Costa Rica Craig's Secret Birding Haven

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » San José
March 14th 2014

Published: June 21st 2017

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Costa Rica Craig's

blue white tanager

Geo: 9.70243, -84.1262

Craig picked us up from the bus stop in Parrita and we did a little grocery shopping and then went to a local soda and had a bite to eat. Headed up to his place and the road has had some improvements since we were here last. He lives in a small community on the road to Purriscal and the bus continues on to San Jose.

Has made some improvements to the place since we were there last but still has the "campesino" feel to it. The kitchen still opens out to the back and you can see the hills in the distance and there are some trees nearby that have a lot of birds hanging out.

We took walks in the morning heading toward the cemetery. Lots of birds to be seen as we walked along. Saw some masked tityra with their nest one of the mornings. One of the most beautiful birds we saw when we were at Craig's was the red-legged honeycreeper right out from his kitchen window.
Another great sighting was just as we were going to bed the first night and a ferruginous pygmy owl flew right up to the bars on the kitchen window and

Costa Rica Craig's

fresh limes anyone?

looked in at us!

He has built a smokehouse out at the edge of his property. He has smoked meat there as well as they do some cooking over the grill and they like to cook rice over the open flame. We had some of this rice for dinner one evening and it was quite delicious!

The kitchen in his place looks out over the hills in the distance, the trees that are close by and so you have the feel you are in a hide while you are there. He has a long-billed hermit (hummingbird) that comes right up to the kitchen window and eats from the feeder. This is one of the larger hummingbirds-- about 6" in length. Last year the feeder was inside the kitchen and the hermit would fly right in the kitchen! Still pretty impressive to see.

One of the mornings when we walked along his road we got to see masked tityra with their nest right in ahole aloong side the road. Seems there are birds everywhere building nests!

Additional photos below

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