A full day at Tortuguero

 After a pre-breakfast bird walk, we spent most of today in further exploration of the Tortuguero canals by open motorboat. Our pilot Gautan was remarkable not only in navigating the narrow canals (including blazing a path through water weeds at one point) but in his ability to spot wildlife while driving the boat and then stopping in a way to let everyone have a good view.  

We saw a lot of howler monkeys today in many different locations. We also saw three species of parrot, and at one point watched howlers chase parrots from a particular fruit tree. The parrots were loud in their displeasure as they were being chased. We also saw a few unusual bird species (such as the Great Curassow, pictured), two types of turtles, and blue land crabs (these are seriously scary looking creatures).  Male Green Iguanas turn orange during mating season; we saw a great example today. 

We also visited the local Green Sea Turtle conservation center. Tortuguero is the prime nesting beach for green sea turtles, and it was sea turtle conservation, starting in the 1950s, that led to the creation of the national park and the conversion of the local economy to eco-tourism.  Techniques developed at Tortuguero are used in sea turtle conservation areas around the world. 

Tortuguero

 Today we flew to Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. All transportation in this area is by boat, along a mix of lagoons, natural canals and manmade canals.  Up until the 1960s, the area was heavily lumbered and the canals used to ship/float the logs to the sawmill. Since then the area has been included in a vast national park and the forest has mostly recovered.

We landed on a narrow runway between the Atlantic and the lagoon, then travelled by boat along the lagoon to our lodge. On that short boat trip we saw both male and female 3-toed sloths, drying out from a morning rainstorm and moving down from the canopy into denser greenery. For a sloth, the female was really book’in.  To see them so close and in motion was magical.  We could clearly see the moss that grows on them.

We ate lunch at a local restaurant that served Caribbean style food, then had a coconut demonstration — from cracking open the husk to creating coconut water, milk, oil and candy—which has been an important local industry for generations. We were somewhat distracted during the presentation by four Great Green Macaws that kept flying over with noisy acrobatics.  Green Macaws are blue, yellow and red as well as green. On an afternoon boat ride we saw monkeys (howlers and spider) many water birds (both adult and juvenile of some species), and baby caimans their mother — the mother was not overly happy with us hanging around her babies.  It was a great first day of the official trip.   We learned that a troop of  howler monkeys stays within a fairly small area.  Spider monkeys on the other hand can travel up to 10 miles a day searching for food.  

Addendum to Pierella Gardens

 Two other fascinating aspects of the day. First, we saw two baby white-necked jacobin hummingbirds in a nest built onto a heavily sloped (70 degrees at least) leaf.  Second, we were impressed with the process used to raise the butterflies at Pierella Gardens. Plants were grown specific to the preferences of particular butterfly species. Once the butterfly eggs were laid, fine mesh nets were put over the plants to protect the growing caterpillars. Once the caterpillars reached sufficient size (the caterpillars of blue morpho butterflies get to be about six inches long and an inch thick) and spin their chrysalis, the chrysalis are moved to a special cabinet. Normally the butterflies are shipped as chrysalis, but right now all of them are emerging as butterflies at Pierella.  Once the chrysalis are removed, the netting is also removed and the plants are given a chance to recover. 

And the red-eyed tree frog picture got left out yesterday.

Our second Costa Rica adventure begins

 

Today was a free day before the start of the real trip.  Darren and Cassie joined us on a excursion with a guide Esterling (“Esta”) to the Pierella Gardens on the Caribbean side of the mountains east of San Jose. The gardens are adjacent to the huge Braulio Carrillo National Park (30 hectares of protected cloud forest, secondary forest, primary forest and meadows).  The Pierella Gardens was converted from cattle ranch meadows 25 years ago, when William and Cristal began planting trees, shrubs and flowers to attract and raise butterflies for resale to museums and other gardens around the world. The habitat they created for butterflies began attracting birds and mammals and is now an oasis of diversity among the surrounding farms.  

We saw an amazing number of birds today including a number of new species for us.  We also saw two kinds of bats, both types of sloth found in Costa Rica, and a howler monkey at very close range. We had a terrific home cooked lunch including homemade chocolate mousse.  The  gardens include 1000 cacoa plants, the fruit of which are used for the butterflies as well as to make chocolate. On our drive back we saw coati, more hummingbirds and two spectacular waterfalls. 

We met the other 6 members of our group for dinner, and were re-united with Jimmy, our trip leader from the March 2020 Costa Rica trip.