Please join us for a Bird Walk at the Wilson Botanical Garden (aka the OTS Las Cruces Biological Station) this Sunday, November 5, at 7:00 am.
We will meet at the Reception Building and have binoculars and field guides to share. As always, the Walk is free and open to the public so bring your friends and neighbors!
We will walk for about an hour after which we will have coffee in the dining room.
Maybe we will see a Common Tody-Flycatcher!
Northern Waterthrush: a migrant to watch for! Photo by Gail Hull
Or one of these tail-bobbing migrants………….you never know!
Time for an SVBC Bird Walk at the Wilson Botanical Garden, aka Las Cruces Biological Station.
Please join us this Sunday, October 22, at 7:30 am, meeting at the Reception Building. We’ll keep sharp eyes out for the beauty below and, as usual, have binoculars and field guides to share.
The Walk will take about an hour after which we’ll go to the dining room for coffee and socializing.
Summer Tanager: a stunning neotropical migrant. Photo by Julie Girard.
Please join us this Sunday for a Bird Walk at the beautiful Finca Cantaros. We will meet you at the entrance gate at 7:00 am and will have binoculars to share.
The Walk is free and open to the public, so invite your friends and neighbors!
A signature bird of FC is the boisterous and dancing Buff-rumped Warbler — we will undoubtedly hear one or two and, with some luck, see them waggling their buffy rumps!
This is nesting season so we will be on the lookout for birds carrying nesting material or food for their young. It is a glorious time of year so come enjoy it with us!
After the walk, we can head to the Mottola Bakery for coffee and a social visit. Hope to see you there.
Another signature bird of FC: the infamous Hybrid Teal!
(From San Vito Bird Club founder and President Emeritus, Alison Olivieri)
Just in case you’ve been thinking about breakfast, we have a suggestion: come to San Vito for some Gallo Pinto!
‘What is that?’, we hear you asking. It is a scrumptious Costa Rican breakfast staple (and it is close to being birdy because the literal translation is ‘Spotted Rooster’ and we like to eat it with eggs).
Recently, we’ve embarked upon a survey of Gallo Pintos all over town. As subjective as it may be, we have a clear winner.
The Number One Most Delicious Gallo Pinto is served every day at the Mottola Bakery and Cafeteria which is close to the hospital and has a newly-expanded eight-table restaurant with additional counter seating.
Is there a Runner Up? Yes! The Soda Rio Java also dishes out a yummy Gallo Pinto and is conveniently found next to the large BM Supermarket so you could stop there first and cut down hunger-induced, impulsive grocery purchases.
The criteria involved in these designations included seasoning excellence, constant effort, portion size and price.
If you have any other Tico culinary specialty items you’d like us to investigate, send your suggestions to alison.w.olivieri@gmail.com and watch this space for a Survey Result.
In early June, OTS Las Cruces Biological Station and Wilson Botanical Garden held its ‘Annual Dia de las Puertas Abiertas’. This event offers activities for all ages, tours, food and fun — and a chance to collaborate with other, like-minded groups.
Traditionally, the SVBC offers up a Bake Sale (with profits going to Las Cruces, of course) and this year was no exception.
Hugethanks to our volunteer bakers:
Tina Esquer Christopher
Roni Chernin
Peter Wendell
Joe Ippolito
Along with ‘Lemon Bars From Connecticut’ (thank you, Cathy O’Donnell), offerings included Banana Bread, Oatmeal Cookies, Peanut Butter Cookies, Spice Cookies, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and last year’s favorite, Chocolate Ganache Cake.
Please join us this weekend for a Bird and Nature Walk at the Wilson Botanical Garden, Sunday, May 21.
The Wilson Botanical Garden
We will meet at the Reception Building at 7:30 am with binoculars to share. The walks are free and open to the public; we look forward to seeing you there.
Common Tody-Flycatcher, expert hanging nest-builder
We are enjoying an extended dry season down here, after an uncharacteristically rainy March.
So it is exactly the right time to avail yourself of this learning experience: a new offering from the Finca Cantaros Environmental Association.
Velvety Manakin
One of our most productive and interesting birding sites, the team at Finca Cantaros is growing trees, managing a sizeable reforestation plot on site, running an environmental art project, installing a blind specifically for photography, and continuing its Women Caring for the Earth Project. Please offer your support to their ongoing work.
Erratum: alert reader and contributing photographer Jo Davidson noticed a slip-upin our last post. The flycatcher with the retort nest is a Yellow-oliveFlycatcher, not a Golden-olive Flycatcher.(In a Google search, it also comes up as a Yellow-oliveFlatbill.)
It’s a holiday here today — Labor Day, celebrated with many other countries on May 1 — a perfect time to reflect on the Bird Walk ten days ago at the Wilson Botanic Garden.
Plants always take center stage, especially in the Heliconia Garden.
Hard to beat these beauties!
Birds are busy now with nesting season activities: fighting, choosing, building, sitting, searching, ferrying and so forth. It’s hard to decide where to look! But our great guide Randall Jimenez Bourbon spotted Silver-throated Tanagers building a nest in the Pollinator Garden along with two species of euphonias doing the same.
Golden-olive Flycatchers build an impressive nest with a ‘retort’ shape you might remember from chemistry class. And quite close to the Golden-olives was a smaller nest that looked a bit like a Mistletoe Tyrannulet’s construction.
Outside the dining room is a Bottle brush tree that seems to always have one of Costa Rica’s most beautiful hummingbirds guarding it at this time of year: the White-necked Jacobin.
Photo by Randall Jimenez Bourbon, aka CiccioHandsome and composed, our endemic toucan — the Fiery-billed Aracari — another shot by Randall
And we end our tour with the most amazing moth, Thysania agrippina, also called the White Witch moth. It has the longest wingspan of any moth and the best camouflage ever.
Look sharp to see this amazing creature and thank you to Randall once again for such a perfect photo!
A new program called Caminata Matutina (Morning Walk) is being offered twice a month on Saturdays by the Finca Cantaros Environmental Association. These walks are free and open to the public, announced in advance on social media.
Recently, we were on one of these with Executive Director Lilly Briggs and Regent Biologist David Arias Rodrigues. While enjoying the sights and sounds of birds around us everywhere (*see a partial list below*), we were startled by one of the huge Caligo butterflies that display big ‘owl eyes’ on their closed wings. This astonishing creature rested obligingly on a tree trunk for several minutes, allowing the ‘Matutineers’ a chance to see it well in the telescope.
We also had great good fortune to observe two of the country’s squirrel species: Variegated and Red-tailed Squirrels, seen below in an old version of the invaluable Guideto the Mammalsof Costa Rica by Fiona Reid. Drawings 1-6 are variations on the Variegated version, more commonly seen in Guanacaste than Coto Brus, and the little one at bottom right is the Red-tailed.
An environmental art project created by the FCEA’s Women Caring for the Earth program has beautified and informed a rancho next to Laguna Zoncho. In the foreground below, one of the artists, Karla ‘Lita’ Esquivel, discusses the representative water birds painted onto the table tops with members of our group from Santa Teresa de Sabalito.
Just before we tap out our impressive bird list, we pay homage to the fascinating plant group called Costus, closely allied with heliconias, gingers, marantas and bananas.
Complicatedspiralingbeauty, photo by Alison Olivieri
And now finally to the birds — unusually busy at this time of year engaged as they are in local courting, nesting and caring for young OR eating as much as they can for the impending long migration to northern nesting grounds.
The morning chorus was in full voice and we were happy to hear Roadside Hawk, Tropical Parula, Scale-crested Pygmy-Tyrant, Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Green Hermit, Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush, Buff-rumped Warbler, Common Tody-Flycatcher, Gray-capped Flycatcher, Social Flycatcher and a newly-fledged White- throated Thrush with attending adults!
Please make a point of following the FCEA at https://fincacantaros.org and learning more about its many programs.
We have exciting news to share with all our members from last Sunday’s Annual Meeting 2023. A unanimous vote cast by attending members forged a strategic alliance with the Finca Cantaros Environmental Association (FCEA) to present the ongoing Detectives de Aves education course in local schools.
It is a happy and natural fit. The sole mission of the FCEA is environmental education and, as you will see in the video below, they are coming at it in many different and innovative ways.
Your restricted gifts over the years to support this effort will be — as always — channelled directly to teachers, transportation and supplies.
Meanwhile, the San Vito Bird Club will remain involved and work closely with the team at FCEA. Please contact us if you have any questions or comments; we always want to hear from you.
Here is a message from Dr. Lilly Briggs, the Director of the Finca Cántaros Environmental Association:
Finca Cántaros Environmental Association (FCEA) considers the San Vito Bird Club (SVBC) one of its most important allies, and we are grateful for all the ways that SVBC members have supported our work. Learn more about how FCEA got started thanks to connections through the Club in the following video, and about how we are fulfilling our environmental education goals through the themes of forest restoration and birds.
We are very excited about the positive changes that this collaboration will bring to the Cantón of Coto Brus, and to all of us as well who have had the pleasure and honor to work together to build a better community.
San Vito Bird Club 
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