My morning walk along the brook behind my house was greeted by the loud ringing song of the Louisiana waterthrush. This species is not a thrush, but one of the early-arriving April warblers. Already the quiet female has a place picked out for her nest, and the guardian male is letting rivals know this stretch of river is claimed.
We do have true thrushes that nest in our forests, the hermit thrush and the wood thrush. For a while in mid-May we can also find the Swainson’s thrush, a species that has a long migration, leaving its winter home in South America in early April, and arriving at its breeding forests in Canada in late May.
Early in its spring journey, the Swainson’s thrushes arrive in Costa Rica, and we heard its one-note call every day of our visit there, some longer forest walks yielding as many as fifty birds. Our leader heard hundreds calling as they migrated low overhead one night. A few granted us a full rendering of their wonderful song and a glimpse of their subtle beauty.
All the thrushes have songs that are lush and complex, and we heard some of those species that breed in the tropics. The clay-colored thrush was very common, heard and seen every day. We may have tired of seeing this plain colored bird, but one never tires of any thrush song.
During our two days in the Savegre Valley we also saw and heard sooty, mountain, and white-throated thrushes, as well as black-billed, orange-billed, and ruddy-capped nightingale-thrushes. These were all rather common and not too shy, but there were other species that were harder to find and many were far more colorful.
We rose very early in the morning after our first night at the Trogon Lodge. We hoped to see one of the birds for which the lodge was named. The air was nippy and the steep ridges of the valley walled out the morning sun. The black vultures waited for the sun in the tops of trees and even descended to look for scraps of fish at the edge of the trout ponds.
We took our stations on a back road that gave a view of a fruiting avocado tree, the favorite food of the most impressive member of the trogon family, the resplendent quetzal (pronounced ket-SAL). A male arrived almost immediately and posed for a few seconds before diving out of sight. It was enough to take our breath away, reminding us why it bears a name so pretentious.
As if this amazing sight was not enough, an emerald toucanet was also nesting nearby, a bird whose plumage glows even more brightly, though it lacks the scarlet breast and long, flowing tail feathers that give the quetzal an unmatchable flair.
Though we waited a long time, the quetzal only returned to give us another fleeting glance, so we drove a bit farther up the valley to where the bird spent most of its time. We parked and walked to a field where we could watch the hollow tree that contained the nest cavity.
We whispered directions to each other to locate the right tree and how high the hole was on the side of the trunk. I saw the place, but somehow failed to spot the absurdly long feathers sticking straight out of the hole. I staggered back with shock and laughter when it finally came clear.
But this day was not over, nor was the thrills. Our leader brought us upstream to the narrow gorge where our lodges clung to the steep hillside. We stood on a deck as he coaxed a small bird out of hiding, one we had heard before, but could never see, it was so shy.
It sang its delicate song as it lingered on the rocks, the bank, and low bushes. It is called a wrenthrush, and we could not take our eyes off it. This little bird is neither wren nor thrush, but actually a warbler. It is a cousin of the waterthrush that nests along the forest streams not so far from our homes.
That night, many sights must have danced in our dreams, but none so pleasing as the vision of a shy little wrenthrush.