Do You Know the Toucan?
Watching birds is not bird watching
‘What’s a toucan?’
This is not a question you should ask if you have paid for a guide to take you through a cloud forest. This is not a question you should ask if you have paid to fly to Costa Rica. This is not a question you should ask if, as an adult human being, you understand that the question ‘Do you know the toucan?’ is rhetorical in nature. YOU KNOW THE TOUCAN. And yet, this is a thing that is happening, right before our eyes.
‘The bird...from Froot Loops?’ suggests our guide.
Our tour companion nods and smiles blankly. Her partner wears a similarly blank expression, only the slight tug at the corner of his mouth to suggest he knows enough to say nothing. I do not think she knows the Froot Loops. Or the toucan.
Entirely unrelated, years ago I worked with a consumer goods company which manufactures and distributes breakfast cereals. Anders is a huge fan of their brands, and their competitor’s brands, basically just a fan of cold cereal.
While working with this client, I came to know a leader on their European team who was, and presumably still is, an avid birder. I did not interact much with this person, but his travel plans came up frequently in conversation; the plans always included remote locations with intent to see rare and exotic birds. Like Borneo remote.
I’ve come to understand there are levels to bird watching and titles which matter to those in the game (field?). Birder generally indicates someone who is more dedicated, versus a bird watcher, who is a hobbyist. This fellow is, in my completely unqualified estimation, a birder.
You see a lot of birders in Costa Rica. According to the first website I found dorky enough to feel authoritative, there are 943 species of birds here (listed according to Clements 2021 taxonomic order and nomenclature, obviously, because we aren’t heathens). Avian labeling is just as amusingly weird as all zoological labeling. We’re currently on the lookout for the Buffy Crowned Wood-Partridge, the Dusky Nightjar, the Black-and-White-Hawk-Eagle, and the Bare-Necked Umbrellabird, among others.
Depending on the source, there are about 1,125 bird species in the 50 states of the US; Costa Rica’s biodiversity is compact and significant. Whether you come as a birder, a bird watcher, or just someone with eyes, you are going to see a lot of birds in Costa Rica.
To the keen observer, the activities of a bird watching tour are not dissimilar from viewing Pokemon GO participants in 2016. It is a bunch of people in a group looking into view finders for something that no one else could possibly see or care about. Birders know the toucan, and they are not here for it. The mission is rare/accidental sightings, the type only delivered via guide, expensive lens, and uncommon patience. You are supposed to be quiet around birders, lest you disrupt their quarry and provoke their wrath.
There is a film about birding titled The Big Year, inexplicably starring both Owen Wilson and Jack Black. I watched this film while working with the cereal client to better understand bird watching. A big year is the goal of seeing the maximum number of bird species in the continental United States within, well, a year. The record seems to keep climbing but is still in the 700s. The internet suggests you can see up to 150 species of birds on a single tour in Costa Rica. I do not profess to understand the economics of birding, but one of these seems like better value.
If you go on any wildlife tour here (as a general tourist, birders are on their own tours), it is best to pay for a guide. Do not be the chump who eschews the guide payment but then hangs around the guided groups. It is obvious and embarrassing. There are two benefits of the guide: they 1) see what you cannot independently, and 2) have excellent spotting scopes.
Have you ever wondered why your friend’s recent Costa Rica adventure resulted in so many excellent bird photos on their iPhone? Their guide. By holding the phone’s camera lens to the spotting scope, the guides rapidly produce excellent zoomed photos of birds and other animals too small or too far away to appropriately capture from the walking paths. It is both magical and magic reducing.
Behold, the rufous motmot! This picture was taken on a OnePlus Nord N20 phone. Suffice to say it is not top of the line, but that’s the outcome you get with the spotting scope and a good guide.
We have not become bird watchers, even at the hobby level. I would say we enjoy watching birds; Gesina is beginning to capture interesting bird photos, without the crutch of the spotting scope. We know the toucan.