COSTA RICA II - SAN GERARDO DE DOTA

(SGDD, IN SHORT!)

We bade a very reluctant goodbye to Hotel Bougainvillea after a hearty and sumptuous Costa Rican breakfast, and were on our way to the next destination on our itinerary - San Gerardo De Dota; (SGDD).

This is a beautiful region of San Jose District, full of green rolling hills and fruit plantations. We were traveling along hilly roads with ups and downs and sharp, winding curves.  At one point, the road was going downhill on a very steep incline!The path looked almost off-road and was quite rocky.  But the steering wheel was in my son's capable hands, so I wasn't really worried! Finally we reached our first halt, - "Miriam's Quetzals".

I have to tell you here, that this region of SGDD is famous for a unique bird to be found here, the "Resplendent Quetzal".  More about it a bit later though!

Miriam's Quetzal is a quaint little restaurant almost like a small cottage, with about 6-8 tables covered with attractive red and white gingham tablecloths.  It looks very cozy and homely. At the end of the room, we saw a doorway opening onto a balcony or terrace. This was where we headed to and remained there till it was time to leave!

Even though Miriam's had "Quetzal" in its name, we didn't see them here! The view from this balcony is just spectacular! You see the vista of the valley of cloud forest opening out before you. And there is a small garden just below the balcony.  The couple who runs this restaurant have placed some feeders here.  The first sight which greets your eyes is the myriads of hummingbirds flitting continuously to and fro in a frenzy of feeding on the sweet syrup of the feeders.

Usually, I don't like hide birding. but it is a bit difficult to see hummingbirds in the wild, so the feeders are the only alternative! To tell the truth, I didn't know where to look! There were so many hummers! It was also pretty difficult to photograph them as they were flying around so fast! There were some arboreal birds in the trees too! Paradise!!

BIRD COLLECTION AT MIRIAM'S QUETZALS

FIERY THROATED HUMMINGBIRD

TALAMANCA HUMMINGBIRD

VOLCANO HUMMINGBIRD

SCINTILLANT HUMMINGBIRD

LESSER VIOLETEAR

.     FLAME-COLORED TANAGER

   ACORN WOODPECKER.

 SPOTTED WOOD QUAIL  

COLLARED REDSTART

SOOTY THRUSH.

We left for our destination of the day, - Dantica Lodge, after a very satisfying vegetarian meal.  It was almost dusk by the time we reached the lodge. We had prior reservations, so we just kept our bags and left to explore the surrounding forests, hoping for a glimpse of the Resplendent Quetzal.

Finding the Quetzal without a guide wasn't going to be easy, but the region was so beautiful and verdant, we didn't mind it a bit.  We came upon a large group of Japanese Photographers/birders, also looking for -  yes, you guessed it right, the Resplendent Quetzal.  I tried to speak to them in my broken rusty Japanese, which I had partially learnt almost three decades ago! That made them quite happy. They told us that they had sighted a couple of Quetzals the pervious day at the same place, so all of us hung around for some time. But it was getting dark, so we gave up and decided to come there the next morning.

The Lodge was in the cloud forest and rooms were on the sides of cliffs. Our suite had two large bedrooms flanking a nice sitting room.  All the rooms were equipped with fireplaces, and most important of all, one entire wall of each room was just transparent glass. And there was a balcony too.  These massive windows overlooked the gardens, valleys and hills in the distance. The view was fantastic and numerous bird species would come visiting! They were quite unaware of our presence, so we could observe them uninterruptedly!

The next morning, we set out with our guide for birding in our car. But we had to walk later as the jungle paths were quite narrow and rough. We halted at a couple of places and trained our binoculars to see if we could spot anything interesting and then we would walk on! Suddenly after a bend in our path we saw the same Japanese group and some other photographers/birders with their heavy cameras (I call them bazooka's in a lighter vein) and tripods searching expectantly in a particular direction.  We came to know from our guide that the Quetzals favourite food was wild avocados!. Hence, everyone had made a beeline towards a couple of wild avocado trees. Suddenly, there was a buzz of excitement and I saw this beautiful bird.  It was quite difficult to photograph due to unfavourable lighting and the rush of each birder to capture this beauty.  But I did manage a couple of decent shots and my son captured a few more (thanks to his height), before the bird flew away, its long tail streamers making graceful wavy movements, reminding me of our Indian Paradise Flycatcher!

RESPLENDENT QUETZAL

The Quetzal belongs to the Trogon family. In fact, it is the largest Trogon. It has iridescent green plumes, red lower breast and belly, and a white under tail. The long tail streamers measure between 12 inches and almost 40 inches!

This bird is classified as  "NEAR THREATENED" in the I.U.C.N Red list; habitat destruction being the main cause.

We ticked off the Resplendent Quetzal from our list and moved on to "Parque Nacional Los Quetzales" or "Los Quetzal National Park".  This park is located in the Copey district, SGDD, a distant suburb of the San Jose province. It is spread across 50 Sq. KMs, and predominantly protects the cloud forest.  It also contains a Ramsar Site.

Our guide was of the opinion that it would be difficult for us to walk inside the National Park, because of my limited mobility and the dense forest.  He advised us to drive along its perimeter.  It was the same vegetation everywhere, so we would get to see the same birds. We did a combination of drive-walk-drive at frequent intervals.

The paths were very narrow, with dense forest on both sides. There were no sounds except for the occasional bird call. It felt almost as if we were the only four people in this "green world"!

Here, we came across a very interesting species of Owls, the rufous morph of the Costa Rican Pigmy Owl or Rufous Pigmy Owl.  It was very agreeable, almost indifferent to our presence and allowed us to click quite a few photographs, only flying to another tree in the vicinity, when it got bored.

FERRUGINOUS or RUFOUS PIGMY OWL

Another interesting bird that I got to see was the "Long-tailed Silky Flycatcher".  This bird is related to the Waxwings.  It has soft silky plumage, pale grey forehead, and crested head.  The head, neck, throat and lower belly are yellow. The flight feathers and long pointed tail are black. This bird was very far away and I could spot it only because it was almost at the top of a tall tree, in an open area with the blue sky as its background.

LONG-TAILED SILKY FLYCATCHER

The other interesting species were the Mountain Elaenia, Mountain Thrush, Rufous-collared Sparrow, Tufted Flycatcher, White-fronted Tyrannulet, and Yellow-thighed Brushfinch, which is endemic to Costa Rica and western Panama.

RUFOUS-COLLARED SPARROW

MOUNTAIN THRUSH

 YELLOW-THIGHED BRUSHFINCH.

Now it was time to return to the Dantica lodge for lunch.  I spent a restful afternoon sitting on the balcony enjoying the view and watching the small inquisitive birds which came a-visiting, while my husband and son went hiking on one of the numerous but challenging trails in the area.

Next morning, we would be leaving for the most interesting place of our trip, "SARAPIQUI"!

ExcitedII

More about it in the next.......!!

Aditi Deshpande

March 2025

P.S. In case you have missed my first blog on Costa Rica, here's the link; https://www.aditideshp.com/blog/costa-rica-chapter--i