Costa Rica: Finca Cántaros & the Osa Peninsula

Costa Rica has all the elements that make a country a true birding paradise: extraordinary biodiversity, accessible travel, beautiful landscapes, and a deep national commitment to conservation. Though small in size, the country supports a remarkable bird list of roughly 950 species, including toucans, trogons, motmots, hummingbirds, tanagers, tinamous, guans, and other classic families of the American tropics.

This special itinerary is centered in Puntarenas, Costa Rica’s southernmost province, bordered by Panama to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Here, the Osa Peninsula and surrounding Pacific slope forests offer some of the best birding in Costa Rica—and perhaps in all of Central America—for species found only in this region and neighboring Panama.

We begin near San José at Xandari Resort and Spa, a beautiful Central Valley property set within tropical gardens, forested trails, and waterfalls. From there, we travel south to Las Cruces Research Station, an important center for tropical research and conservation near the Panama border. With more than 400 bird species recorded in the area, Las Cruces offers a superb introduction to the birds of southern Costa Rica, including Gartered Trogon, Yellow-throated Toucan, Orange-collared Manakin, Speckled Tanager, Green Honeycreeper, and an impressive diversity of hummingbirds.

A major highlight of the journey is our visit to Finca Cántaros Environmental Association, where we will meet founder Lilly Briggs and her team of educators, researchers, and artists. Lilly’s work—rooted in Cornell Lab resources, environmental education, community engagement, landscape restoration, and citizen science—offers a powerful look at how conservation can support both wild landscapes and local communities.

The journey concludes at Lapa Rios Lodge on the Osa Peninsula, one of Costa Rica’s premier ecolodges, set within a private 1,000-acre rainforest preserve. Here, the forest is alive with Scarlet Macaws, Great Curassows, trogons, toucans, honeycreepers, tanagers, monkeys, sloths, frogs, and countless other forms of tropical life. With two full days to explore the lodge and surrounding area, we will search for some of the region’s most exciting birds, including Common Potoo, White-crested Coquette, Charming Hummingbird, King Vulture, White Hawk, and the brilliant Turquoise Cotinga.

Hosted by Ian Owens and another member from the Cornell Lab, and led in the field by Barry Lyon and David Ascanio of Victor Emanuel Nature Tours along with an expert local guide, this one-of-a-kind departure is designed to be more than a superb birding experience. It is also a time to reconnect with old friends, make new acquaintances, learn about recent news from the Cornell Lab, and share an unforgettable natural history experience in one of the richest regions of the Neotropics.

This tour explores a rich cross-section of southern Costa Rican habitats, including Central Valley gardens and forest trails, wet premontane forest at Las Cruces Research Station, restoration landscapes within the AmistOsa Biological Corridor, Pacific slope rainforest, and the lowland rainforest of the Osa Peninsula.

These habitats support an extraordinary variety of birds, mammals, butterflies, reptiles, amphibians, and plant life, with especially strong opportunities for Pacific slope specialties and regional endemics shared only with neighboring Panama.