Birds & wildlife

The terrace sits level with the canopy.

Which means you look across at the birds rather than up at them. Guests who arrive with binoculars tend to cancel at least one tour.

Why this page exists

Knowing where to look changes everything.

Most visitors to Costa Rica see a fraction of what is in front of them, because wildlife here is not hiding so much as blending in. A potoo will sit three metres away for an hour and you will walk past it twice.

So this is not a list of everything that theoretically lives in the Southern Zone. It is what actually turns up on this property, which tree it uses, and roughly when. The terrace sits level with the canopy, which is an unusual vantage — you look across at the birds rather than up at them. Guests who arrive with binoculars tend to cancel at least one tour.

Birds

Bring binoculars. If you forget, we have a pair.

Toucan

Where to look: The tall trees off the terrace, at canopy level
When: Early morning and again before dusk

You hear them before you see them — a hoarse croak that sounds nothing like you expect from a toucan.

Scarlet macaw

Ara macao

Where to look: Overhead, usually heading toward the coast
When: Mid-morning

Almost always in pairs, and always loud. Mated for life, which is why you rarely see one alone.

Parrots

Where to look: Flying over in chattering groups
When: First light and last light

Also in pairs, within the flock.

Common potoo

Nyctibius griseus

Where to look: Sitting motionless on a broken branch, pretending to be part of it

One of the harder birds in Costa Rica to spot, because it does not move. Once you have seen one you start finding them.

Road hawk

Where to look: The pool deck, of all places

Alan pulled one out of the pool during our first season here. It came back for months afterward. See the story below.

Tanagers and honeycreepers

Where to look: The flowering trees near the pool
When: Through the day

A regular

The hawk that came back

During our first season here Alan found a road hawk in the swimming pool, waterlogged and unable to lift itself out. He got it onto the deck and it sat there a long time drying its wings, entirely unbothered by him. Eventually it flew off. Then it came back — the following week, and for months afterward, standing on the same corner of the pool deck with its wings spread as if the whole thing had been its idea. Guests still ask about it.

A road hawk drying its soaked wings on the pool deck at Casa Rosa Blanca, shortly after being lifted out of the water — The morning it happened. Soaked, and in no particular hurry.

The rescued road hawk standing on the pool deck with wings spread, one of many return visits over the following months — And then, week after week, this.

Once, and only once

And once, a white one

Humpbacks are meant to be dark. Every so often one is not. We photographed this individual off the Costa Ballena, and in fifteen years of boats and binoculars it is the only one we have seen. Most people who spend a lifetime watching whales never do.

You will not see one. Almost nobody does. But you are looking at water that two separate populations of humpback visit every year, and things turn up in it.

A rare white humpback whale surfacing off the Costa Ballena coast near Marino Ballena National Park, Costa Rica — A white humpback off the Costa Ballena coast.

Monkeys and mammals

The monkeys keep a schedule. Once you learn it you stop hoping and start expecting.

Howler monkey

Alouatta palliata

Where to look: The canopy below the pool
When: Before dawn, reliably

They call to mark territory so other troops keep their distance. It sounds far more alarming than it is, and most guests grow fond of it by about day three.

Capuchin monkey

Cebus imitator

Where to look: The slope below the Jungle Room, and the berry tree below the primary bedroom
When: Late morning, when the fruit is on

Curious, clever, and not remotely shy. Do not leave food out.

Coati

Nasua narica

Where to look: Crossing the lawn, and along the road
When: Daytime

Like a raccoon crossed with an anteater. Usually in a loose group.

Sloth

Where to look: High in the cecropia, moving very slowly or not at all

Easy to walk past. Look for a shape in the fork of a branch that has not changed position since yesterday. We call ours Sam, on the assumption it is the same one each time — which, given how little ground a sloth covers, it very probably is.

Squirrel monkey

Saimiri oerstedii

Where to look: Rarely on the property — go out with OSA Mangrove Tours and you are all but guaranteed them

The Central American squirrel monkey lives only on this stretch of Pacific coast and is endangered. Small, golden, and in constant motion. Most visitors to Costa Rica never see one.

Seeing more

Three things that work.

1
Be still, early
Between six and eight in the morning the canopy is busy and the light is good. Coffee on the terrace and no agenda will show you more than any tour.
2
Learn one call
The howlers announce the day. Once you can pick out a toucan's croak you will hear them every morning and wonder how you missed it.
3
Go out on the water with OSA Mangrove Tours
The mangroves hold species that never come up the hill — herons, kingfishers, owls dozing in daylight — and the monkeys are guaranteed. Squirrel, capuchin and howler, often all three. Alan has done it fifteen times and seen something new each time.

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