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Guides And Resources Publications Bird Field Guides - The 1989 Skutch and Stiles "The Field Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica" (below, far right) was a classic as a tropical field guide, but it is starting to show its age. It has always showed its weight. The new Garrigues and Dean field guide, "The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide" (below, far left) is a lighter, more efficient guide when you're out on the trails. Trying to carry the older Skutch and Stiles guide is like carrying a cord of wood. To be fair, other great field guides for the neotropics are at least as heavy. Few countries, however, have the same tourist industry Costa Rica has. This country can truly use a second field guide. The newer Garrigues and Dean guide has good color plates and, finally, easy-on-your-eyes range maps. It's generally a more user-friendly field guide. Still, for avid birders, some of the maps of Costa Rica at the front of the Skutch and Stiles guide are important references, and I continue to use them even after 10 trips to Costa Rica. In fact, I have two of the old S&S field guides, so I've cut the maps and plates out of the Skutch and Stiles guide and pack them with the Garrigues field guide.
Bird Checklists - Country-wide bird checklists on the Internet are available, but I prefer the hard copy checklist above (left-center). Nearly all regional web-based checklists I've seen of specific Costa Rican parks and refuges were found lacking in some way. Most are overly generic. Several, like the web checklist for Cano Negro, are very poor and are missing several obvious species. It's difficult to find any web checklists that have information on status and distribution or have even seasonal information. In short, don't rely heavily on any web checklists. That said, good web checklists exist for at least four of the important birding areas. The bird checklists for Carara National Park, Rancho Naturalista, La Selva, and Savagre Mountain Lodge can be found at the Costa Rica Gateways site here... Bird Checklists (hat tip to Kevin Easley). Outside of these lists, the pickings are slim for local checklists. There are two particularly good overall checklists for the entire country of Costa Rica one can be found here at Richard Garrigues web site.... Costa Rica checklist (if you're using Internet Explorer 8 on a PC, you can convert this checklist to a PDF file by right mouse-clicking and hitting "convert to Adobe PDF"), and the other paper bound checklist which can be found at Amazon is listed above. There is a similar list as an Excel file from the Association of Ornithology de Costa Rica web site. Although this web site is mostly in Spanish, the list itself is in English. You can go here and click on "Lista oficial Actual (2008)" at the bottom of this page. Finding Birds in Costa Rica - New in November of 2009, is Barrett Lawson's Bird Finding Guide to Costa Rica (right-center). This book is a new site guide to finding Costa Rican bird species by region. Several birding locations in this recent publication have not otherwise received much publicity in print form. There is also a website about the book which is worth a look. This book supersedes all other Costa Rica bird-finding guides of this type which have long since been out-of-date. Although this book would have only marginal use if one is on tour with a group, it has enormous benefits if one is driving a vehicle. Coffee Table Books and Websites - See "Other Resources" Below Personalized Services Guided Birding Tours - Several Costa Rican, Canadian, European, and American tour companies offer trips to Costa Rica. They are generally first rate. Because of Costa Rica's infrastructure, tourism capabilities, and birding guides, Costa Rica is a fairly lucrative destination and some foreign companies offer multiple trips. Museum's and other organizations also tap into this market. Recently, the Costa Ricans themselves have set up very strong competition to American and British tour companies for birding. They are capable of doing this in ways other Central American countries cannot. Mainly, they now have have extremely capable bird guides, a strong tourist infrastructure, a good fleet of vehicles, and a very good understanding of the needs of travelers. I have listed several Costa Rica companies that specialize in tours on the home page.
I cannot rate these companies - primarily because I am not so inclined to group tours. I used to lead tours for a living, but I've never been one to really enjoy visiting a foreign country entirely through a bus windshield. I prefer renting a vehicle or shuttle and managing my own itinerary. Costa Rica is a great place to do that. I wouldn't hesitate to use a tour company, Costa Rican companies included, but it is not my preferred choice of travel. Personal Guide Services (Natural History) - On at least two occasions, we sought out a personal "natural history" guide to drive us into areas in which we were not familiar. We could not find qualified bird guides at the time as they were not available around the areas we were staying. English-speaking natural history guides are not difficult to find in Costa Rica as they have a much wider audience of tourists than qualified bird guides. I recommend asking someone at your hotel for information or a local phone number. Just remember, natural history guides are not the same as birding guides. A natural history guide should not be expected to name every bird observed in the field. They can be useful if you are unfamiliar with the terrain or the least bit uncomfortable in driving off the beaten path, but they probably won't add anything to your birding experience.If you ask at the hotel desk for a bird guide, the hotel receptionist's understanding of a “bird guide” is likely not the same as yours. They are probably thinking "toucan" while you're thinking "Long-tailed Manakin". You will likely end up with a natural history guide. Do not expect spur-of-the-moment "nature" guides to be strong bird guides. For a birding guide, do your homework in advance through email. Don't expect to acquire a skilled birding guide on a day's notice. Should you take advantage of a local natural history guide for a day, you should at least get your money’s worth. Ask them to be on the lookout for interesting mammals (sloths and monkeys) and to point out the more conspicuous plants and trees. But make sure they know your mission is to see the biggest variety of bird life and that this will not be a typical natural history tour. You should not expect full identification of every species by a natural history guide. Only the very specific bird guides have that kind of knowledge. Personal Guide Services (Birding) - It's possible that Costa Rica has the highest density of qualified bird guides of any country in the world. There are some birding guides that may be available for customized day trips around some of the better-known parks like Carara if they are not doing tours at the time. I am not speaking about the guides you might find waiting to guide people at a national park entrance. I'm speaking of thoroughly trained professional bird guides and ones who will likely show up with a scope and playback system. On two occasions, I have hired specific, qualified bird guides - once for a day tour at Carara, and once for 3 days near Arenal and Heliconias lodge. Both were well worth the money. One reason birders might consider this is the difficulty of deep-forest birding. A guide becomes more important in this particular habitat. It's a place where birds sounds and play-back are more critical to seeing the bird. A guide will likely know where the manakin lek is or where the antpitta is more likely seen. Having someone along who knows many of the birds sounds will enhance your experience. If you have a target list, Costa Rica Gateways is a company that is known for its service in this regard. This company is tailored for putting together customized tours or providing services on a daily basis where birders are seeking help with specific birds or specific locations. I have used their guides and consider them some of the best qualified guides I have seen in any country. Another company that does one-day trips (and longer tours) out of the central valley is a company called "Birding on a Budget Costa Rica" which advertises a list of several budget-oriented birding trips. You can also seek out independent bird guides on your own.
Another bird guide who has recently started his own company is Herman Venega. Herman was our guide at Rancho Naturalista and is very good. He may be available if his schedule permits. On the Costa Rica Bird Route web site (about an upcoming bird route being developed in Costa Rica), there is a list of Bird Guides who may be contacted. This is not an extensive list, but is was created for the public domain. There are many other bird guides that might be available who are perhaps equally as good. If you cannot locate one, ask the guides who may be too busy to help to recommend one to you. Costa Rican professional bird guides are under-rated in my opinion. There are several out there, and you would likely do well with a good recommendation. Other Resources Bird Identification Challenges in Costa Rica - See my comments here. Bird Vocalizations - For bird vocalizations of Costa Rican birds, the only good commercial recording I've found is "Voices of Costa Rican Birds, Caribbean Slope". Many places currently show it "currently unavailable" but you should be able to find it somewhere. There is also a nice, compact playback mechanism for the iPod and iTouch called Birdjam. When you purchase a new one, they will pre-load the Costa Rica audio CD for you. For a fuller discussion of the Birdjam, see my section called "Bird Notes." Web Sites - Richard Garrigues Costa Rica Birding Web Site. Definitely worth poking around for several reasons. Richard is the author of the newest bird field guide. There's also a country-wide checklist and some photos of specific birds. I think the "Provincial Overviews" at the bottom of the page are particularly good. Richard Garrigues also has some valuable information about finding birds in Costa Rica which I link here. I personally recommend Richard's web site because of the depth of information. Richard can also be hired as a personal guide. His email is on his web page. For trip reports on Costa Rica, I recommend Fatbirder. This web site also has the most complete links to Costa Rica birding information, tours, reserves, and places to stay. New in November of 2009, is Barrett Lawson's Bird Finding Guide to Costa Rica. This book is a new site guide to finding Costa Rican bird species by region. Several places in this recent publication have not otherwise received much publicity in print form. There is also a website about the book. For birders, I also recommend the "Costa Rica Living and Birding" blog. This is frequently updated, and is good bird reading.
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