Late last year, before the holiday season was in full swing, I traveled to the Osa Peninsula in southern Costa Rica to attend a bird banding workshop hosted by Osa Birds. Founded in 2014 by Karen Leavelle, Osa Birds is a charitable nonprofit organization that uses community science and applied research to help conserve both resident and Neotropical migratory birds. Osa Birds also works closely with local rural communities on native plants initiatives and habitat restoration projects.

The banding workshop was held in Rancho Quemado, one of the rural communities where Osa Birds works. The trip took three days: one to drive from Winthrop to Seattle, another to fly from Seattle to San Jose, and the third to take a commuter flight to Puerto Jimenez and then travel by car to Rancho Quemado.

Our lodging accommodations were at Casa Bosque. The pictures looked nice, but I really didn’t know what to expect, and I was a little concerned about the lack of hot water for showers. It turned out Casa Bosque was a great place to stay. The rooms were clean and comfortable, the meals were delicious, and because it was so hot and humid, it was refreshing to take a cold shower!

There were five students in the workshop, including me, all from different parts of the United States (Florida, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin). None of us had met before, but in the category of “it’s a small world,” I learned that Bill from South Carolina and I had several mutual acquaintances. Our instructors, Holly Garrod and Zoya Buckmire, were excellent! Holly is from Montana but spends much of her time banding birds and leading banding workshops throughout the United States and Latin America. Zoya, who lives in Granada, recently completed an intensive banding internship at the Klamath Bird Observatory in Oregon and is the lead copy editor for the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology. We also were fortunate to have local banders Luz, Yolanda, and Nuria with us. Yolanda was not only a bander but also our awesome hostess. (She and her husband Javier own Casa Bosque.)

We banded for six consecutive mornings at two different locations, collecting data for the Institute for Bird Populations’ MoSI program. MoSI is the sister program to the MAPS program I volunteer for in the Methow Valley, and is a network of banding stations established to monitor the overwintering survival of the Neotropical landbirds that breed in the United States and Canada. Although the emphasis is on collecting year-round data on Neotropical migrants, MoSI also collects important data on the resident species at each station.

When I first started working with birds years ago, I never imagined I would have a chance to band them in Central America. It was truly an amazing experience and one that I will never forget. Thank you Osa Birds!

Here are some photos of the species we caught and banded…

…including these two, which were by far my favorites!