Tag Archives: Free Bird Walks with the San Vito Bird Club

Bird Banding Training Workshop: help us send students!

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During the past 20 years, the SVBC has gradually and naturally changed. We still lead Bird Walks and regular forays to birdy spots like the rice fields near Cuidad Neilly and the Tres Ríos River. But we also have a ‘How Can We Help You?” sensibility, especially if your concern will help birds and people of the local community.

Along those lines, we have some history of contributing to educaton and project enhancement for our volunteer mist netters — many of you will remember the Avian Monitoring Project that ran from 2003-2013. Back then we encouraged — and financially supported — participants to travel to other countries to take part in a bird banding training workshop in Peru and an international bird conference in El Salvador.

Now Finca Cántaros Environmental Association (FCEA) has begun a new bird banding program which combines nicely with projects that emerged as a result of installing Costa Rica’s second Motus Station on site in 2020 (motus.org).

Coming up this year, we have an exciting opportunity to help fund travel and education for two young women who are being trained as banders at Finca Cántaros.

Meet María Sandí and Alisson Vargas, dedicated naturalists who have also been trained to teach Detectives de Aves classes and want to do more — and know more.

In February 2025, NABC certified bander and ornithologist Holly Garrod (who has been leading the banding trainings at FCEA this year) will offer intensive training in the Dominican Republic — this is our chance to help María and Alisson. If we can provide a stipend of $1,000 each, they are off — off to a world of ornitholgical collaboration, new colleagues, international sensibility and professional skills enhancement.

Academics and practicitioners in the field of conservation have repeatedly highlighted the importance of engaging young people in the local community and creating jobs for rural youth. Longtime loyal SVBC (and Detectives de Aves) supporters can feel proud that our investment is really achieving this goal. María Sandí was one of the first students in the Detectives de Aves classes when we launched the program in 2013 — she credits this experience with inspiring her interest in nature and her motivation to pursue this path, personally and professionally. Flash forward 10 years and she is actively involved in many programs at FECA in additional to the bird banding and Women Committed to the Earth.

Are you reaching for your wallet? Before you make your contribution, please know that Finca Cántaros now has tax deductible status in the US. To make a tax deductible donation, please visit their website: http://fincacantaros.org/donate/

Bird Walk at Pino Colina, Sunday, January 9 at 7:00 am

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Please join us for the first walk of 2022 at Hacienda Pino Colina, next door to the Wilson Botanical Garden/Las Cruces.

Judy Richardson has kindly invited us to visit her beautiful homestead where we have seen nesting Rufous Jacamars, White- crested Coquettes, White-winged Tanagers and more, so much more!

Rufous-tailed Jacamar, photo by Yeimiri Badilla

Drive through the open gate to the right (just north) of the main Pino Colina gate at 7 am. Follow the road down the hill and park near the bodega. Judy will meet us there; as always, we will have binoculars and guides to share.

Here is a photo of our last walk of 2021 at Las Cruces/Wilson Botanical Garden.

From left to right: Petra Heck, Judy Richardson, Peter Hulsinck, Tomas Wilkinson, Steffano from New Zealand, Tom and Portia’s granddaughter Ada, Portia Wilkinson and Julie Girard Woolley — photo by Alison Olivieri

Hope to see you there for fabulous birds and gorgeous gardens — it will be a real treat!

Bird Walk Sunday, May 9

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Please join us this Sunday for a free Bird Walk on the Poro Road. We will meet at 7:30 am down the hill where we leave the cars. As always, we will have binoculars to lend.

  • Riverside Wren with nesting material. Photo by Sarah Beeson-Jones

Directions: from Las Cruces toward San Vito, take the first unpaved (lastre) road to the right after the hospital. From San Vito toward the hospital, take the unpaved road to the left after Soda La Negra.

The walk will go for about an hour. If we are lucky, we might see a pair of nesting Riverside Wrens or Double-toothed Kites! We don’t have a sign-up link this time — we will be there anyway.

REMINDER: International Migratory Bird Day and a Global Big Day occur the day before, on Saturday, May 8. Don’t forget to bird around your house, along the road or at your favorite spot and submit your list to eBird.

  • Double-toothed Kite. Photo by Randall Jimenez Bourbon aka Ciccio

Please Buy Virtual Cookies and Cake . . .

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As part of the Finca Cantaros Environmental Association’s Earth Day Celebration, SVBC members’ ovens were fired up for a Bake Sale. Take a look at the yummies below and place your order via PayPal. It’s easy as pie (!) — all you do is go to your PayPal account and search for ‘Finca Cantaros‘ or ‘info@fincacantaros.org‘ to make your donation.

Galletas de Dulce by Pedro

Now for the Strawberry Cake:

Queque Rosada de Fresa

And, while you are at it, please go to the brand new English-language website of the Finca Cantaros Environmental Association: www.fincacantaros.org — prepare to be impressed and proud to participate!

Watch this space for an article about this new nonprofit organization. We are so excited to have these wonderful neighbors and when you meet the team, learn the vision and hear about ongoing events and activities, you will be too.

Oh, wait, if you really DO want cookies or cake, email us and the next time you are near we will see that you have some.

Tomorrow’s Bird Walk Postponed!

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We are sorry to report we had no sign-ups for tomorrow’s Bird Walk at Las Cruces/Wilson Botanical Garden, so it is officially cancelled.

In two weeks, we will schedule a free Bird Walk at a different location and hope you will join us!

Meanwhile, Finca Cantaros will host an Earth Day Celebration next Saturday, April 24! We urge you to attend and meet the new team — your new neighbors. Details of the event will be posted here on Wednesday.

San Vito from the Finca Cantaros Mirador, photo by Alison Olivieri

Where We Bird — the Poro Road

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Riverside Wren with nesting material. Photo by Sarah Beeson-Jones

Thanks to Julie Girard-Woolley, the SVBC has been birding this hidden road for a few years and found some pretty great birds there. Julie is a ‘walker’ (and an SVBC founder) and this spot is spectacular in March with a huge grove of blooming Poro trees. But we are not there for the trees — so let’s start with a bang: the Riverside Wren.

Endemic to southern Costa Rica and western Panama, Cantorchilus semibadius is one of many very loud wrens. 

Rufous-capped Warbler. Photo by Jo Davidson

Next up, we have not a migrant but a resident, Rufous-capped Warbler. Although ‘common’ in the northern Pacific, Central Valley and southern Pacific, it’s always a jolt to see that red head, white eyebrow and cocked up tail. Basileuterus rufifrons shares its genus with three other resident Tico warblers.

Here is another photo from Jo who has documented so many species in San Vito from her porch, she is admired far and wide. This is her Smoky-brown Woodpecker — just the head, but that is enough. Who doesn’t love woodpeckers? These are found in the northern half of the Caribbean slope and on the Pacific slope but are ‘uncommon’ in both locations. How did she get this photo? See below for a view you would be lucky to see in the field. Picoides fumigatus shares its genus with the Hairy Woodpecker, the Costa Rican race of which is smaller and darker than those in North America.

Smoky-brown Woodpecker by Jo Davidson

By now you will have noticed the photos are all out of synch with the text but it’s hard to resist including all these birds because obviously we are trying to entice you to visit us in San Vito, when you feel safe, and we will be here to welcome you.

One last bird — yes, we saved the best for last — and then the local spot where we go for breakfast when our walk is over. 

The last bird photo is a Double-toothed Kite and we saw two, building a nest, on one of our excursions to the Poro Road. It was pretty exciting! See below for a photo by Randall Jiménez Borbón who works as the Community Outreach Coordinator at the  Asociación Ambiental Finca Cántaros.

Double-toothed Kite, Harpagus bidentatus, by  Randall Jiménez Borbón, aka Ciccio

Double-toothed Kites often perch in the forest waiting for a troop of monkey to follow. They fly low to pick off any tasty critters the monkeys spook, like lizards and large insects.

See below for another photo we hope will be of interest: the Soda La Negra where we often go for breakfast after a Poro Road bird walk. Highly recommended are the scrambled eggs, rice and beans, sausages, tortillas and the coffee. The interior of this welcoming place is full of plants for sale, too, so you can augment your garden or your porch with some nicely potted flowers after breakfast.

Soda La Negra, just below the San Vito Hospital. Photo by Alison Olivieri