Hummingbirds!

 January 26

Today was basically a travel day, moving from the Sarapiqui area to Rancho Naturalista, south and east of San Jose.  Our guide Jimmy, of course, found two interesting places for us to stop along the way. Both had sheltered areas with feeders.  The shelter was important; we awoke to (gasp) sunny skies but it didn’t last long. The rest of the day was a bit unsettled.  However most of the heavy rain was while we were in the car.

The first stop was a small (5 hectares) property along a stream and just off the main highway from the east side of the mountains towards San Jose. It bordered on a very large national park; despite the road noise, had many birds in its gardens (with native plants to attract hummingbirds) and along its woodland trails.  

The second stop was essentially a man’s backyard, where he has several kinds of feeders. He told us that he has always loved birds: in his youth he caught them to keep in cages. Now he feeds them in the “wild” and invites guests in to see them. His house is completely open, with an open air atrium in the center. One of the smallest hummingbirds, the stripe-throated hermit, actually hangs out in the kitchen where they have a special feeder for him… to protect him from being bullied by the larger hummingbirds. He also told us a story about a sloth they rescued when it was young. Three years later, they watched it mate and it brought its newborn baby to show them! 

After lunch we drove southeast and up into the mountains surrounding the Central Valley.  We made two quick stops to see three-toed sloths, as we will likely not see them again. Both were in trees right next to busy roads. A female was moving around as we watched, while the second was an older male who has lived in one of two trees for the past five years. Since sloths move through adjacent cecropia trees, if patches of woods get too small they can become trapped in a tiny territory. It felt sad to see them in such an environment.

Rancho Naturalista sits at about 2500 feet, high above the Central Valley. It was  established in 1986 and has been a birding mecca ever since. The bird list they provided has 413 entries! 

Throughout the day, we saw many familiar birds and some new ones. The birding highlight of the day was seeing new hummingbird species at both of our stops and also at Rancho Naturalista.  The non-birding highlight was to get a really good view of a tayra. Tayras are in the weasel family, and usually they appear as a fast moving shadow on the trunk of a tree in the deep forest. At Rancho Naturalista the tayras have developed a taste for the bananas that are set out for the birds — which meant we watched one stroll across the edge of the lawn!  We were so mesmerized we forgot to take photos. We hope we will get another chance. 

Pictured: broad-billed motmot with lunch, rufous-tailed hummingbird, crowned wood nymph, the female and male (with a black stripe) three-toed sloths,  stripe-breasted wren