Off to the northwest

 This morning we had a quick bird walk before breakfast and then boarded the skiff for the ride back to Drake Bay and a flight to San Jose. The bird walk was more like a “bird stand” behind our cabin looking for hummingbirds on the Verbena bushes— we were rewarded with two new species, the Blue-throated Goldentail and the male White-crested Coquette.  Jimmy often sees the female Coquette at that spot but was so excited to see the male. As you will see below, it is a spectacular little bird. We had stood in the same spot yesterday but the Charming hummingbirds may have been chasing the others (as well as the bumblebees) away. This morning it seemed that the Charmings were sleeping in, as we saw several bumblebees as well as the new hummingbirds. 

On the skiff ride back to Drake Bay, we passed a National Geographic/Lindblad ship with passengers riding across a pretty rough sea in Zodiacs to take walks on the shoreline. It reminded us very much of out Falklands- South Georgia trip... well except for the temperature and the landscape! 

The rest of the morning was spent flying and driving up the Pacific coast (along with a lot of Costa Rican’s heading to the beach so traffic was a bit slow). We stopped at a bridge made famous by the crocodiles who hang out beneath it. After lunch we continued north to La Ensenada, a working ranch and salt refinery right on the ocean that is also an eco-lodge. We embarked on a two hour tractor ride that took over three hours because we saw so much wildlife. The highlight was surely watching a troop of about 30 Mantled Howler monkeys cross next to our tractor, including watching them walk along the rails of a barbed wire fence, climb through the adjacent tree and then leap to the next group of trees. Some of the smaller ones were quite nervous about making that leap and studied the problem for a while before they took the plunge. We also saw several Black (Spiny) Iguanas, two of whom played hide and seek with us, moving back and forth around a tree trunk to be on the side we weren’t.  At the salt pools and later at a large pond, we saw a number of birds and a few new species. 

Pictured: Blue-throated Goldentail, Mantled Howler Monkeys, Roseate Spoonbill, Spiny Iguana