Heading south

Our final day in Monteverde was just what it should be (and what we avoided the first two days): sideways wind-driven mist, as the clouds surrounded us. Full days of sun are not typical for Monteverde — though the sunshine was nice.  The birds had the good sense to stay under cover for the most part but we did still see a few new species and.... more quetzals! We saw three male quetzals of different ages — you can tell his age by the length of his beautiful green “upper tail” feathers; younger birds have shorter feathers (as in today’s photo) than older makes (compare to yesterday’s photo) and therefore are less likely to be chosen as mates by the females. 

After lunch we drove back to San Jose. We had only gone about 15 minutes when the landscape returned to dry deforested hills reminiscent of California, instead of the green dense forest and underbrush to which we had become accustomed. On our way, we made a brief stop on the side of the road to take a few photos of the Pacific Ocean.  We checked into our hotel in San Jose and since we still had a few hours before the group dinner, we went.... bird watching of course! We saw several new species including some very noisy crimson-fronted parakeets and the lineated woodpecker pictured below. Tomorrow we take a small plane south to the Osa Peninsula near the border with Panama, to enjoy a coastline rain forest for a few days.