Cano Negro

 January 23: Cano Negro

Today’s main activity was a 2.5 hour boat ride in Cano Negro - Rio Frio National Park. It had rained torrentially overnight, but the skies showed signs of clearing after breakfast. To get to Cano Negro we had two choices: 2 hours by main roads or 1.3 hours by more scenic backroads. We chose the short cut, and what an adventure that turned out to be! The road itself was pretty rough, and as we proceeded (in occasional rain squalls) we encountered flooded sections and a tour bus that had gotten stuck trying to go up a wet, red clay incline. While passing some roadside meadows we saw at least one new bird — it was also new for our guide, Jimmy.

The boat ride at Cano Negro was very interesting, in part because the water level is so high that the river now goes right into the adjacent farms, and there is really no riverbank or shallow water for the shorebirds and caimans that are the usual highlights of such a trip. Instead we saw three kinds of monkeys, kingfishers, herons, a two-toed sloth and some long-nosed bats.

Two of the monkey viewings were particularly good: a rare local orange-colored howler monkey named Cesar, and a spider monkey with a very tiny infant.  The bats included a nursing infant, quite a sight to see!  Last night at Tapir Valley we also had great bat viewings: a bat methodically eating the seeds from an anise plant, and a feeding frenzy of fruit bats when a banana was put out on the deck railing.

We drove back along the main roads (once was enough on that shortcut!). The fields on either side of the initial roadway were flooded, creating the environment for and the viewings of the shorebirds we had missed on the river itself. 

Pictured: Cesar, green basilisk lizard, high river level, white-winged becard with lunch, long-nosed bats with a (darker) baby peeking out, spider monkey with lunch