Back from Costa Rica again

Spot crowned Woodcreeper, San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica, Dec 26, 2015

Gartered Trogon, Rio Magnolia Lodge, Costa Rica, Dec 23, 2015

Sunset, Rio Magnolia Lodge, Costa Rica, Dec 21, 2015

Just back from another relaxing trip to Costa Rica where we spent about a week and a half at Rio Magnolia Lodge in the southern Pacific foothills. We were joined for about a week of our stay by our friends Devin, Rae, Aidan and Carole. As always the hundreds of acres around the lodge provided loads of birds including three life birds for me (Pale breasted Spinetail, Solitary Eagle and White throated Spadebill). I managed to find a total of 161 species at the lodge during my time there. Even after eight trips down to the lodge it is amazing to still find new species there. The vast majority of the time we stayed around the lodge but we did also take two trips away from the lodge with one trip to the coast at Hacienda Baru and another to the mountains up to San Gerardo de Dota. The half day trip to Hacienda Baru was hot but productive and I managed to add another life bird there when we had several Brown Noddy just off shore. The all day trip up to San Gerardo de Dota produced a total of species including another life bird (Ochraceous Wren).  Overall the trip produced 229 species with five new life birds.  Of the total species seen during the trip nine new for me in Costa Rica (bringing my CR list to 470)...thanks to eBird for making all this data so easy to access.

I have started uploading photos from the trip which can be found at the following link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/54277284@N05/albums/72157660650378273
(Just cell phone shots so far but I will add more photos as I get them downloaded and edited)