Arenal Observatory — first 24 hours

We arrived at the Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails with the namesake volcano in the background at 2:25 p.m.  The cloud makes it look like the volcano is active, but it has not been for 15 years.  After a major 1968 eruption that destroyed nearby villages, it remained active with lava flows until 2010, but it is now in a resting cycle with only minor activity like weak gas emissions.

We were greeted with a wet towel and a delicious drink.

This is a classy place.  It was definitely my favorite — after Corcovado which is in a different league with its rustic ambience (50-bunk bedrooms without walls, just mosquito netting) and world-class wildlife.   Everything worked and worked well. Food was great, the grounds were magnificent, the birds spectacular. The walk to our room was long and over a suspension bridge, but that added to the charm.

After dropping most of my gear in my room, I headed back to the main area with the check-in desk, a small lounge, a dining room (seen on the left in the first photo above), and a wonderful deck off the dining room. I took photos along the way:

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird.

Scaly-breasted Hummingbird.

Bananaquit.

Clay-colored Thrush.

Black Seedeater.

Crested Guan.

Agouti.

The view of Lake Arenal and the Arenal Volcano from the deck was stunning.

There were feeders in the yard below the deck.  This station (the one in the middle of the photo above) hosted a Red-legged Honeycreeper.

But most of the birds and butterflies were on the flowers, shrubs, and trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I slowly wandered back to my room before dinner taking photos along the way:

A tiny Common Dink Frog.

A male and female Passerini’s Tanager, also called a Scarlet-rumped Tanager.

A nice view of the Arenal Volcano and a hibiscus. 

Black-striped Sparrow.

I watched a Crested Guan pass a treat to its mate and took some photos with my iPhone.

And then another with my Olympus camera.

Almost to my room, I got a Rufous-tailed-Hummingbird.

Walking up the long outdoor broad stairway to my room, I photographed the swimming pool.

Here are two views from my room.

At 6 p.m. I headed back across the Spider Bridge for dinner.  What a great afternoon, and we had much more to see the next day and the following early morning.

At 5:30 the next morning we met the excellent local guide, Ronaldo, that Gil had hired.

He took us down a long dimly-lit path toward the volcano into the deep woods below the lodge.

Ronaldo likely knew in advance where he might find a pitviper, specifically an Eyelash Palm-pitviper (yellow-morph). 

Ted, who has played with rattle snakes or at least studied them in their dens, photographed it up close with his phone.

 

Others stayed back a more respectable distance.

I used my long lens from a safe spot. These snakes are highly venomous.  This one seemed to have a small creature or forest object on its nose.  I could not enlist a volunteer to flick it off for a better photograph.

We got a quick look at a Montezuma Oropendola.

Our guide spotted a Semiplumbeous Hawk high in a tree against the blank sky.

A Crested Guan was also up high.

We saw a pair of Yellow-throated Toucan.  

And then they mated.  

We looped out of the forest to search for hummingbirds; a “coquette” was mentioned as a special target. We first saw two beautiful green hummers:

 

 

 

There was a spectacular Keel-billed-Toucan high in a bare tree.

I’d taken several poor photos of a Brown Violetear.  Here is a slightly better one.

Still searching for a “coquette”, whatever that is.

We had seen a Masked Tityra in a number of places.

A Golden-olive Woodpecker was working a tree.

A Yellow-throated Euphonia had some fruit for breakfast.

A quick look at a Black-cheeked Woodpecker.

We finally found the elusive Black-crested Coquette.

We got back to the deck in time for our 8 a.m. breakfast.

A birder pointed out a colorful Tooth-billed Tanager in a very distant tree saying I should be able to get it with my lens.  I could, barely.

This lodge had absolutely the best morning drink I have ever tasted — a thick liquid yogurt that came in several fruit flavors.  I would fill my glass, drink, and then fill it again before returning to my table. It is on the right in the photo below.

The breakfast omelet was delicious.  All the meals at this wonderful lodge were.

Jann had generously encouraged me to take this trip knowing she would be home alone.  So I took many photos with my iPhone of meals and scenes and leafcutter ants to send to her frequently while I was in Costa Rica.  We both recall fondly seeing amazing industrious leafcutter ants during a 1992 trip to Costa Rica.

I photographed from the deck after breakfast waiting for our second walk of the morning to start.  There was a Piratic Flycatcher on a distant snag.

A Great Kiskadee had a nest near the deck.

I photographed it removing a fecal sac.

We were interrupted by a short bit of rain.

But I wasn’t going to let the rain stop me from continuing to photograph the birds within sight of the deck.  They didn’t seem to care about drizzle so why should I.

There was a Palm Tanager.

And a spectacular Golden-hooded Tanager making for a color theory dream example of blue-yellow complimentary colors.

As the rain let up, others joined me on the deck.  I took these with my iPhone.

Before we left for our 9:30 a.m. walk, I photographed a very distant Long-tailed Tyrant (flycatcher).

We crossed the Spider Bridge perhaps fudging a bit on the “five maximum” guideline.

A Brown-hooded Parrot had a nest hole in a distant dead tree.  It seemed to be peeling pieces off the tree in some of the photos.

Thee was a break in the action so I photographed some of the vegetation. 

A Broad-billed Motmot made an appearance.

A Black-striped Sparrow caught an insect.

We spotted a Sulfur-bellied Flycatcher.

And a Scarlet-rumped Tanager.

And, of course, a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird.

We were still in a fairly-open area, but we would soon be entering the woods.

In the forest we found a Central American Whiptail.

And a Northern Wedge-billed Woodcreeper.

And then two antbird species:

Dusty-mantled Antbird.

Spotted Antbird.

Back in my room preparing to hike to the main area to board the bus for lunch in La Fortuna, I photographed some of the cute touches the maid had left.

And the volcano from my deck.

Hiking back I photographed two flowers.

And I found a Buff-throated Saltator to photograph.

The view from the deck had not changed, but Lake Arenal was still beautiful below a cloud-filled sky in the distance.

The bus stopped a bit down the road so I could jump out and photograph a Fascinated Tiger Heron.

In hindsight I wish I would have requested permission to stay at the lodge and not join the group for lunch and a walk through La Fortuna.  It is a nice town, and we visited it three times, but I would rather be photographing wildlife.  I will show photos of La Fortuna and the lunch with our special “pizza” desert after the next page where I describe a fantastic morning walk at Arenal Observatory.  When we returned from La Fortuna, the rest of the day was rained out.