Hi If seeing orchids is your main goal you'll definitely want to arrange a tour. Of the 1700 species I've found four on my own lol Of course there is also the problem that even if you do find them ,they are frequently 50 feet off the ground surrounded with hundreds of other species of plants. With 10,000 species of insects not to mention snakes spiders,scorpions and tree crabs not a good idea to climb trees ?? lol. Also there are so many other distractions monkeys giant lizards birds and butterflies of every color.waterfalls floodplains,tree fern forests and on and on lol. BTW Get a GOOD guide. I asked about orchids and one showed me some cane Dends growing on a palm in front of the hotel lol. May I suggest visiting Monte Verde,true montane rainforest accessible by bus!! Be sure to go on the the tour otherwise you'll miss 90 percent of what's there. gary

Bump

Hi Oldned That's exactly where I saw it too! The private company that runs the place did a smart thing. They knew of the nesting habits of this bright colorful bird (apparently the main draw for most visitors) and installed a nest box on a tree a few hundred feet from the trail. So we were guaranteed a sighting of the bird especially when we took a guided tour where the tour guide had a telescopic binoculars! Sure enough there was a pair hanging about the box and the male was going in and out bringing in new nesting materials. We saw spider monkeys in Monteverde which was very nice. We also saw this collared redstart. Thanks! Shyamala

The snake in the Fox News story later proved to have been a Burmese Python, NOT a Boa at all. It's fairly typical for the news media and law enforcement officers to report ANY large constricting snake as "Boa Constrictor", just like any short-haired dog that bites someone automatically becomes a "pit bull" when that is reported. People just automatically associate Boas with constricting, so they assume that if the snake used constriction, it has to be a Boa. That story is a very good example of how innaccurate reports involving snakes can be.