January 2023 – When I heard that Costa Rica had added its 933rd bird species I was filled with a mixture of excitement and dread. A new, rare bird sighting is always thrilling. The accompanying realization that you need to go look for it, no matter what, makes you question your life choices. In that moment, what was planned to be a relaxing day at the beach in Costa Rica’s Central Pacific quickly turned into a 3:45 am alarm to drive three-plus hours to a place my wife refers to as one of the most miserable places in Costa Rica.
The Bird
For some context, the Dark-Billed Cuckoo is far from rare. Its IUCN status is “Least Concern” and it has an extensive range throughout South America. Why all the hullabaloo? Its range in South America is extensive. Along the border between Panama and Colombia is an extremely dense jungle known as the Darien Gap. It’s so dense and dangerous (one of the few remaining anti-government rebel strongholds in Colombia) that it’s the only stretch of the Pan-American Highway that’s never been completed.
Although birds can fly, they need their preferred habitat in order to find food. Some birds only live in dense rainforest, others will never enter it. As a result, the Dark-billed Cuckoo had never been seen in Panama or Costa Rica. Until now. Its appearance isn’t completely without precedence, however. In 2017, it was spotted a few miles north of Costa Rica’s northern border in Nicaragua. And in 2021 it was also seen in Belize. So while it presumably has been in Costa Rica before, this was the first-ever confirmed sighting.
Vagrants
Birds suddenly showing up outside of their normal range happens with enough regularity to not be earth-shattering but infrequently enough to be exciting when it happens. These birds are listed on a country’s checklist as accidentals or vagrants. For simplicity’s sake, I won’t go into the reasons why, but occasionally a bird will venture farther afield than normal in search of resources or a territory. Costa Rica’s 2022 checklist includes 75 such “accidental” species.
There are different levels of how often these accidental birds show up. In fact, when we went in search of the Dark-billed Cuckoo, we ended up spotting another bird that is also considered a vagrant at this time. Sometimes vagrant species eventually become residents in a country once they establish a stable breeding population as happened with the now very common Yellow-headed Caracara and Cattle Egret during the 20th century.
The Search
The Dark-billed Cuckoo decided to show up in some agricultural land near the hospital in Ciudad Neily, close to Costa Rica’s southern border. Lying at only about 50 meters (160 feet) above sea level, Ciudad Neily is hot. Scratch that, hot doesn’t do it justice. My wife refers to it as a “pressure cooker”. Birds, much like humans, don’t enjoy moving around out in the hot, tropical sun. If we wanted to see it clearly, we had to get there early.
At least if I’m crazy, I’m in good company. When we arrived at 6:45 am, there were already a dozen other birders there watching it. Many of them had also traveled from far afield in search of the cuckoo. We got there just in time. I was able to get a few clear shots of it before it decided to drop back down into the bushes about ten minutes after we arrived. It didn’t come out again for the remainder of the morning.
Bonus Bird
Since we were fortunate enough to spot it right away, we decided to take advantage of the trip and search for a few other hard-to-find birds. Fortunately, there were some local birders who knew the area quite well. We ended up connecting with local guide (highly recommended) Luis Fallas.
The main target after spotting the cuckoo was another South American bird that rarely shows up in Costa Rica, the Wattled Jacana. This small bird of swamps and marshes is in the same genus as the Northern Jacana that is common throughout Costa Rica. Jacanas are a cool species in that they are one of the few birds where the female has multiple male partners instead of the reverse. She is bigger and more domineering than the males and will defend a breeding territory with several males. The males construct a nest and the female comes by to deposit some eggs for him to incubate and then care for the fledglings.
We had to drive about half an hour on dirt roads through former banana plantations turned palm oil plantations to arrive at some rice paddies. Around us were donkeys carrying carts full of palm hearts. There were loads of Northern Jacanas and other marsh birds…but no Wattled Jacana in sight. The noontime sun was beating down on us all and we decided to call it quits and move on. As everyone was loading up into the car, another birder and I continued scanning the field with his spotting scope.
There are two distinguishing features of the Wattled Jacana compared to the Northern Jacana; its darker plumage and red front (compared to the Northern’s yellow front). He spotted something dark and had me take a look. I saw a flash of red between some grass. A quick yell and everyone piled back out of the cars. Sure enough, we found the Wattled Jacana! Unfortunately, it was so far out and hiding in the grass so deeply that I wasn’t able to get any photos of it.
Final Thoughts
While miserably hot, the area around Ciudad Neily was great for birding, especially with the help of local guide Luis. He knows the area extremely well and helped me track down a few other “lifers” (new birds to me). In fact, with ten lifers it was one of my best birding days in some time! It was especially cool to be able to get an eye-level photo of the always camouflaged Common Potoo. We had to traipse out through some cow pastures and cassava fields to get to the spot where it was perched on a fence post. You won’t find stuff like that without some local help. If you want to bird the area, you can contact Luis via his Instagram.
Sadly, as I write this two days later, the cuckoo seems to have continued on elsewhere. Will it be seen again in Costa Rica sometime soon? Only time will tell.