Birdwatching in Costa Rica is one of the most popular ecotourism activity. No wonder, since this small country has a really long list of birds with close to a thousand species. Costa Rica is well known to have one of the highest level of biodiverity in the World. There are several different types of habitats at the six main birding ecozones in this wildlife rich country and more than a quarter of the total surface of Costa Rica is protected. There are several ways to discover the rich avifauna. You can enjoy Bird-walks at or nearby Casa Quetzal Birding Photography Wildlife Guesthouse & Garden. Our guesthouse can be also a perfect base for Daily Birding Drive-outs to different elevations and habitats from middle elevation tropical slopes to high mountain cloud forests and paramo. If you want to discover our high elevation area a bit more we suggest a Week-Long Stay. We also offer different Costa Rican Birding Circuits. Please check the submenues of BIRDING.
Our Casa Quetzal Birding Photography Wildlife Guesthouse & Garden is surrounded by huge primary and secondary tropical cloud-forests. The garden has flowery bushes, some local trees, including aguacatillo which fruit is the favourite of Resplendant Quetzal. This area is home for high altitude birds, insects, plants which you can not find at lower elevations.
We have a few short trails in the garden and a longer, more demanding one in the nearby forest where it is possible to observe more species of birds throughout the year. However most of our guests enjoy simply birds at the several feeders from either covered hides or from our terrace or simply sitting out in front of our guesthouse with incredible panoramic views of Cerro de la Muerte and the surrounding cloudforest.
Day-long birding drive outs from our Casa Quetzal Birding Photography Guesthouse & Garden
Our Casa Quetzal Birding Photography Guesthouse & Garden is located at 2750 meters or 9000 feet. We are surrounded by a fantastic cloudforest. What is more, from this point we can easily either go down to a several hundred meters lower elevation or go higher above the treeline to the paramo habitat.
Click here for description of a Highland Birding Outing with species from our base.
Generally lowlands are below 2000feet or 600 meters and “foothills” are between 2000 and 4000 feet or 600 and 1200 meters.
From our Casa Quetzal Birding Photography Guesthouse & Garden it is about 1-1,5 hours drive to reach good Middle-elevation habitats.
Generally lowlands are below 2000feet or 600 meters and “foothills” are between 2000 and 4000 feet or 600 and 1200 meters.
From our Casa Quetzal Birding Photography Guesthouse & Garden it is about 1-1,5 hours drive to reach good Middle-elevation habitats.
Download Foothill Birding & species
From our Casa Quetzal Birding Photography Guesthouse & Garden it is about 1,5-2 hours to reach the tropical lowland forests in the Pacific Region. These forests and the adjacent mangrove habitats or river estuaries and the Pacific coastline offers the highest variety of habitats, thus richest bird fauna. But it is hot and humid most of the time.
Download Lowland Birding Tour & species
Based on close to 20 years of accummulated knowledge of discovering almost all the different corners of Costa Rica we offer 3 main circle tours visiting different elevation zones with completely different habitats and thus species.
The Pacific Birding Circle visits lowland, middle elevation and high mountain valleys of the Pacific area and Talamanca Mountains.
With a very different set of birds we offer a Caribbean Birding Circle as well. Plus of course there is a cherry-picking version of both and cloud forests as well which we call All in One Birding Circle. We can tailor-make these offers according to how much time you can spend here, what is your birding style and which habitats you prefer.
Trip Report 2020 ToucanLodge+circuit
Phone: Call May-October; Text all year
+36 30-645-9318 or +36 30-211-0006
Call Nov-April: +506 84961012 or 84961417
e-mails:
ecotoursgabororban @ gmail.com
toucanbirdingecolodge @ gmail.com
Our first priority is to save habitats & species.
Secondly we would like to share our knowledge of wildlife and encourage you to participate directly or indirectly in protecting nature.
We are also working continuously on our carbon balance with developing our 23 hectares of wildlife reserve.