Dominical Costa Rica

The patter of raindrops lightly pelting the leaves far above our heads was the first warning of a change in weather. It would take a minute or two for the rain to filter down 50 meters, through the layers of canopy to the jungle floor. We covered our binoculars with plastic bags.

"Maybe it'll pass," I offered weakly.

"You think so?" queried John, hopefully.

"No, not really, but let's wait and see. When the rain comes this early in the day, it's not usually a passing shower. If we go back, we'll be soaked by the time we get to the house anyway, so we just as well wait a while and see."

The first bloated drops burst and spattered on the broad-leafed plants of the understory. The sound above was now a dull drumming. John pulled out a small "Write in the Rain" notebook where he had been noting every bird we sighted. He checked the list.

"We've got 27 so far. The Red-capped Manakin is a new one for me." "Not bad. We've only been out a couple of hours. With descent weather, we could easily top 50 for the day. With this we'll be lucky to see any birds at all." We turned our backs to a light gust of wind and hunched over to keep the water out of our eyes.

John and I had been planning this birding hike though the rain forest of Hacienda Barú for over a month. Neither of us was expert at identifying birds, but we tried hard. What we lacked in ornithological acumen we made up for with enthusiasm. Our bible was A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica with its drawings and descriptions of all the birds in the country. The most difficult to identify were what John called "LBJ's," short for "little brown jobs." These were small, nondescript brown or tan birds that, to the untrained eye, all looked alike. LBJ's could be wrens, flycatchers, antbirds, spinetails, elaenias, warblers, vireos or something else. Red-lored Parrots and Chestnut-mandibled Toucans were a piece of cake in comparison.

Back in the 1980's when we started the process of converting Hacienda Barú from a cattle ranch into a nature reserve, one of the first things we did was compile lists of all the different species of birds, mammals, reptiles and plants on the reserve. It soon became obvious that this was a task that would never be completed. There will always be more species to identify. The list grew rapidly at first, but the pace soon slowed. Within a couple of months we had identified over 100 different kinds of birds. More than a year elapsed before we passed the 200 mark. With lots of help from ornithologist, Jim Zook, the list has expanded to 326 species of birds, all sighted within the 330 hectares of Hacienda Barú National Wildlife Refuge. To put this in perspective, only about 850 species of birds have been identified during more than 100 years of counting in all of the continental United States and Canada.

As a youngster in Colorado, I wasn't particularly interested in birds. I was one of those guys who might make a smart remark about bird watchers, who I stereotyped as nurds with binoculars and bird books. But after living in Costa Rica for over 20 years, I caught "birding fever." The next time I returned to my home town for a visit, my first order of business was to buy a new pair of binoculars. Another purchase was a Field Guide to the Birds of the Western United States. The rest of my three week trip was spent trying to identify all the birds around Greeley, Colorado. The grand total for the trip was 21 species. Back in Costa Rica, I put a note on the Hacienda Barú brochure telling about the Colorado birding experience and making the following offer to bird watchers: "If we can't show you 21 species of birds on a two hour hike on Hacienda Barú, we will return your money." I've never had to pay off on that offer.

Birders count species sighted and make lists. There are daily lists--like John and I, place lists--like Hacienda Barú--and lifetime lists which have all the species the birder has ever logged. A well known list sponsored by the Audubon Society is called the "Christmas Bird Count (CBC.") On a given day, ornithologists and birding enthusiasts go into the field and tally the number of species and the number of individual birds identified in a specified area. As the name implies, this official count happens within a couple of weeks of Christmas. On January 3rd, 2004, 41 ornithologists and experienced birders participated in the "La Merced CBC" which took place within a 15 mile diameter circle that takes in Dominical, Uvita, Platanillo and Tinamastes, and extends from the seashore to the mountains. Armed with binoculars and bird books, teams of birders, each assigned a specific area, set out before dawn. By the end of the day, this group of happy, but exhausted birders had notched up a total of 340 species of birds from 56 families and a total of 10,292 individual birds.

Two teams worked on Hacienda Barú National Wildlife Refuge, one in the secondary forests of the coastal lowlands, the beach and the river, and the other in the primary forest of the highlands. The most exciting bird logged was the Three-wattled Bellbird, which wasn't supposed to be at this altitude. The most beautiful was the Blue-headed Euphonia, which was seen flitting around and eating mistletoe berries. The Common Potoo was the best camouflaged and the King Vulture the largest. The Boat-billed Heron took the prize for the funniest looking bird and the cattle egret the most numerous. The final count for the two Hacienda Barú teams was 181 species. Fortunately the CBC was blessed with sunshine, unlike that fateful day 12 years earlier when John and I found ourselves trudging through the mud. soaked to the bone in a tropical downpour, but still looking for birds.

"So, what do you think we ought to do," asked John.

"Why don't we go on ahead to the jungle camp," I suggested. "It's less than an hour from here and it'll take longer than that to go back. We can't get any wetter, and who knows, maybe the rain will stop,"

"Yeah, who knows?" he answered.

We set out for the camp. A Bare-throated Tiger Heron, which seemed quite pleased with the rain, was the only bird we logged along the way. We might have walked right on by, but it growled at us. I nearly jumped out of my boots, thinking a big cat was lurking behind a tree, but then John spotted the long-legged, stork-like bird, standing in the stream, fishing. Before hearing that growl, I thought it was named "Tiger Heron" because of the stripes. It was early afternoon by the time we reached the jungle camp. After fixing coffee and scrounging some crackers from the pantry, we sat down to relax. Now that we were under cover, the rain quit pouring, slowed to a light drizzle and quit.

"Hey, what was that?" John jumped up from his stool and grabbed his binoculars. "Look! See it right there in that bush, what is it?"

"John, forget that LBJ. Look at that tall snag over there. Four Fiery-billed Aracaris just landed. Put them on the list."

"We can see aracaris anytime. Look up above them at the tip of the snag. It's a Black-crowned Tityra." John was excited. "Now that's something you don't see every day. Hey! There's that LBJ again, right back in the same bush. Get the bird book. Between the two of us we can figure out what it is."

The rain came back with a vengeance, this time with wind. We settled back down to finish our coffee and crackers. Throughout the afternoon rain came and went. Whenever it stopped for a few minutes, the clearing filled with birds. At one time we had nine Chestnut-mandibled Toucans and 13 Fiery-billed Aracaris in the snag, all at the same time. I logged two birds I had never seen before, a humming bird called the White-necked Jacobin and John's LBJ, which turned out to be the Riverside Wren. John added five to his lifetime list. Daylight was beginning to fade when the rain settled in for good. We slogged home through the torrent, arriving just before total darkness and in the nick of time to stop a search party that my wife Diane had commandeered to rescue us. It was the best day of birding I have ever known.

So what drives birders to traipse all over the countryside, spotting scope and tripod over their shoulders, binoculars slung around their necks, and bird book tucked in a day pack? Why in the world would two grown men, apparently in complete control of their mental faculties, walk for miles in a soaking rain just to get a peek at a new bird? I'm afraid I can't answer that question any more than an alcoholic can tell you why he drinks booze. Over the years my birding fever has settled down to a simmer, but I still get excited whenever a new species is sighted on Hacienda Barú.

Speaking of enthusiasts, two couples, all birders, once visited Hacienda Barú National Wildlife Refuge for several days. From daylight till dusk, they searched every habitat on the reserve: forested hills, wetlands, mangrove estuary, secondary forest, river mouth and brush covered clearings. They had logged close to 200 birds by noon on their fourth day including almost every species on their wish list and some they hadn't imagined they would see. The sole exception was the Crested Caracara, which had eluded them from the start. At lunch, someone suggested that they hang up the birding and spend their last afternoon relaxing at the beach. Three of them loved the idea, but one of the men, a truly fanatical birder, became downright annoyed with his companions. He carried on as if they were proposing to commit some sort of sacrilege. If they were giving it up, he would carry on by himself.

"It's okay if you don't want to go to the beach," said the other man. "But you don't have to get mad about it." "Oh, don't pay any attention to him," interjected the fanatical birder's wife, with a wicked little smirk. "He's just afraid he might see a Liver-spotted Skinny Dipper." With that, the man stomped off. And, wouldn't you know it, the beach crowd logged the Crested Caracara.