leif10
Member
Hi everyone,
I'm hoping to get some advice to help me make better use of guiding and see more species on my next trip to Costa Rica this summer.
Due to work, pets, etc., I am constrained to traveling there for about a week each summer.
In June 2024 I did my first "hardcore" birding trip, I traveled solo, rented a car, stayed 3 nights at Rancho Naturalista and 3 nights at Tirimbina Lodge (Pat O'Donnell's book was my primary info source). I do all my birding by camera, and I ended up with 101 species from my photos. An additional 29 were listed by my guides, of which I probably got good looks at seven. It was a wonderful experience, but I felt that my species count could have been better.
I understand summers will have lower counts due to absence of migrants (which is fine with me, I just want the resident birds). But it was harder than expected to make full use of my time there with guided walks to new places. Guided tour options were posted on the lodge websites and I made use of those and reserved two walks well ahead of time. I also reserved a guided tour at La Selva Biological Station on short notice. I ended up attending a total of 4 guided morning walks, out of 6 possible mornings. All of these yielded some great birds. Total counts were not that impressive. The "best" walk, by numbers, was San Antonio de Platanillo (near Rancho) - there really seemed to be "birds everywhere" at times, encountering something new every few minutes (the guide listed 45 spp total).
There were two days that I had not planned sufficiently so I had to choose between unguided solo birding, or re-attending the exact same guided walk from the day before. So I birded on my own. At Rancho this was a bust, I probably saw 2 species on my own. At Tirimbina it went much better, I had some great photos on my own (puffbird, trogon, toucans, stipplethroat, double-toothed kite, etc.), but still, not a very large count.
Guided walks at Rancho lasted 5:30am until lunch. Guided walks at Tirimbina lasted just 2 hours! In afternoons, sometimes it rained and I napped (since I was also out at nights on my own looking for frogs etc.), but most often I was just wandering on my own. Sometimes I saw new birds, but generally I felt like a lot of time was wasted.
Question: After guided walks ended, should I have "propositioned" the guides to "give me a little extra guiding"? I could have offered $100 to ask them to help me squeeze out a few more species in the remaining hours of the day? Being a newbie at guided tours, I really didn't know what to do, so I just attended the scheduled walks, which felt insufficient.
At Rancho I inquired about night walk, owls etc. and basically was turned down with something like "It will just be raining". (That was sometimes true but often not the case; I did a LOT of self-walks at night.). I did attend a guided night walk at Tirimbina, which was nice for frogs etc. but no birds.
Some forum posts last year suggested you can just stay at a lodge, attend a guided walk to get the idea of the possibilities, and then bird on your own. My experience is that unguided solo birding was not a very reliable way of encountering birds. The guides were extremely skilled at finding & identifying the birds, instantly getting them into a spotting scope, mimicking their calls to bring them closer, etc. At Rancho the guides were always around at mealtimes etc. so they were a great source of information, and I got some advice on where to walk on my own but still that didn't help much.
I rented a car, assuming I'd have chances to stop by the roadside, etc., but those opportunities were basically zero due to heavy traffic, gated entryways, non-level pullouts, etc. The one time it paid off was "Galeria de Colibrí y Soda Cinchona - Mirador San Fernando" (eBird hotspot) where I had a lot of hummers and feeder birds at a restaurant at altitude.
One thing I will do better next time is make use of voice memos. There were lots of birds that I photographed, and the guide ID'd it on the spot, but I did not record the guide's ID because I assumed I'd be able to figure it out later from photos. Often that was a big mistake! Some of my IDs took weeks of work afterward, or failed completely. Much better to make an instant voice memo for reference. Most guides sent an eBird list eventually, but often there were errors/omissions.
For this summer, I want to do another week at CR and to have the help of guides basically all day if possible. I have no idea how to make this happen. I have booked general nature/culture trips with my wife with general travel companies in the past, and those book up many months in advance. I am a terrible planner and have a brutal work schedule (teacher) except for June-August. My wife does not do birds or the tropics, so I am basically a solo birder. I would prefer to bird in a group if possible, for the camaraderie and to have more eyes. Also I presume that guides prefer (financially) to lead a group tour, rather than just one birder, and that a group tour is less likely to be cancelled by the guide, if something comes up.
My summer schedule is flexible. Ideally I'd find a group tour to join. Otherwise what is the best approach? I am willing to pay more for convenience and having someone else do all the planning! Thanks for any input...
I'm hoping to get some advice to help me make better use of guiding and see more species on my next trip to Costa Rica this summer.
Due to work, pets, etc., I am constrained to traveling there for about a week each summer.
In June 2024 I did my first "hardcore" birding trip, I traveled solo, rented a car, stayed 3 nights at Rancho Naturalista and 3 nights at Tirimbina Lodge (Pat O'Donnell's book was my primary info source). I do all my birding by camera, and I ended up with 101 species from my photos. An additional 29 were listed by my guides, of which I probably got good looks at seven. It was a wonderful experience, but I felt that my species count could have been better.
I understand summers will have lower counts due to absence of migrants (which is fine with me, I just want the resident birds). But it was harder than expected to make full use of my time there with guided walks to new places. Guided tour options were posted on the lodge websites and I made use of those and reserved two walks well ahead of time. I also reserved a guided tour at La Selva Biological Station on short notice. I ended up attending a total of 4 guided morning walks, out of 6 possible mornings. All of these yielded some great birds. Total counts were not that impressive. The "best" walk, by numbers, was San Antonio de Platanillo (near Rancho) - there really seemed to be "birds everywhere" at times, encountering something new every few minutes (the guide listed 45 spp total).
There were two days that I had not planned sufficiently so I had to choose between unguided solo birding, or re-attending the exact same guided walk from the day before. So I birded on my own. At Rancho this was a bust, I probably saw 2 species on my own. At Tirimbina it went much better, I had some great photos on my own (puffbird, trogon, toucans, stipplethroat, double-toothed kite, etc.), but still, not a very large count.
Guided walks at Rancho lasted 5:30am until lunch. Guided walks at Tirimbina lasted just 2 hours! In afternoons, sometimes it rained and I napped (since I was also out at nights on my own looking for frogs etc.), but most often I was just wandering on my own. Sometimes I saw new birds, but generally I felt like a lot of time was wasted.
Question: After guided walks ended, should I have "propositioned" the guides to "give me a little extra guiding"? I could have offered $100 to ask them to help me squeeze out a few more species in the remaining hours of the day? Being a newbie at guided tours, I really didn't know what to do, so I just attended the scheduled walks, which felt insufficient.
At Rancho I inquired about night walk, owls etc. and basically was turned down with something like "It will just be raining". (That was sometimes true but often not the case; I did a LOT of self-walks at night.). I did attend a guided night walk at Tirimbina, which was nice for frogs etc. but no birds.
Some forum posts last year suggested you can just stay at a lodge, attend a guided walk to get the idea of the possibilities, and then bird on your own. My experience is that unguided solo birding was not a very reliable way of encountering birds. The guides were extremely skilled at finding & identifying the birds, instantly getting them into a spotting scope, mimicking their calls to bring them closer, etc. At Rancho the guides were always around at mealtimes etc. so they were a great source of information, and I got some advice on where to walk on my own but still that didn't help much.
I rented a car, assuming I'd have chances to stop by the roadside, etc., but those opportunities were basically zero due to heavy traffic, gated entryways, non-level pullouts, etc. The one time it paid off was "Galeria de Colibrí y Soda Cinchona - Mirador San Fernando" (eBird hotspot) where I had a lot of hummers and feeder birds at a restaurant at altitude.
One thing I will do better next time is make use of voice memos. There were lots of birds that I photographed, and the guide ID'd it on the spot, but I did not record the guide's ID because I assumed I'd be able to figure it out later from photos. Often that was a big mistake! Some of my IDs took weeks of work afterward, or failed completely. Much better to make an instant voice memo for reference. Most guides sent an eBird list eventually, but often there were errors/omissions.
For this summer, I want to do another week at CR and to have the help of guides basically all day if possible. I have no idea how to make this happen. I have booked general nature/culture trips with my wife with general travel companies in the past, and those book up many months in advance. I am a terrible planner and have a brutal work schedule (teacher) except for June-August. My wife does not do birds or the tropics, so I am basically a solo birder. I would prefer to bird in a group if possible, for the camaraderie and to have more eyes. Also I presume that guides prefer (financially) to lead a group tour, rather than just one birder, and that a group tour is less likely to be cancelled by the guide, if something comes up.
My summer schedule is flexible. Ideally I'd find a group tour to join. Otherwise what is the best approach? I am willing to pay more for convenience and having someone else do all the planning! Thanks for any input...
