Monday
Mar292010

The Reluctant Birder

Text and photos by Martha Christopherson

“All the good birds were already taken,” the man next to me said after I wondered aloud, “Why on earth would Costa Rica pick such a dull-looking robin as its national bird.” 

I was standing in a lineup with a dozen birders peering through binoculars at a small, unspectacular, Clay-colored Robin perched on the branch of a tree.  “It’s just a little, brown bird,” I said as I looked through my binoculars that were like dainty opera glasses compared to these birders’ rugged, high-powered field glasses. 

My husband, Larry and I had come to Costa Rica to hike, fish and kick back with some cold beers.  Birdwatching was nowhere on our list. But in Caño Negro, our vacation had taken an ornithic turn.

The Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge, near the Nicaraguan border, protects about 25,000 acres of marshland and is home to some 350 species of birds and hundreds more during the migratory season.  Getting there had not been easy.  The final 12 miles of our three-and-a-half hour drive from San Jose had been on a dusty, rock-strewn stretch of what looked like a road on our map but was more like a barren moonscape with craters that could trip up a little Toyota sedan like ours, and send it cartwheeling end over end.  

The temperature was hitting 90 degrees and the afternoon sun was beating down as we pulled into our hotel, the Caño Negro Natural Lodge.  Our hotel was an oasis in this remote town.   

Caño Negro was about the size of six city blocks and we found more cows wandering the streets than people.  We bought two Cokes at the only market in town and dropped 100 colones into the pinball machine out front and played a game to kill some time.  Then we decided it must be happy hour. 

Over a couple of cold beers, Larry and I tried to remember why we had put Caño Negro on our itinerary.  “Who comes here?  There isn’t anything to do,” I whined. 

Just then, a tourist bus pulled up outside and a dozen or so people began unloading gear.  They were definitely birders.  Passengers clad in travel vests and binoculars held in place by suspender-type harnesses filed out of the bus.  Some hefted tripod-mounted cameras with lenses the size of Big Gulp cups over their shoulders.    

At dinner in the hotel restaurant, Larry and I were seated close to the birders.  As we savored the last few bites of dessert, I noticed a man stand and begin to call out the names of birds they had spotted that day while the group made check marks on pieces of paper.  This birding business was serious.    

The following morning I awoke at 5:30 to the grunting of howler monkeys and a cacophony of birdsong.  I drew back the curtain on the window to see if I could spot the monkeys, but instead, saw the group of  birders. I watched them shuffle, en masse, as they focused their binoculars from tree to tree.  Then, a small bird landed on the chair outside my sliding glass door.  It was red and black. I was struck by its delicate beauty.   I slowly slid open the door to get a better look but it flew away.  I threw on my shorts and t-shirt, grabbed Larry’s binoculars and slipped outside. 

The birders were congregated near the pool so I inched my way over to see what they were looking at and that was when I found myself in the last place I ever expected – in a lineup of birders.    

“It’s a Passerini’s Tanager,” I heard someone say.  I made a note of it in a little notebook I had in the pocket of my shorts so I could tell Larry what I had seen.  

The night before, Larry and I had made arrangements for a river tour, so after morning of bird watching, we met our guide, Ernesto.  We walked the short distance from our hotel to the banks of the Rio Frio where Ernesto handed us a laminated field guide with about 100 birds on it as he launched our boat. 

 I learned quickly from Ernesto that birding was as much about hearing as it was about seeing as he pointed out two Acorn Woodpeckers hammering away on a tree trunk.  The wetlands of Caño Negro were rich with Roseate Spoonbills, Black-necked Stilts, Snowy Egrets, and Purple Gallinules.  The Purple Gallinule, with its yellow legs, purple chest, green body and red and yellow bill, looked like it had been put together with spare parts.  We could hear the rapid, clicking sound of the Nicaraguan Grackle and watched an Anhinga pluck a catfish from the water.

I constantly shifted my attention from shore to tree to sky to see the birds as Ernesto pointed them out.  Larry and I wrestled for the field guide each time we spotted a new bird and I wrote down the name of every one in my notebook.  I began to get why birders strap down their binoculars and wear vests with lots of pockets.  I was constantly reaching for my binoculars when I meant to grab my camera or dropping my notebook as I scrambled to log new bird sightings.

I finally had to ask.  “Ernesto” I said. “Why did Costa Rica pick the Clay-colored Robin as its national bird?” 

He laughed. 

“The Clay-colored Robin is an important bird to Costa Rica because it signals the coming of the rains,” he explained.   The national honor bestowed on the little, brown, bird finally made sense to me.   

On our walk back to the hotel, Ernesto’s son rode by on his bicycle and yelled,  “Hola.”  I noticed how clean the town was and the beautiful flowers growing in front of each house.  Mango, orange and papaya trees stood in every yard and Ernesto pointed out his father’s blue house with a scuffed soccer ball resting in the yard.  

It was as if I was looking at Caño Negro through the magnification of my binoculars. I could finally see its beautiful detail.  Like the Clay-colored Robin, I had not been impressed with Caño Negro at first glance, but I had come to appreciate the beauty of this town was in its simplicity.

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