Sunbittersweet

Oh dear, a ‘witty’ title, with a pun. My apologies for the cliché, the Sunbittern deserves better: one of the specials of Rancho Naturalista’s excellent guides. Our very own Mercedes had guided us to a total of three Costa Rica locations where we connected with this extraordinary bird.

The strange Sunbittern is a bird without close relatives. The weirdest part is perhaps that we saw the Sunbittern three times in heavily degraded biotopes: a road culvert, a village street and a river next to a football field. If urban birding tickles your fancy than this is the creature for you. Costa Rica is a wildly diverse and beautiful country and finding this magnificent bird in a less than attractive place is my only excuse for the poor title of this post.

This is a bird you would assemble if you had Lego versions of several birds, a duck, a heron, a wader and a woodpecker, you lose the instructions to all of them, and the pieces get all mixed up. The species does not have close relatives, for which the technical term is monotypic. Try dropping that in polite cocktail reception conversation. Some research has indicated that the Kagu is the nearest relative, but to me that seems more a case of “There’s some weirdo bird in New Caledonia, could be family” in the same way people in foreign countries ask “You’re from France, do you know Claude Champollion?“.

Costa Rica is not just Sunbitterns, of course. We were going to explore volcanoes, cloudforests, gorges and pints of fine ale. In other words: more to follow in the coming weeks. 

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