Bird Watching Costa Rica Style

The bird watching Costa Rica's forests and coastlines offer is unparalleled. With approximately 850 different species of bird, tiny Costa Rica has more variety than Europe, Australia, and North America. It's no wonder that so many people make bird watching part of their Costa Rica travel activities, or the whole reason for coming!

While it's hard to find another place with such abundant bird life and there are patches of forest where the din from bird song is overwhelmingly loud, birding still requires some skill and knowledge.

You should really buy a guide book before you go bird watching in Costa Rica. The following are some recommended guidebooks to help you identify that beautiful or funny looking bird you've spotted.

• A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica by F. Gary Stiles and Alexander Skutch
• The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide by Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean
• Birds of the Rainforest: Costa Rica by Carmen Hidalgo (Textbook-like, expensive and hard to find)
  
• Photographic Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica by Susan C. L. Fogden, Michael Fogden, and Patricia Fogden (This is a good, lightweight guide, not as heavy as some but not as comprehensive as other books for birdwatching Costa Rica, most common species only)
• A Travel and Site Guide to Birds of Costa Rica by Aaron Sekerak (mostly site descriptions for bird watching areas, not really for identifying birds)

Bird Watching Costa Rica Species List:

• Roseate Spoonbill *
• King Vulture
• Magnificent Frigatebird
• Violet Sabrewing
• Yellow-crowned Night-heron *
• Northern Jacana
• Chestnut-mandibled Toucan *
• Keel-billed Toucan
• Collared Aracari
• Scarlet Macaw (and 16 other species of parrot) *
• Purple-throated Mountain-gem
• 
• Three-wadled Bellbird
• Blue-gray tanager
• Scarlet-rumped Tanager
• White-fronted nunbird
• Red-headed Barbet
• Brown Pelican
• Boat-billed Heron
• Resplendent Quetzal