March was most assuredly the wrong time to visit Palo Verde National Park. Rancho Humo, famed for its wetlands, was like an oasis in a scorched desert, reminiscent of the lodges in Namibia where we had sought refuge after our hot safari drives under the blistering African sun many years ago. At nearby Mata Redonda wildlife refuge, the lake had shrunk back so much from its rainy season high that the only way to observe the birds that fed along its shores was to walk on the clayey, cracked soil the retreating waters had exposed.
We had contemplated a hike in Barra Honda National Park, located about half an hour from Rancho Humo, but jettisoned those plans in favor of a quiet afternoon playing board games and swimming in the pool. That was the morning we had risen with the sun for our safari-style drive through the shrunken Rancho Humo wetlands. By the time we had finished our post-safari breakfast, the sun was busy searing the landscape, and it wasn't even 9 a.m. yet!
Agains this backdrop, the decision to go on a family hike in Palo Verde was somewhat foolish. There are two entrances to the park. The main entrance lies to the north and can be accessed from the San Jose-Liberia road by turning off at Bagaces. As Rancho Humo lies just south of the park, the only way in for us was by boat along the Tempisque River to Puerto Chamorro. We booked a tour with a tiny family-owned birdwatching/river tour company in Puerto Humo, the speck of a town abutting Rancho Humo lodge. The owner turned out to be a birding guide at a lodge in Nosara we had visited twice last year. He didn't guide us when we stayed there, but he and D had crossed paths on the trails at Lagarta Lodge and he recognized us instantly.
The trip along the Tempisque was unquestionably the highlight of our weekend. We saw a ton of birds, the most notable of which was a perched lesser nighthawk — a nocturnal bird we previously had only ever glimpsed in flight at dusk. Like other members of the nighthawk family, this bird sleeps during the day and hunts at night by zooming around rapidly with its frog-like mouth held open, catching insects on the fly. In retrospect, we probably should have simply called it a day after the pleasant river tour instead of disembarking at Puerto Chamorro to visit Palo Verde.
The two-kilometer hike in from the dock to the park entrance was brutal — not just because the trail followed an exposed road that was positively baked by the scorching sun, but also because our kids slowed the pace so much that their energy was completely depleted before we had made it to the halfway point to our destination. They revived a bit when we finally reached the park gate, and we hiked another kilometer or so into the park to reach the large Palo Verde lake we had hoped to see, but by that point we were all too drained to enjoy the views or the multitude of birds gathered at this oasis. Luckily, our guide talked one of the park rangers into giving us a ride back to the dock; otherwise, we might not have made it.
Even though out timing was off and birding with two tired, sun-beaten kids was less than ideal, D still thought the weekend was eminently worthwhile. We didn't experience as much avian diversity as we would have in the rainy season, but some of the birds we did see were quite notable. In addition to the aforementioned nighthawk, we found a pair of tiny ferruginous pygmy-owls right outside the lodge, locating them with the help of playback and managing pretty decent photos considering the pitch blackness.
There were a ton of scissor-tailed flycatchers — the pretty bird that graces the cover of one of our favorite boardgames, Wingspan. D had only ever seen one of these once before — when we visited Rincon de la Vieja — and he did not have his camera at the time. During the wetlands tour, we also found a mangrove cuckoo — one of half-a-dozen lifers D logged during the trip. And last, but certainly not least, was a critically endangered parrot species deemed so sensitive that eBird does not make sightings of this bird public — the second such species D has lucked into seeing in the wild in Costa Rica.
Pictured from top to bottom: turquoise-browed motmot; roseate spoonbill; lesser nighthawk; double-striped thick-knee; black-bellied whistling-ducks; ferruginous pygmy-owl; scissor-tailed flycatcher; mangrove cuckoo (below).
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