26 January 2026: Day 8, travel to Arenal Volcano area — Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans

Today we travel west from La Selva to Arenal volcano. As we approach from the east we’ll see the near-perfect cone of this stratovolcano from many miles away. A topographic map shows how very perfect it is.

Arenal is a young volcano, geologically less than 7,500 years old, that rises more than a mile above sea level at 5,358 ft (1,633m). It was active from 1968 to 2010 and, though dormant right now, still produces steam. According to Wikipedia, “future activity is likely due to its persistent magmatic supply.”

Arenal is a product of plate tectonics, situated above the zone where the Cocos plate dives under the Caribbean plate in Costa Rica.

This cut-away diagram shows what’s going: Cocos Plate on the left, Caribbean Plate on the right. As Cocos dives toward Earth’s core its leading edge eventually melts. Hot magma rises in the volcanic arc of which Arenal is a part.

Arenal is not the only volcano. Costa Rica’s volcanic arc includes seven historically active volcanoes: Arenal, Poás, Irazú, Miravalles, Orosí, Rincón de la Vieja complex, and Turrialba.

In fact, Costa Rica would not even exist if it weren’t for volcanoes. It’s all described in this vintage article:

25 January 2026: Day 7, La Selva Research Station and Copearte — Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans

Today we visit La Selva Biological Station, famous for tropical research and for its immense accessible biodiversity.

Founded in 1968 by the non-profit Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) “La Selva Research Station offers 1,600 hectares (nearly 4,000 acres) of well-preserved old-growth and recovering wet lowland tropical forest that abuts the Braulio Carrillo National Park. The 4 to 6 km wide forested corridor that connects La Selva at 35 m above sea level to the Barva Volcano at 2,906 m is one of the best-preserved elevational gradients in the tropics.” — quoted from La Selva Research Station (OTS)

The map of La Selva on the left shows the rapid elevation change from lowlands (orange) to highlands (blue). The map on the right shows a few of the main trails.

The variety of habitats stacked within such a small area makes for huge biodiversity with “more than 2,077 species of plants; 125 species of mammals (72 of them bats); 470 species of birds; 48 amphibian species; 87 species of reptiles; 45 species of freshwater fish; and tens of thousands of insects, arachnids, and other arthropods.” — quoted from La Selva Research Station (OTS)

La Selva is not just about birds.  It’s a very active research station.

“Recognized internationally as one of the most productive field stations in the world for tropical forest research and peer-reviewed publications, La Selva hosts approximately 300 scientists and 100 university courses every year.  Research on site results in about 240 scientific papers published per year.” — paraphrased from Wikipedia

I am looking forward to seeing:

Slaty-tailed Trogon (Trogon massena)

Graceful black-throated trogon (Trogon tenellus) … Not just a black-throated trogon, this one is “graceful.”

Yellow-throated toucan (Ramphastos ambiguus)

Snowy Cotinga (Carpodectes nitidus)

And so much more!

Just a few of La Selva’s thousands of species are shown in the video below.

I was able to identify only a few of the species in the video. This table is incomplete, so if you know a species I didn’t identify please leave a comment.

p.s. On this date, Sunday 25 Jan 2026, it began snowing heavily in the Pittsburgh area. By Monday 25 Jan Pittsburgh had a foot of snow with higher totals north of us.

24 January 2025, Day 6, Selva Verde Lodge & Reserve — Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans

This morning we travel to Sarapiquí and the Selva Verde Lodge and Reserve where we hope to see great green macaws (Ara ambiguus), the largest parrots in Central America. Critically endangered, there are only about 200+ adult great green macaws in Costa Rica now, living in evergreen rainforests among almendro trees (Dipteryx oleifera), the trees they rely on for cavity nests and food.

The IUCN website lists the worldwide great green macaw population at 500 to 1000 mature individuals, distributed in the range below where you *might* find one if you spent an hour walking 2 km at the optimal time of day.

The fact that these birds exist at all in Costa Rica is a testament to the hard work of two bird conservation organizations: Ara Manzanillo on the Caribbean coast and Macaw Recovery Project on the Pacific coast. In the last century logging took out 90% of the great green macaw’s nesting habitat and the pet trade swept up any new chicks that could be found. The 200 adults currently in Costa Rica are said to be a 10% remnant of the original population. Imagine how many great green macaws there used to be!

Ara Manzanillo and Macaw Recovery Project are working on many fronts to restore great green macaws to Costa Rica:

• Habitat protection and restoration of rainforests containing almendro trees because:
  • Almendro provide 90% of their food and 80% of their cavity nest sites.
  • Pairs require about 1,350 acres of intact rainforest containing almendro trees in order to breed. Otherwise they don’t bother to lay eggs.
• Artificial nest sites when appropriate cavities are not available.
• Captive breeding using rescued pet-trade birds plus reintroduction to the wild. (The wild birds at Selva Verde are related to the conservation projects.)
• Research and monitoring to measure and improve success, including audio recordings of the birds’ voices(* like Merlin).
• Community education about saving the birds and the forest.
• Influencing government policy to protect the forest and the birds.

Because these birds are Critically Endangered they are not publicly reported on eBird nor are their recordings available on Xeno Canto.

These videos show off their beauty.

.

This 6.5 minute video, produced 15 years ago at La Selva Biological Station, shows courtship behavior and a potential nesting cavity.

Fingers crossed that we get a good view of these beautiful birds.

23 January 2026: Day 5, Boat ride at Refugio Caño Negro — Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans

Today we’re taking two boat tours through the Caño Negro wetlands on the Rio Frio with close looks at many animals that live in the water or would run away if we approached on foot. All of these photos are from Wikimedia Commons and were taken at Caño Negro.

Well, hello there. Who are you?

The common or spectacled caiman, (Caiman crocodilus), also called the American crocodile, is a “cousin” to the alligator. They are both in the same family, Alligatoridae, but the two don’t meet. In the Western Hemisphere alligators live in North America, caimans / crocodiles live in Central and South America.

The plumed basilisk (Basiliscus plumifrons) has a mythical name. According Pliny the Elder, looking into the eyes of a basilisk will kill you! The European legend persisted despite the fact that no basilisks have ever lived in Eurasia. The four species that do exist are in Central and South America(*) and were probably named for their resemblance to the mythical creature.

Howler monkeys are heard more often than seen. This golden-mantled howler (Alouatta palliata palliata) mother is a lot smaller than she appears in the photo. Notice the size of the branches around her.

There are also families of Panamanian white-faced capuchins (Cebus imitator) at Caño Negro.

And a few species that I see at home …

Hello there, Prothonotary warbler! These warblers spend only half the year in North America, the rest of the time in Central America, Colombia and western Venezuela. What a welcome sight in winter at Caño Negro.

A deer? At home in Pittsburgh I see white-tailed deer crossing the street in front of buses. I’m surprised to see this one was photographed at Caño Negro.

(*p.s. The  brown basilisk (Basiliscus vittatus) was imported for the pet trade and is invasive in Florida.)

21 January 2026: Day 3, La Ensenada boat tour among the mangroves + cart ride on the grounds — Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans

Outside my window this morning at La Ensenada Lodge I can see the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Nicoya. The coast is lined with a mangrove forest, rich in biodiversity, that we will visit today by boat.

In the U.S. a similar coastal boat trip would explore a salt marsh but those grasslands of the temperate coasts are replaced by mangrove forests in the tropics.

Mangroves cannot survive where it’s cold as you can see on the map. Salt marshes (green) are outside the tropics, mangrove forests (orange) are within.

Like the salt marsh the mangrove forest’s stilt-like roots are in the tidal zone. There they slow the force of the water, allow suspended material to settle around the roots, and protect the coast from erosion.

Here we will see birds with “mangrove” in their names: the mangrove hummingbird (Chrysuronia boucardi) and the AOU newly split mangrove warbler (Setophaga petechia).

We will also see the bare-throated tiger heron (Tigrisoma mexicanum), named for the bare skin on his throat that he puffs out during courtship.

This 5 minute video was recorded at Lake Nicaragua, north of Costa Rica. The low rhythmic sounds on the recording are heron-speak.

They sound like this.

20 January 2026: Day 2, La Ensenada Lodge and surrounding area — Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans

Today we travel to La Ensenada Lodge at the Gulf of Nicoya, a place well known for birds.

After settling in we’ll go birding in the afternoon to find black-headed trogons (Trogon melanocephalus) and turquoise-browed motmots (Eumomota superciliosa).

We’ll also go out after dark to look for nighthawks and two potential lifebirds — Pacific screech-owl and double-striped thick-knee.

Pacific screech-owls (Megascops cooperi) are similar to our familiar eastern and western screech-owls in North America.

Double-striped thick-knees (Hesperoburhinus bistriatus) are very different. These shorebirds in the Stone-curlew (Burhinidae) family are mostly nocturnal and prefer dry lands instead of the shore.

Most thick-knees live in Africa, Asia and Australia. Only two species live in the Americas. None in North America.

At night we might not see them, but we may hear them “sing” like this:

19 January 2026: Day 1, Fly to San Jose, Costa Rica — Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans

Today I’m on my way to Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans.

Our tour begins with dinner tonight at our lodging in Peidades. Tomorrow we start nine days of travel in northern Costa Rica: from San José Province to the Gulf of Nicoya, Caño Negro, Sarapiquí, La Selva Biological Station, Arenal Volcano Park and a finca in the cloud forest. Expand Road Scholar’s Google map of our route to see more.

Back in January 2017 I visited Costa Rica and saw many of the species expected on this tour though we covered a different part of the country — the southern half from the Pacific coast to the continental divide (map at left, 292 species, 209 Life Birds). There will be a few familiar North American breeding birds whose range includes Costa Rica — snail kite (below), Baltimore orioles and golden-winged warblers. And thanks to unique habitats in the north I’m sure to see Life Birds.

Here’s a sampling of what’s on tap, many of which will be Life Birds.

• 
  Turquoise-browed motmot
• 
  Black-headed trogon
• 
  Mangrove warbler (Wikimedia)
• 
  Bare-throated tiger-heron
• 
  Jabiru, couple on nest
• 
  Great green macaw
• 
  Black-crowned antpitta
• 
  Pied puffbird
• 
  Black-crested coquette, displaying
• 
  Streak-crowned antvireo (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
• 
  White-fronted nunbird
• 
  Keel-billed motmot

Because of our all-day birding schedule I’ve written 11 days of articles in advance. I’ll post to social media when I get a chance but I can’t guarantee it. If you don’t see me on Facebook, etc, look for my latest posts here on the blog’s home page.

For now, I’m mostly off the grid until I return to Pittsburgh on Thursday night, 29 January.