Costa Rica birding trip planning

 

So, many people ask me if I was overwhelmed birding, by observing 387 species in 12 days. Starting at five each morning and basically hitting the sack around eleven thirty, or sometimes later each day. And the answer is no. It is a terrific experience.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I only had three days to prepare for my trip. However, Eagle Eye Tours emailed me my checklist. A 17 page list of the 573 species we could possibly observe.

So, I studied eBird to come up with possible birds we could see at the main birding sites. And I had already been to Costa Rica and kept pretty decent lists of birds I had already observed in the country, plus I had already downloaded the Costa Rica bird pack from Merlin for previous trips, which kept track of my previous sightings of lifers. Although I had previously marked off birds it my trusty old field guide, I soon found out it was impossible to keep up and that everything was done on the merlin app on your phone. Even ordering lunches ahead of time so that time wasn’t wasted at lunch spots.

So, I went through the checklist, marking previous lifers with the blue dots. Then with the guides doing the checklist each and every night it was easy to mark off species seen and which ones were new lifers. Species in blue, Lifers in orange.

And now, it’s absolutely great to be able to see what birds we observed on each day, and match them up with my images. Providing an easy way to log image frame numbers with each bird. It’s also fun learning more about the different birds as I research them for the blog.

So, that’s it. Probably doesn’t seem all that cool to a non birder.