San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua: Birds #35-#41, plus... a Squirrel?

Welcome back for the third and final recap of James's expedition through Nicaragua. James found his best life bird of the trip, saw another volcano, and apparently almost got pinched in the face by a crab! Read on for the bird-filled details...

After two days on the quiet Isla de Ometepe, it was time to continue our trek across Nicaragua. After another 20-mile, two-hour cab ride, we got to the ferry terminal to head across the narrow part of Lake Nicaragua. Thankfully this ferry ride was only a half hour, and also gave me some nice looks at large group of Neotropic Cormorants.

In my opinion, much cooler than their Double-crested cousins.

The ferry dropped us off in Rivas, and from there we took a short 30-minute cab ride to the small beach town of San Juan del Sur, famous for good surf and incredible sunsets.

See? Told ya they were incredible!

We arrived at our hostel only to find that they had overbooked, and had no room for us. Thankfully for us, San Juan del Sur has far more hostels then tourists and finding another room was not an issue. Our new hostel was actually cheaper and it was right on the beach.

Literally, it turns out - looks like high tide comes knockin' at the door!

As much as I had loved Nicaragua up to that point, there was one thing that had been bothering me; it was never sunny. That was until one lovely morning in San Juan del Sur. I stepped out onto our balcony, and waited for the birds to come by. The first bird to offer some good looks was a very nice White-winged Dove, who found the power line across the street from us to be an excellent place to land.

::Robert's Note:: Not to brag or anything, but I got my lifer White-winged Dove in North Carolina!

After he headed off, one of the very common Crimson-fronted Parakeets quickly took his place. I had gotten poor views of this bird throughout the trip, but luckily this guy decided he wanted to get a little bit closer for me.

Much better than just glimpsing them flying over... like 99% of parrot sightings.

While enjoying my view of this awesome bird, I noticed a nice male Great-tailed Grackle enjoying the sun in a nearby palm tree.

::Robert's Note:: A bird we regrettably missed in California - still looking for my lifer!

Three life birds in less then thirty minutes without moving – not half bad! I eventually decided to leave the comforts of our hostel, and walk around the town a little bit. This turned out to be a very good decision. I noticed a couple of birds flitting about in a very warbler-like way. After following them around, I finally found one who decided to sit still and pose for me in a low flowering tree. I quickly realized it was a Blue-gray Tanager, one of the birds I was really hoping to see. He eventually got back to his flitting ways, but not before I got my shot.

::Robert's Note:: This is it... the number one most envious bird James found in Nicaragua...

I then noticed that the large birds that had always been soaring way out in the distance over the bay had elected to come towards the shore, giving me my first good looks at the Magnificent Frigatebirds that frequented the bay.

::Robert's Note:: These things never seem to show up when I'm around.

We ended up staying in San Juan del Sur for three days, and on our last day in the beach town, we took a hike up to the towering statue that watches over the bay.

Not a bad view... for a statue.

Surprisingly, the hike did not yield any new birds for me, but it did give me spectacular looks at one of the incredibly colorful crabs of Nicaragua, Gecarcinas quadratus – the aptly named Halloween Crab.

I pinch!

In addition, I found my second new mammal of the trip, as a Variegated Squirrel climbed over our heads. This mammal gave Robert and I more trouble then I ever thought a mammal possibly could, but we eventually were able to successfully ID him. ::Robert’s Note:: Yeah, this was an odd one. When we first looked at pictures of squirrels from Nicaragua, we could only find one gray-colored squirrel, the Deppe’s Squirrel, but it didn’t look quite right. There were however, many pictures of red Variegated Squirrels online, and it looked pretty close, only it was, you know, red. So I left it unidentified until very recently, when I checked Google Images just to see if anything had changed, and sure enough in the year since James went to Nicaragua, there are now several gray-morph Variegated Squirrel pictures on Google. Consider yourself ID’d, squirrel!

Truth be told, I find most squirrels difficult to ID. Chipmunks too!

We completed the hike and headed for our last stopping point of Masaya. Masaya was the least touristy town that we visited, and was really only famous for its volcano, which itself is famous for constantly releasing gases, and occasionally spitting up large, car crushing rocks.

::Robert's Note:: I think he's lying about those rocks...

The visit yielded me my first looks at an active volcano, and a good look at a very cool Stripe-headed Sparrow, which made an awesome last life bird in the awesome country of Nicaragua.

Could maybe use a better name though... how about Striated Volcano-Sparrow? Eh?

Well that's it folks - James left Nicaragua and came back to the States just a day later, and though he left all those cool Neotropic birds behind, that doesn't mean there aren't great lifers to come. Stay tuned next week as the Birding Bros. are reunited and head for sunny San Diego, California!

Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua: Birds #27-#34 plus Volcanoes and Monkeys!

Well folks, it's time for the second installment of James's adventures in Nicaragua. He saw some great birds, a great mammal, and some great landscapes, so read on to see what he found!

With an area of over 3,000 square miles, Lake Nicaragua is the nineteenth-largest lake in the world. In the middle of this massive lake is the small island of Ometepe. Leaving from Granada, a painfully slow four-hour ferry ride will put you on the island, where the first thing you see is the massive Concepcion Volcano. However, our hostel (Monkey Island Hostel, the best hostel I have ever stayed at) was on the other side of the island at the foot of Concepcion’s twin, Maderas Volcano.

I bet there's some great birds in the courtyard!

Despite being around 20 miles away from our hostel, the taxi ride took over 2 hours. Ometepe has only one road, and it’s in terrible shape in most places. However, after a surprisingly grueling six-hour trek from Granada, we had finally arrived at our hostel. We woke up the next morning ready for our hike to the top of the extinct Maderas. It’s the smaller of the two on the island, but it’s still a grueling eight-hour hike to the summit of 4,600 feet.

I dunno, doesn't look so far from here.

Ometepe Island is covered in dense rainforest, meaning that the breakfast itself provided me with three lifers. I looked into a tree and found a nice Hoffmann’s Woodpecker hanging out. ::Robert’s Note:: Helping James ID this guy was a nightmare – turns out Golden-fronted Woodpeckers and Hoffmann’s Woodpeckers look exactly the same to me, and we only settled the ID by looking at range maps.

Something about where and where there isn't yellow on the bird...

Our guide then pointed out that hanging out a few branches away was a very nice Red-billed Pigeon.

Way cooler than the pigeons we've got around here!

After finishing our breakfast of eggs and pancakes, I was walking back to my room when I noticed a very impressive Great Kiskadee parked on top of a nearby bush.

Birds and breakfast - a winning combination!

After getting those nice shots, it was time to start the climb. One of the birds that Ometepe is famous for is the massive White-throated Magpie-Jay, or urraca in the native Spanish. For whatever reason they are very common on the island, and this particular one elected to sit still for me. 

::Robert's Note:: Only the second-most envious I was about a bird James
found on the trip... I wonder what the first could be?

The hike continued, and as we gained altitude we got into more farmland, which was apparently nice habitat for this Dusky-capped Flycatcher who wanted to hang out for a little while.

You thought Empids were hard? Try IDing tropical Myiarchus!

The hike gave us magnificent looks at the island and the nearby Concepcion. Unfortunately that meant that I wasn’t always prepared when a bird showed up. That was the case when a beautiful Northern Caracara flew overhead, and the result is a blurry picture that only the savviest of birders could identify. ::Robert’s Note:: I must admit, I had help with this one!

Ooooh, wait! I see it now!

In the midst of photographing all these birds, I heard some loud howling. Our guide pointed out a family of aptly named Golden-mantled Howlers, complete with an absolutely adorable baby.

A howler can shout at over 140 decibels... that's as loud as a jet engine!

After three and a half hours and almost 2 liters of water we arrived at the top of the volcano and were sitting in a cloud. After taking twenty minutes to recuperate, we started the climb back which our guide told us can be even more difficult then the ascent. He described a group of American girls who were so exhausted from the hike that they took eight hours just to get back to the hostel.

At least you'd have a nice view to pass the time.

Thankfully we were able to persevere and make it back in just three. During those three hours I ran into another two new birds. First was the almost impossible to identify Mountain Elaenia. This one took almost a year to successfully identify, and I wouldn’t have had any chance at id’ing it in the field. ::Robert’s Note:: This one was all me, though admittingly I had no idea when James first showed it to me. Experience with flycatchers, and Empidonax flycatchers in particular, made me realize this was a large-bodied, small-headed flycatcher – an Elaenia for sure, and the wing-bars make it a Mountain Elaenia.

::Robert's Note:: I don't want to gloat or anything, but... boo-yah!

The next bird was quite a bit easier to identify, with a pair Groove-billed Anis hanging out in the middle of Ometepe’s so-called “road”. 

Oh, to live in a country where anis are commonplace!

We finally arrived back at our hostel, and after a victory cigar, we headed to sleep, with the beach town of San Juan del Sur next in the Nicaragua itinerary.

The Birding Bros Go International! #23-26: Granada, Nicaragua

Hard to believe we've come this far, but after 22 installments of our bird photos, we've gotten to James's Nicaragua trip. Man, he saw some great birds there, so enjoy reading the account of his first day in Nicaragua below!

After a sixteen-hour roadtrip, including a rather misguided detour to Atlanta, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, and following a short three-hour flight we'd landed in Nicaragua. The only international airport is in the capital of Managua, a city with an infamous reputation (I heard that you have to walk around with a baseball bat during the day). This drove us to the far safer nearby city of Granada, a city famous for a magnificent cathedral situated right on the main square.

Editor's Note: Am I the only one who notices the guy with the ice cream cart?

While we were only in Granada for a total of a day, the fairly urban environment yielded four life birds. The first bird I ran into was a Tropical Kingbird. These little guys frequented the power lines around the city, and if I recall correctly this particular individual situated himself across the street from the main cathedral.

Tropical Kingbird - Granada, Nicaragua; 07/08/2010

The next stop in our trek through Nicaragua was the Isla de Ometepe (famous for its twin massive volcanoes). This meant a ferry across Lake Nicaragua, which necessitated waiting at the ferry terminal. While waiting I noticed a small reddish bird in the path, and though he didn’t stick around very long I still got a good look at this nice Ruddy Ground-Dove.

Editor's Note: Insanely jealous of this one! Wasn't the first, and won't be the last.

I then noticed a parakeet hanging out in a palm tree, and after much deliberation (and consulting with the international birding site BirdForum.com) Robert and I decided that it was in fact a tiny Orange-chinned Parakeet.

Relevant field marks include the rusty coloration on the wings and, er, the orange chin.

After these three lifers we headed through the lax security and boarded the small “ferry”. I leaned over the rail and noticed a juvenile Mangrove Swallow was hanging out on the top of the boat, and luckily he decided to strike a couple of poses.

Apparently he wants to be fed!

With that, the ferry jolted forward, and we embarked on a four-hour trek across one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. Tune in next time for the report from Isla de Ometepe!