Last weekend, a former minister of the environment for Costa Rica was staying at Xandari with his wife. Avid birders with life lists, they noticed a binder on the lobby’s coffee table with the cover image pictured above. The binder was the product of work James and I did last summer, highlighting forty interesting species of resident birds on Xandari’s property. After the table of contents, the first featured bird — the Barred Antshrike — was a surprise to the visiting couple. They’d been birding the Central Valley for years, but they’d never seen the species, and they simply didn’t believe that it could be found in such an accessible location.

Politely, the couple smiled at the binder-creators’ mistake and set out Continue reading →