Thanks &

[Helmut Mueller <hmuelle@earthlink.net>]

  I wish to thank all of you for your advice on our upcoming trip to
Arizona.

The following is an account of our recent trip to Costa Rica.
I put this together for the news letter of the Chapel Bird Club & thought a
few of you might enjoy it.

We were  on vacation in Costa Rica from 1 through 23 December and did very
little but birdwatch from dawn to dusk. The area of Costa Rica is only 37%
of that of the state of North Carolina and we did a reasonable job of seeing
the country. The only notable areas we missed were Tortuguero, in the
extreme northeast and the Osa penninsula in the extreme southwest, both
because of essentially non-existent access by road. The roads in Costa Rica
are very bad, many of the roads we went on were accessible only by vehicles
with high road clearance and more than a few required 4 wheel drive . The
paved highways had frequent potholes. Costa Rica is very mountainous. At its
narrowest point there are only about 80 miles between the Atlantic and the
Pacific Oceans, with a mountain of 12,500 feet in between! We went from
steamy tropics to frost-filled mornings in little over a day.  About 25% of
the land area of Costa Rica is National Parks or other reserves.
  We hired a guide (Dennis Rogers) who provided transportation and helped
with dealing in Spanish. Jim Zook did an excellent job of substituting for
Dennis on four days.  We find that having a local birdwatcher as a guide is
extremely useful in a strange environment. They know the birds, the
vocalizations and where to find them. We saw 476 species in the 3 weeks. A
list of the number of species observed (some only by vocalizations) follows:

  3 species of Tinamous, 1 Grebe, 5 Pelecaniformes, including Brown Booby, 2
Ducks, including Black-bellied Whistling Duck, 11 Herons, including
Boat-billed and Tiger Heron, 1 Wood Stork, 3 Ibis, etc, 3 Vultures,
including King Vulture, 28 Falconiformes, including Laughing Falcon, Bat
Falcon, Black and Ornate Hawk-eagles, Pearl and Double-toothed Kites, 4
Cracids, including Great Currasow, 1 Quail, 4 Gruiformes, including
Sungrebe, 21 Charadriiformes, including Thick-knee and Collared Plover, 16
Pigeons, 14 Parrots, including Scarlet Macaw, 5 Cuckoos, 5 Owls, 5
Caprimulgiformes, including 2 Potoos, 5 Swifts, 37 Hummingbirds, 9 Trogons,
including Resplendent Quetzal, 4 Kingfishers, 3 Motmots, 1 Jacamar, 1
Puffbird,  2 Barbets, 5 Toucans, 13 Woodpeckers, 18 Woodcreepers, including
Brown-billed Scythe-bill, 16  Antbirds, 1 Tapaculo, 5 Becards, Tityras, 3
Cotingas, 6 Manakins, 45 Flycatchers, including Royal Flycatcher,
Long-tailed Tyrant and Torrent Tyrant, 3 Jays, 8 Vireos, 2 Silky
Flycatchers, 1 Dipper, 1 Bananaquit, 29 Warblers, 11 Thrushes, 19 Wrens, 3
Gnatcatchers, 5 Swallows, 43 Tanagers, 14 Blackbirds  and 16  Finches, etc.

  We enjoyed all of our time in Costa Rica, but if we must select a few
places for special mention the following were outstanding: The two sites of
the Organization for Tropical Studies at La Selva and Las Cruces, and the
National Parks at Carara and Tapanti. We should also mention the site where
we found the Resplendant Quetzal but our notes are inadequate and I cannot
find it on the mapŠ it was in the Cerro de la Muerte. We saw many amazingly
beautiful birds on the trip, but the Quetzal was the highlight!

Dennis Rogers has a web site : (http://www.earthfoot.org/guides/rogers.htm).
Jim Zook can be reached by email: jrzook@racsa.co.cr

Helmut and Nancy Mueller