with my big lens. No, I replied, and I didn’t expect any. But if I didn’t take it, I continued, I would be sure to kick myself for a missed opportunity.

I didn’t have to kick myself when I heard a loud drumming off to my right. At first I dismissed it as some joker with a jackhammer. But then I recognized it for what it was — a woodpecker. A red-shafted Northern Flicker was announcing its presence, not to me but to others of his species.

Quickly stowing my Kindle in the back pocket of my jeans, I grabbed my camera and took off to the path at the right. But after a few steps the drumming started up again. Behind me. The flicker was at the top of the light fixture close to the bench where I had been sitting.

Taking pictures as fast as the 50D will work, I shot the flicker from all angles. Then, he stood up and I knew he was ready to fly. I was ready too.

A Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) Launches from the Light

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These large and graceful birds belong to the oldest known surviving bird species. “A crane fossil found in Nebraska, estimated to be about 10 million years old, is identical in structure to the modern Sandhill Crane,” according to The Nature Conservancy.

The Sandhill Cranes gather around the National Wildlife Refuge near Monte Vista, Colorado. This refuge is close to the southern end of the San Luis Valley, the largest alpine valley in the world. About 7,600 feet high, the refuge sits between the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan mountain ranges. This is the western edge of the Central Flyway where about 25,000 Sandhill Cranes migrate every spring and fall. They spend their winters in southern New Mexico, including the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, which I visited and wrote about in December 2011. Near the end of March they begin to fly to the area around Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho, where they breed and make their nests.

Among the approximately 25,000 Sandhill Cranes that come to the San Luis Valley each spring and fall are some Lesser and Canadian Sandhill Cranes, about 3,000 to 5,000 of each species. Differentiating between the three sub-species is difficult, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which manages our wildlife refuges. “The Greater is larger and lighter gray than the Lesser and Canadian. The Greater Sandhill has a head/bill shaped similar to a Canvasback while the Lesser Sandhill has a head/bill similar to a Redhead duck.”

Greater Sandhill Cranes can be as big as 5 feet tall with a wingspan of up to 6 feet. As big as they are they are among our most graceful birds. On the other hand, the huge flocks of Sandhill Cranes along the Platte River in Nebraska consist largely of the smaller Lesser Sandhill Cranes.

During my three-day trip I went to the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge six times. The three mornings were better, not only because of the light but because the cranes were more active then. But while I had to get up early, this was an easy trip because the cranes were present and the light was good for less than an hour at the beginning and end of each day. Still, the mornings were cold, down as low as 11°F. I made sure to get there and to get my gear set up before sunrise, as in this photograph:

Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) Awaken into a Cold Dawn

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I like to know why birds have the scientific names they do, and Paul A. Johnsgard has a nice explanation. “The Romans referred to the cranes as grues, apparently from the sound of their calls,” he writes. “The related Latin word congruere, meaning to agree, is the basis for the modern English word, ‘congruence,’ and both derive from the highly coordinated and cooperative behavior typical of cranes.” He wrote this in one of his many books, Crane Music: A Natural History of American Cranes.”

I liked the title of that book so much that I borrowed it for a short video that I made so you could hear what crane music actually sounds like. Especially when Sandhill Cranes gather in large flocks as they do in the San Luis Valley, they continually call out to their family members to keep in touch with them. Please watch my three-minute film, “Crane Music” below.

The best place that I found to watch the Sandhill Cranes was about one-fourth of the way around the auto tour route in the refuge. There in and along some rare open water I found a lot of them. They were close, but didn’t pay any attention to me when I got out of my SUV and set up my camera and tripod.

Sandhill Cranes Wake Up Near Open Water in the Refuge

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A Closeup of Three Sandhill Cranes Before They Flew off to Feed

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I love the calls of the cranes. But their most exciting behavior is their dancing. Sandhill Cranes mate for life, unlike many other species of birds and some so-called “higher species,” including many humans. On spring mornings they form pair bonds by dancing with a mate. This courtship behavior includes flapping their wings and leaping into the air.

Two Sandhill Cranes Court

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In the afternoons at the refuge I could watch the Sandhill Cranes fly. Many were going to wherever they went to sleep that night. But some of these were recent arrivals from New Mexico and some were headed to Idaho, believing that winter was almost gone.

Three Sandhill Cranes Fly One Afternoon

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Later One Afternoon Three Other Sandhill Cranes Fly High

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This is the view of a small part of the San Luis Valley east to the Sierra Blanca Massif at the southern tip of the Sangre de Cristo Range. The highest mountain in view is Blanca Peak, 14,345 feet.

For years I have loved the San Luis Valley for its austere beauty. Now that I have seen Sandhill Cranes there, I love it even more.