Saturday, January 25, 2025

Three very different gardens









 January 25

Weather has been a defining feature of this trip. We started the morning at La Selva research center and botanical gardens. We had visited La Selva on a dry hot afternoon in 2022. This morning we visited again in mist-drizzle-rain-pouring sort of day. Our guide told us that this part of Costa Rica has already received (as of January 24) the most rain in January for 30 years and that a few weeks ago most of the central area was flooded. 


Perhaps needless to say, we didn’t see as many birds as last time (they were hiding from the rain just as we were!) but we did see some quite interesting things— including coatis arguing high in a tree (coati are not usually seen high up in trees) and a family of white-collared peccaries. Just as you sometimes find a bird by hearing it first, you can find peccaries by smell— they are quite fragrant!  Though the bird viewing was minimal, we did see two new bird species.


Next we visited Pierella Gardens, a favorite spot from our 2021 visit. The owners, Cristal and William, bought an old cattle ranch near a large national park, and planted native plants to start raising butterflies. The new environment also attracted birds and frogs and other species. It is a wonderful wildlife oasis. The rain largely subsided while we were there and we enjoyed seeing many birds as well as bats, frogs, a small boa and a baby (3 month old) 3-toed sloth. The sloth has lived in Pierella all its young life, but yesterday it had wandered into the nearby neighborhood. Young boys playing soccer saw a dog worrying the sloth and came running to the gate of Pierella asking for help. The boys chased the dog away and Cristal brought the sloth “home”. It seemed very happy today.  Some of the boys have attended the educational program that Pierella runs, so they already have a mindset to care for the environment and its creatures. 


Our third stop of the day was almost as memorable as the macaw sanctuary yesterday. A local nature guy took us deep into a very muddy woodland in search of owls. Fortunately, he loaned us muck boots, as we were more than ankle deep in mud most of the time and had to ford a small river at one point. We saw a wonderful crested owl and then two spectacled owls.  Just as we got back into the van to travel back to his house, the heavens opened. We were so grateful that we weren’t still navigating the mud when the hard rain came!  We spent a wonderful hour in his backyard, which is set up to host birds and birders.  He is also an artist, and his paintings of the local birds were both beautiful and very accurate. 


Pictured: spectacled owls, crested owl, baby sloth, long-billed hermit (hummingbird) in its nest, female helmeted basilisk, today’s woodland trail, imperator boa, white-collared peccaries. 

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