After our morning birding session at La Selva on 16 February we began our journey to Savegre by first retracing our steps to San Jose and then continuing across the mountainous areas to the south of the capital. We stopped to do some birding in the high elevation part of the route and were successful in seeing our target birds of Volcano Junco and Volcano Hummingbird, along with Timberland Wren and Sooty Thrush.
After this brief birding break, we drove on to the Savegre Hotel Nature Reserve where we were staying for 2 nights. The hotel is set in a valley and is surrounded by beautiful gardens filled with colourful flowers, making it one of the most stunning places we’ve been birding.
We arrived at the hotel in the late afternoon and after checking into our room set out for some birding before dinner. There wasn’t a great deal of time, but we did see Sooty-capped Chlorospingus and got distant views of the colourful Flame-throated Warbler.
We started birding early on our full day in Sevegre (17 February) with the target being the spectacular and colourful Resplendent Quetzel. Luckily, we came across the bird fairly quickly, although getting good photographs of the bird was difficult because of the poor early morning light and the challenge of getting all of its long tail into the photographs!
During our morning session we saw many other birds, including, Collared Redstart, Black-cheeked Warbler, Sulphur-winged Parakeet, Yellow-thighed Brushfinch, Chestnut-capped Brushfinch, Ruddy-capped Nightingale-thrush and Yellowish Flycatcher.
The flower-filled gardens around the Savegre Hotel and the many feeders draw in a lot of hummingbirds and we spent a considerable amount of time trying to photograph these small, fast-moving birds. Species we photographed included Lesser Violetear, Green Crowned Brilliant, Volcano Hummingbird, White-throated Mountain-gem and Purple-throated Mountain-gem.
Later in the day we walked up the beautiful Savegre valley in search of new birds. Highlights were a large-footed Finch, which is only found in Costa Rica and western Panama, Flame-coloured Tanager, Grey-breasted Wood-wren and Common Chlorospingus.
Before we left Savegre on 18 February we had a final pre-breakfast birding session in the more wooded areas around the lodge. The light was very poor just after dawn but we did manage to get an acceptable photograph of a Spotted Wood-quail, which is a Central American speciality. In more open areas with better light we saw Red-headed Barbet, Collared Redstart, Tropical Mockingbird and Slaty Flowerpiercer. Far across the valley we could see a beautiful Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher but it so distant it was difficult to even get a record shot.
