Nandomojo Watershed Birding Information

Costa Rica has become a world-class destination for birding enthusiasts, and the tropical dryland forests of Guanacaste offer a unique and diverse mix of avian migrants. To better understand this important natural resource, in 2009 Tierra Pacifica and ROW executed an ambitious Migrant bird survey called NANDAVI, Conserving the Habitat of Migratory Birds.

Yellow-tailed Oriole

The project was supported by generous grant funding from the US Fish and Wildlife Service which not only allowed the project team to document for the first time the presence of rare Neotropical migratory birds that had previously not been known in the watershed, but it substantially facilitated team and partnership efforts in advancing local, regional, and national awareness of the important links between natural resource stewardship, habitat restoration, water quality, and quality of life that have been evolving within the Nandamojo Valley over the past decade.

The successes of this program that assure a sustained initiative in the region include the following:

• The Nandamojo Watershed may now be one of the few basins in Costa Rica for which landowner commitment to land restoration and protection is a documented success, with a strong leadership capacity that developed as a result of the project and is now recognized both locally and nationally by other conservation groups and agencies.

Black-headed Trogon

• The project team and watershed partners have established through their leadership a strong dialogue with community leaders, schools, landowners, and government program officials to address watershed conservation issues using Neotropical migratory birds as a central theme and habitat restoration projects as a practical model.  These achievements have generated demand for more information about what local people can do to help Neotropical migratory birds while improvingoverall ecosystem health throughout the watershed.  In response to landowner demand we have developed and submitted a follow-up grant proposal to USFWS Division of Bird Conservation.  Our strategy is to serve a simple “extension” function to help landowners obtain native tree stock for planting buffers to expand riverine gallery forests.  We believe this effort will enlist many landowners to participate in creating Neotropical migratory bird habitat on their land.
  

  Turquoise-browed Motmots

• The team has documented the project thoroughly by establishing a permanent data base containing habitat restoration and watershed program plans, regulatory permit documentation, resource maps and historic images, field survey data for birds and vegetation, education and marketing materials, project photo archives, a contact database, and more.  This database will continue to serve future efforts in landowner education in the watershed and in projects related to migratory bird habitat restoration.

• The NANDAVI project was recognized by the Rainforest Alliance for “Best Monitoring & Evaluation Methodology” in conducting the Restoration of Mangrove and Dry Tropical Forests, Nandamojo Watershed, Costa Rica.