Parrots and Monkeys

 A quick update to yesterday’s entry: we drove to Hacienda la Pacifica for the night and a very late dinner... at which we had a special guest in the form of a very young Spotted Skunk. It seemed to come in from the lobby and head straight for the kitchen.. when it was discovered it scurried out the same way, rather than taking a short cut through the open door to the garden. It all happened too quickly for us to get a picture of the little cutie. 

This morning (before dawn) we drove to Hacienda Guachipelin, a large hacienda (still a working ranch) and ecolodge near the Rincón de la Vieja National Park. Actually the access road to the park is on Guachipelin’s land. As it was still quite early, we did some birding around the lodge and saw 6 different kinds of parrots or parakeets, as well as hummingbirds and trogons.  It was VERY windy today, which often reduces the number of birds to be seen, and this proved true when we went up into the park. But the mammals made up for it — we watched a troop of about forty Spider monkeys cross the trail, several of them mothers carrying tiny babies on their backs or stomachs, as well as a number of young monkeys who seemed to prefer swinging upside down and playing chase to following the troop on its migration. Not long after, we watched similar behavior from a troop of about a dozen White-faced Capuchin Monkeys. While we have seen Capuchins on previous trips, we have never seen them so well as today.  The trail wound past various thermal features (mud pots, steam vents, etc) and at one of them we saw a Tamandua (sometimes called a “little anteater “) dozing in a tree. Tamanduas are nocturnal animals, so to see one so clearly in daylight was a treat.  We also saw two quite hard-to-see (if not technically rare) birds: a Great Tinamou (a nocturnal ground bird that looks like a rock if it’s stationary) and a Spotted Antbird (hanging around an enormous swarm of Army Ants next to the trail).

We returned to the lodge for a late lunch, having been unsuccessful in finding a Turquoise-browed Motmot in the park, only to have one land in a tree off the patio while we ate!  We spent the afternoon walking trails at the lodge, and saw several Pacific Screech Owls on a walk after dinner.  

Pictured: White-faced Capuchin monkeys, Tamandua, Turquoise-browed Motmot, Spotted Antbird