Palo Verde

Palo Verde protects a stretch of the lower Tempisque where the river floods each wet season into seasonal marsh, and as the water recedes through the dry months the birds concentrate: tens of thousands of waterfowl, herons, storks, spoonbills and the jabiru, the tallest flying bird in Central and South America, along with the black-crowned night heron and one of the region's largest colonies of nesting waterbirds on Isla de Pájaros. Boat trips run up the river past crocodiles hauled out on the banks and monkeys in the gallery forest. The park also holds dry forest and a limestone ridge with a lookout over the whole floodplain.

History

Palo Verde was declared a wildlife refuge in the 1970s because more than 60 species of birds used its lagoon as a stop on migration, and in the dry season it once held some 35,000 black-bellied whistling ducks and 25,000 blue-winged teal. It was later made a national park, now covering 18,400 hectares of the Tempisque valley, and in the 1990s it was added to the Ramsar list of wetlands of international importance and to the Montreux Record (Wikipedia, Palo Verde National Park).

Highlights

• The seasonal marsh - filling and draining, concentrating birds as it goes.
• Isla de Pájaros - a major nesting colony in the river.
• Jabiru storks - the tallest flying birds in Central and South America.
• The ridge lookout - the whole floodplain from the limestone hill.

When to go

December to March is when the water is receding and the bird concentration is highest. Boat trips run in the morning, which is cooler and best for activity. The wet season floods the marsh and disperses the birds.

Before you go

The park is hot, flat and buggy, and outside the dry season the bird spectacle largely disappears. Boat trips are usually sold from Cañas or as excursions from Guanacaste resorts and vary a great deal in quality. Access roads into the park itself are rough. Invasive cattail has choked parts of the marsh and requires active management.

Nearby

Cañas is half an hour north; the Nicoya beaches are an hour and a half west.

Key facts