Biodiversity at its Best



Our alarm sounded at 5 o’clock this morning to meet for our real-life jungle cruise at 5:45. They took us around some of the smaller canals for about two hours. Our guide said that we were quite lucky as we got to see all three species of monkeys in the area and both species of sloth as well — and birds and reptiles.



Animals we’ve seen around the resort and what we spotted this morning:

Birds— 
Montezuma Oropendola (we saw their long, woven, hanging nests)
Ringed Kingfisher
Keel-billed or Rainbow-billedToucan
Collared Aracari (toucan)
Bare-throated Tiger Heron
Anhinga or Snake Bird (several, including one nesting)
Black Vulture
Magnificent Frigatebird
Melodious Blackbird
Mealy Parrots (probably)
Great-tailed Grackle
Parrots - too distant to ID


Bare-throated Tiger Heron - “fishing”, it uses twigs and leaves to attract fish 


Hanging, woven nests of the Montezuma Oropendola

Mammals—
Long Nosed Bat (roosting under the roof of a boat deck)
Two-toed sloth 
Three-toed sloth
Mantled Howler monkey
White Headed Capuchin monkey (including a baby)
Geoffroy’s Spider monkey (including a baby)
Raccoon


Three-toed Sloth


White Headed Capuchin

This is a video of the capuchin monkeys, and at the end, a howler monkey. We were able to get really close to the Capuchins as they were feeding; they started to hiss at us. Note that the first monkey is a mother carrying her baby on her back:



Reptiles—
Green Iguana
Common Basilisk or Jesus Christ Lizard (it runs on water)
Tropical House Gecko
Green Sea Turtle (nesting)


Iguana

Insects—
Lubber grasshopper
Bullet Ant or Ponerine Ant
Firefly
Katydid (the size of St. Louis in our room!)
Various butterflies 
Others too numerous to count …


Lubber grasshopper

Yesterdays sightings:

Blue Land Crab
Caterpillar (could’ve been a flannel moth or silk moth caterpillar)
American Crocodile
Spectacled Caiman
Great Green or Military Macaws

We just lounged around for the rest of the morning. 









And then we had a liquid lunch …



While lounging at the pool a group of Great Green Macaws flew over. Jim heard them coming and just caught a pic (not the greatest) of them as they disappeared out of sight. . 



At 2:30 this afternoon, we went on a short excursion over to the little village of Tortugero; it requires a boat ride because it’s across the water on what you might call a very large sandbar, with the Caribbean Sea on the other side. We’d say it’s about 100+ yards wide. When we got there, our guide took us over to the beach and gave us a little talk about the turtle nesting and other things related to sea turtles. We had about an hour to walk around and explore the village. About 1200+ people live in the village and their only real way to make money is tourism these days. We took a walk down the main drag, got an ice cream, and scoped out a place to go eat tomorrow and maybe get some souvenirs.

While having our before-dinner cocktails near the pool, a Spider monkey mom and baby were swinging in the trees above the pool. We didn’t take any pictures. We just enjoyed looking at them.

Just before dinner we saw two raccoons. They are the same species as we have in the U.S. but a different sub-species. You can tell they are raccoons, but they have a slightly different body shape and head shape; they’re a little bit more slender.


Raccoon

We had dinner at 6:30 sharp this evening because we are going on an excursion back to the beach to try to see a nesting sea turtle. While waiting for the boat, we saw a Cane Toad. 



At dinner Jim talked to one of the employees, a lady about 55 years old. She said that when she was a kid there were 10 houses in Tortugero. 

Including insects, which make up the majority of the species at 450,000, more than 500,000 species of animals are found in Costa Rica. It is considered one of the most bio diverse regions of the world, making up 5% of the world’s biological diversity.  

At 7:30 we joined the group that would go out with a guide in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a nesting turtle. This is just the beginning of the nesting season so there are only a few. In August there may be hundreds each night. This area is highly regulated by the National Park; we weren’t even allowed to take pictures. Visitors are only allowed to see one turtle if they see any at all.  After a short boat ride up the channel, we were separated onto groups of 10 — and we waited. There are scouts that watch for turtles. When one is spotted, the groups are lead out into the beach to look. 

We waited for about an hour and 15 minutes before we finally heard that a turtle was spotted 2 miles south of us. We got back in the boat and headed south. We then got to witness something that was pretty spectacular.  

We got to kneel down about 2 feet from the turtle while she was laying the eggs. She was about 3.5 feet from head to tail. We could see the eggs dropping into the nest that she had dug. After all of the groups got to see that part, we came back around to see her covering up the nest. Remember, no pictures were allowed. It was worth the wait and a truly spectacular experience!

Today was so long that it seems like it was two full days when we think back to getting up early this morning. It was probably one of the most interesting days we’ve ever had on a trip. The number of animals that we have seen is incredible.

Tomorrow should be a shorter less active day. 

Pura Vida!

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