fauna – Costa Rica 2008

San Jose, Costa Rica

Dec 28 Tagged with: fauna, hotel, San Jose

Dec 282008

Our Hotel

The tour starts with a meeting tonight, so we have the whole day to ourselves. The guys slept until 1 pm, hopefully beating back some of their colds. Quesadillas for lunch around the pool, and then Sarah, Eric and I headed out for some touring of our own. Kevin stayed back at the hotel to keep fighting off his cold.

We took a cab to the National Museum and learned some of the history of Costa Rica and Central America. The highlight, though, was visiting their butterfly garden – an enclosed area with about a dozen different butterflies, interesting native plants and some exotic spiders and other insects thrown in.

I’m not sure what kind of a tree this is – the plaque under it said Jacaranda, but I don’t think they grow these beans.

These giant caterpillars are about 4″ long. Sorry, don’t know what they become.

The underside of a Morphos butterfly

The top of a Morphos wing. It was lying on the ground like that, honest!

Yellow Aphids. I’m used to green ones.

After the museum and butterfly garden we took a walk around the plaza. It was a busy Sunday afternoon, but we were happy to grab a cab and head back to the hotel.

More napping, relaxing and hanging out ’til dinner, then our intro meeting with Paul the tour guide. It looks like there will be about 46 people on the tour, from all around the US.

Two Toed Sloth

Dec 29 Tagged with: fauna, On the road, sloth

Dec 292008

Heading back down the mountain there was a crowd of people standing in the road staring up into a tree – a Costa Rican slothjam (kind of like a bearjam in Yellowstone). The green you see in her fur is moss – yes, they’re that slow.

Paul taught us a lot about sloth-life, including that the mating ritual involves a lot of napping, and they can have 150 different species of insects living in their coats.

Two Toed Sloth

Lunch And Butterfly Garden

Dec 30 Tagged with: fauna, flora, food, Marcos

Dec 302008

Today was Marcos’ birthday. He’s our bus driver, and according to our guide Paul, “The second best driver in Costa Rica. The first best is in jail.” Many times Marcos proved his skill at maneuvering the huge Mercedes bus.

Happy Birthday, Marcos!

I wish I wrote down the name of the place we stopped for lunch, the food was great plus they had a nice butterfly garden out back. It’s near the town of Guapiles, and it’s exactly here: N 10.20316667, W 83.77471000.

Butterfly

Morphos wing detail

The plant is called “Labios de Puta”, or in more polite English: “Hot Lips.” It makes more sense before the blue berries appear.

Passion Flower

Leaf Cutter Ants

Dec 30 Tagged with: ants, fauna

Dec 302008

Meanwhile, back amongst the banana trees, the leaf cutters are hard at work.

To Tortuguero!

Dec 30 Tagged with: boat, fauna, river, spider

Dec 302008

Another hour of bus travel down country roads from the banana plantation is Parismina, where we offloaded from the bus, said goodbye (for now) to Marcos, and boarded a boat for the hour and a half ride to Laguna Lodge. We’ll be at the lodge for the next two days.

Parismina is the end of the road at the Caribbean Sea. From there, everyone travels by boat, like these locals.

The view out the window of the taxi, as we zipped up the Tortuguero River.

More locals, out for a spin.

The Princesa del Rio, chugging along.

After dinner that night, I went on a frog hike. I didn’t find any, but I almost walked into this lady. She was hanging from the canopy at about knee height. If my flashlight didn’t catch her I would have walked right into it – and that would have kind of freaked me out. Her leg span is about 4″. After I took this shot I looked away for a moment, and when I turned back she was gone. So was I.

The Princesa del Cielo, hanging around.

Tortuguero River Tour, Part 1

Dec 31 Tagged with: bats, bird, fauna, flora, iguana, monkey, river, spider, tour

Dec 312008

After breakfast this morning we visited with the resident spider, who lives on a 3 foot wide web just outside the breakfast area. She was the same type as I saw last night, which leads me to assume that they’re not too dangerous. She was busy repairing her web from, one must imagine, a busy night.

Fixing her web.

Split into three groups of about 15 each, we loaded into open tour boats for our first visit with the Tortuguero wild life. In a short amount of time we had already spotted more birds that I could keep track of, giant iguanas, spider monkeys and howler monkeys. The tour lasted about two hours, so we had time to go deep back into some of the canals and listen to the sounds of the rain forest.

Fellow travelers, monkey spotting.

White-Faced Spider Monkey

Howler Monkey

Iguana on a log.

Bigger iguana, in a tree.

Find the hidden lizard. Somehow our guide did.

Easier to see closeup.

Bats. They live on the underside of this tree’s trunk during the day.

Green Heron.

White Heron.

Back to the lodge for a break, then some more sights.

Tortuguero River Tour, Part 2

Dec 31 Tagged with: fauna, flora, rain, river, sloth, tour

Dec 312008

Lunch was back at the lodge, and then another boat tour of the river and channels. We started out spotting a sloth and her baby hanging in a dense tree almost over the water, so we were able to get very close in the boat. Even though there were fifteen or more of us, she didn’t seem concerned at all about our presence, and the two of them continued eating.

Mother sloth with baby.

As we were traveling up one of the canals, it began to rain. By the time the boat’s pilot had pulled out the ponchos and passed them out it had become a tropical torrent. It was warm out, but everything not under a poncho was instantly soaked, and before a few minutes were up, those of us on the right side of the boat had our feet in about three inches of water. Kevin, being on the port side, was able to keep his shoes dry.

It’s called a Rain Forest for a reason.

Luckily I had my waterproof point-and-shoot camera with me, so I could take riveting shots like this.

The wildlife viewing isn’t so good in that kind of downpour, so we headed back into the lodge.

Once dried off, napped and cleaned up, we headed into the bar before dinner for some cards, New Year’s Eve libations and live Calypso music.

New Year’s Eve

Dec 31 Tagged with: fauna, flora, flower, iguana

Dec 312008

After dinner, Eric and I went on another frog hunt – no frogs this time, even in the lodge’s ‘Frog Garden’, but we did encounter a couple of iguanas and another giant spider that took a particular interest in Eric. We were able to take close up pictures of a small iguana that was standing on a flower using a flashlight to light her up with. She wasn’t bothered at all by our presence, even though we got within a foot of her for some of the shots. She was still there at 5:30am the next morning when I stopped by to see her.

Iguana on the road, caught in our flashlight beam.

Posed iguana, lit with a flashlight.

In her face, and she didn’t mind at all.

The mysterious backlit version.

Rain soaked flower, lit with a flashlight.

Close up of rain drops.

Not being be NYE partiers, we hung out on the porch reading and watching the rain before packing it in well before midnight.

Los Angeles Cloud Forest Reserve

Jan 03 Tagged with: ants, bird, Carl, fauna, hike, insect, tour

Jan 032009

Another 45 minutes of travel and we stopped at the Los Angeles Cloud Forest Reserve where we had a 45 walk with a naturalist through the cloud forest. More leaf cutter ants(!) and some beautiful birds were the most visible wildlife, plus we learned more about the flora of a cloud forest.

Oliver, our naturalist guide.

Cloud forest, and me.

More leaf cutter ants! The worker ant has cut the leaf and is carrying it back to the nest. The smaller ant you see on the leaf is a nurse – she’s cleaning the leaf and will help grow fungus on the leaves inside the nest.

This leaf cutter ant nest is over 10 years old. What you see here is about 8 feet in diameter, and very fragile. If you were to step on it it could collapse.

Built on the bottom of a giant leaf, this nest is home to either bees or wasps – I didn’t stick around to find out.

One of the many beautiful birds we saw in the cloud forest.

Twenty minutes of the drive to and from the cloud forest was along a twisty two way, one lane, road. Normally not that unique or interesting, unless you’re doing it in a tour bus with small trucks coming the other way. Marcos proved his skills.

A half an hour further down the road and we stopped for lunch, then on to Doubletree in Puntarenas for the next two nights.

Crocs and Macaws

Jan 04 Tagged with: bird, crocodile, fauna, macaw, river

Jan 042009

The day started with a short sightseeing trip to Rio Tarcoles, where we watched a large population of crocodiles laze about in the sun. We had a great vantage point from directly above them on the highway overpass – close enough to appreciate their size and power, but safely up out of their reach. Though Costa Rica has made a huge commitment to eco-everything, this river is very polluted. The crocs, however, are amazingly resilient and have no problem surviving in the murky waters. Sadly, two of them had garbage stuck around their necks. Remember those lessons about not tossing your six-pack plastic rings away uncut? These were living examples of what can happen.

Tastes like chicken.

Big croc. (Image processed)

Croc/rock camo.

Peaceful co-existence (not). A few minutes later I looked away for a moment and the croc took a snap at the bull. Drat, bad timing!

Sadly this huge guy has gotten a plastic ring caught around his neck.

We then headed down to Camaronal beach, where we walked around the small beach community in search of Red Macaws. We finally spotted a pair (they mate for life) in a beach almond tree. It must have been some sight watching the group of American tourists standing under the tree gawking up at the birds, while local Costa Ricans on vacation were enjoying their beachside campsites all around us, unimpressed by what is a very common sight to them.

Wild macaws, reaching for a nut.

Got it!