A full day of birding today, starting with an early morning guided hike to the La Selva Biological Station, which is situated in a protected lowland tropical rainforest with nearly 10 miles (15 km) of forest trails. La Selva offers a great number of trails with different micro-habitats and to hear the chorus of birds calling from the forest is an amazing experience.
Owned and managed by the Organisation for Tropical Studies, a consortium of universities dedicated to rainforest research, each year hundreds of scientists visit this internationally renowned research station bordering Braulio Carrillo National Park, to study its tropical ecology. With over 435 species of birds, more than 1,900 species of plants and over 330 tree species, its diversity is spectacular.
Targets include the Rufous-tailed jacamar, Slaty-breasted tinamou, Fasciated antshrike, Black-crowned antshrike, Red-throated ant tanager, Golden-hooded tanager, Bay-headed tanager, Sunbittern, Montezuma oropendula and Chestnut-backed antbird.
The long list of birds you can find here includes the Great tinamou, Scaled pigeon, Common potoo, Bronzy hermit, Black-crested coquette, Band-tailed barbthroat, Bronze-tailed plumeleteer, Blue-throated goldentail, Green ibis, Spectacled owl, Pied puffbird, Rufous-winged woodpecker, Mealy amazon, Crimson-fronted parakeet, Bicolored antbird, Spotted antbird, Black-faced antthrush, Rufous piha, Snowy cotinga, Ruddy-tailed flycatcher, Black-capped pygmy tyrant, Paltry tyrannulet, White-ringed flycatcher, Black-throated wren, Stripe-breasted wren, Canebrake wren, Song wren, Golden-browed chlorophonia and Shining honeycreeper. You can also see sloths, howler and capuchin monkeys, peccaries, agoutis, coatis and many species of rainforest butterflies and frogs.
La Selva is also great for 'big birds' and we have the chance of seeing species such as Great currasow, Grey-headed chachalaca, Semiplumbeous hawk, Tiny hawk, White-crowned parrot, Red-lored parrot and Mealy parrot. Toucans, hummingbirds and trogons are also frequently seen.
We also visit the very productive Cope Feeders. Here we can find bird species that are very difficult to see anywhere else. We also take a short guided hike into the forest in search of several species of roosting owls, nesting parakeets, white bats and more.