Bucket-List Birds

I hadn't even tucked into breakfast when I spotted the first one.

As part of our stay at the Finca Verde Lodge, in Bijagua, Alajuela, Costa Rica, we were offered breakfast every morning. We had our choice between a North-American breakfast of bacon and eggs, or a traditional Costa Rican breakfast of eggs, beans, rice, plantains, sausage, and cheese.

Without hesitation, we opted for the Costa Rican breakfast, having told our host, Kendall, of our preference when we checked in, the previous evening.

DW and I were at the table of the Hummingbird Café, Finca Verde's resto-bar, which was open-aired but covered, and looked out onto the jungle that surrounded this former farm-turned eco-lodge. We were waiting for our friends, Bee and Marc, to join us and a light rain had begun to fall.

We had awakened to howler monkeys in the trees and we saw them, above us, as we left our cabin. The sound of myriad birds mixed with the guttural grunts.

Kendall hadn't yet arrived but DW and I took a table for four at the edge of the patio, close to some flowered bushes. We were hopping to spot some hummingbirds at the Hummingbird Café.

We had our cameras with us, as we had signed up for a jungle tour after breakfast, and we were trying to photograph birds while we waited for Bee, Marc, and Kendall to show up. We also had our Merlin bird ID apps open, listening for the various birds to be identified.

Before DW and I left for Costa Rica, we had watched dozens of YouTube videos to familiarize ourselves with the places on our itinerary. We also watched some videos of birds that lived in the Alajuela and Guanacaste regions.

We were equipped with long telephoto lenses and we wanted to photograph as many birds as we could. When we visited Costa Rica in 2024, we were only recently into birding and we didn't have as much experience, though we did see or hear at least 70 different varieties of bird on that trip.

Of the birds that we saw in these YouTube videos, a few stood out to us and we told each other that we were hoping to see them over the 12 days that we'd be in the country. The top three birds that we wanted to see were the Collared Aracari, the Lesson's Mot-Mot, and the Black-headed Trogon.

There were other birds that we wanted to see: the Boat-billed Heron; the Cinnamon Hummingbird; the Hoffmann's Woodpecker; the Jabiru; and the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, but the first three birds were our bucket-list birds. They were the ones we really wanted to see.

Bee and Marc hadn't even arrived at the café when my Merlin app picked up the sound of the mot-mot.

I looked furiously through the growth around me. There were plenty of hummingbirds, zipping from flower to flower, as well as other tiny birds—euphonia, wrens, manakins, and warblers—but I couldn't spot the Lesson's Mot-Mot.

I grew worried that Bee and Marc, or Kendall, would show up and frighten the mot-mot away before I could spot it, but I sensed some movement in bushes, less than four metres from me, and I could see turquois through the greenery. I lifted my camera with the 200–500mm lens and took the shot.

Lesson's Mot-Mot

The mot-mot is easily distinguishable by it's long, split tail that has round feathers at both ends, but the bird was mostly hidden through the dense leaves in the bushes. I couldn't see the tail very clearly but the bird was unmistakable.

It's tail was obscured by the bushes.

I was only able to take three or four shots before the mot-mot hopped deeper into the bush, and then disappeared altogether. And just moments later, Bee and Marc arrived. We kept looking at the bushes, hoping it would return, but we never saw it again and Merlin never detected its call.

While we ate breakfast, our guide, Juan Carlos, arrived. He said we were in no rush, that we could eat our food at our own pace, enjoy our coffee (more on that in a future post), and join him near the lodge's parking lot when we were ready.

Keel-billed Toucan

At the parking lot, we heard the call of a Keel-billed Toucan and we easily spotted it in a nearby tree. While this toucan is one of my favourite birds in Costa Rica, it wasn't on my bucket list this time because I had already seen a few of them on our 2024 trip.

Still, I was going to capture it anyway.

There was also a Yellow-throated Toucan in a nearby tree. I didn't have the greatest vantage but captured what I could.

Yellow-throated Toucan

Juan-Carlos also pointed out a three-toed sloth in one of the trees near the parking lot, and if not for his keen eyes we would have likely missed it. The sloth was curled in a ball and was silhouetted against the overcast sky, so the pictures that we took weren't the best.

We had a better opportunity, later.

Just before our tour started, I saw a bird land on a nearby branch and I trained my camera on it. Before looking closely at it, I thought it was the toucan, but I quickly realized that it was another bird on my bucket list.

Collared Aracari (pooping)

The Collared Aracari.

It was high up in a tree but there was no mistaking it. I snapped off several shots; one, which captured the aracari pooping before taking flight.

We saw so many of these beautiful birds throughout the rain forest and again, later, on the Pacific coast, but I was astonished that in the first hour of our first day, I captured two out of my three must-see birds.

I took a better photo of the aracari, just before we left Finca Verde for our next destination, and I'll share that image as soon as I've downloaded it from my camera (I have thousands of images to sort through).

We never saw a mot-mot after that morning, even when Kendall showed us a hang-out spot for the bird, on a trail near a creek, on the outer limits of the lodge property. I'm just glad I captured it when I could.

Would I see the third bird on my bucket list? Stay tuned.

Happy Friday!