Mangrove tour in Costa Rica (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

21 January 2026: Day 3, La Ensenada boat tour among the mangroves + cart ride on the grounds — Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans

La Ensenada is on the Gulf of Nicoya whose coast is lined with a mangrove forest which we will tour today by boat.

View of Gulf of Nicoya from La Ensenada Lodge (photo from the lodge website)

In the U.S. a similar coastal boat trip would explore a salt marsh but the grasslands of temperate coasts are replaced by mangrove forests in the tropics.

Mangroves cannot survive where it’s cold so you see on the map salt marshes in green, mangrove forests in orange.

World map of halophyte habitats: Mangroves in orange, Salt marshes in green (map from Wikimedia Commons)

Like the salt marsh the mangrove forest’s stilt-like roots are in the tidal zone. There they slow the force of the water, allow suspended material to settle around the roots, and protect the coast from erosion.

Mangroves at low tide sunset (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

These forests have so much unique biodiversity that some of them are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites and some local bird species have “mangrove” in their names: the mangrove hummingbird (Chrysuronia boucardi) and the AOU newly split mangrove yellow warbler (Setophaga petechia).

Mangrove hummingbird, male (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Mangrove warbler (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

There are also fascinating species like the bare-throated tiger heron (Tigrisoma mexicanum) who indeed has bare skin on its throat that it puffs out during courtship.

Bare-throated tiger-heron (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

This 5 minute video was recorded at Lake Nicaragua, north of Costa Rica. The low rhythmic sounds on the recording are heron-speak.

What does this sound like?