Quetzal spotting for fun and profit

 One bird we were very keen to see in Costa Rica was the Resplendent Quetzal, famed for its incredibly long tail feathers. They like to live high in the mountains and cloud forests where they eat a variety of berries. We had no luck spotting them on Monteverde, but on the last day of our tour, Mario took us on an alternate route back to San Jose which took us through a different range of their territory. Below is the female quetzal we saw first. She was quite close and made us think seeing the male would be easy.

 There is a collective of farmers and naturalists in the highlands who run a sightings network to help tourists see the quetzal. For $10 per person you are allowed on their land to look for it yourself, and for $30 per person they will make sure you spot it. We were tight for time, so we chose the more expensive option with a few people to ensure we could find it. This decision was worth every penny as the local guides were very good at what they do, and because there's a male quetzal in the picture below, but you'd never know it.

 After skulking around in dense foliage for 20 minutes or so, the male flew out and posed beautifully for us in direct sunlight, showing just how striking a bird it really is. The tail feathers of the male are several times the body length of the bird and they are stunning animals. After a few minutes of an amazing view the male and his two females flew away into the unknown forest.

Howler Monkeys

 Howler monkeys were the first of four species of monkeys we saw in Costa Rica. While we were fortunate enough to see them several times, they are very dark in color and almost always moving quickly about in the forest canopy against a bright sky. This makes them a bit of a nightmare to photograph since they are tricky for both exposure AND focus, but we got a nice handful of pictures of them. The picture below may appear that we are on the same level, but it was actually peering down towards us from the canopy.

 They earn the "howler" part of their name with a very distinctive call. Every time I hear it, I wonder what it must have been like to be the first people hearing it, not knowing it was a 7kg monkey but thinking it was some enormous forest demon. They often start calling early in the morning and the sound carries for miles across the countryside.

 Like all monkeys, gravity is simply someone else's problem rather than a constraint on their daily lives. In Cahuita we saw a troop moving through the trees, which included a 30-foot vertical leap between branches. This same leap was also done by a mother with a baby clinging to its back, so they certainly learn how to get around from an early age.

Cloudy with a Chance of Volcanoes

Since we had a bit of trouble spotting Arenal due to clouds during our tour, we tacked on a day trip out of San Jose in our last few days in the country to try and take in Poas Volcano. On the drive up we were warned that the weather was variable up there and that it was typically visible but frequently obscured by clouds. With that in mind, you can imagine we weren't too thrilled when we were greeted with the view below.

Somewhat frustrated, we took to the hiking trails in the area. There are 2 craters at the site, one of which is a 15 minute walk through some very foreboding and dark forest. When we arrived at the second lookout, we were initially greeted with a view identical to the first picture. However, we decided to stick it out since our tour was on location for 1.5 hours and hope for the best. Not more than 10 minutes later, the wind shifted and the clouds pulled back, revealing a stunning lake of collected rainwater which has filled in an old crater.

Excited by this change for the better, we enjoyed the view and then hurried back down the path to the first location, to be gladly greeted with the view shown below. We still had 40 minutes or so to enjoy the view and take all the pictures we wanted before heading back to the bus. Strangely enough, the winds shifted again shortly before we started our walk back, and before we left the clouds had completely returned and obscured the area altogether.

Unexpected High-Altitude Nocturnal Mammals of the Caribbean

 The title of this post might sound overly specific, but Cahuita was crawling with strange mammals late at night. Starting off, the kinkajou is not only a catching tune from 1927 but also a strange raccoon variant, because Costa Rica LOVES weird variations of raccoons. They are solitary and shy with a prehensile tail to move around in the tops of trees. This was the only one we saw, but the species was high on my list so I was glad for the chance.

 Literally 15 minutes before the kinkajou and even in the exact same tree we also saw this common opossum. They ALSO like to climb trees at night with their prehensile tails. While conventional lore tells you that opossums will play dead when in danger, our guidebook says that this species elects to twirl around spraying feces when threatened, so bring a zoom lens and don't try to get too close!

 We talked about sloths just a few weeks ago, but I thought this picture was a nice addition to round out the set. Although we only saw the one, it is not uncommon to see sloths moving about on the powerlines of Costa Rica, and so long as they only touch one at a time they do just fine (the same way birds can perch without danger). The problem comes if they switch from one line to another at a post and suddenly become an unexpected conductor. Sloths are surprisingly resilient and often survive such a shock (there are several rescues that take in electrocuted sloths) but it can't be good for them overall and many are killed each year from this unfortunate situation.

Hummingbird Galleries 2

 We saw so many hummingbirds that we could easily share pictures of them for another couple of weeks without even repeating species, but rather than get TOO indulgent, we'll wrap up with this second post of some of the most interesting hummingbirds we saw.

First off, this Green Thorntail we saw at La Paz was particularly special since we didn't even identify it until we were home and looking through the pictures with enough time to notice its tail and white patches were totally different from anything else we'd seen, giving us a new bird several months after we got home.

 While almost all hummingbirds have some pretty striking iridescence, many of the galleries were in shady clearings in an overcast cloud forest where colours don't shine through as brightly. Such was not the case with this Fiery-Throated Hummingbird at a gallery on the cuerro de la muerte (yep, the "Highway of Death" features several very high passes where people used to freeze to death trying to cross) which was stunning in the full sun.

Contrasting full sun with total darkness, we found this unidentified hummingbird perched on a branch during a night walk. Hummingbirds have such high metabolism that rather than sleep, they go into a hibernation-like state of torpor each night to prevent their bodies from burning through all their energy. This ones eye appears open, but it didn't move at all as we gathered around for a look.

Hummingbird Galleries 1

While Canadians will easily (and rightly) get excited about seeing a single hummingbird from the handful of species available, Costa Rica is home to 52 different species. Not only are there a great variety of them to see, but their high energy requirements make them easy draws to hummingbird galleries, which are delightfully frequent places across the country. We visited at least 3 galleries, each of which had a dozen or more feeders which were each attracting several hummingbirds.

One of the most common were Coppery-Headed Emeralds like the one below, which measure in at a tiny 3 inches long. All hummingbirds are pretty small and VERY fast moving, but with a little bit of patience and luck you can get some very nice posed portraits when they land on branches nearby to rest between trips to the feeders.

 At the larger end of the spectrum, the Violet Sabrewing is one of the biggest hummingbird in Costa Rica with a monstrous length of 6 inches. That may not seem to big without context, but when there are dozens of these birds zipping in all directions and speeds they seem pretty enormous and loud.

 

Kathryn and I were both so enchanted with the color and variety of the hummingbirds of Costa Rica that the next post will share a few more of our favorite pictures of these charismatic little fellows.

Red-Eyed Tree Frogs

The red-eyed tree frog is one of the most popular and recognized animals in Costa Rica and even on the Earth. Apparently people go to Costa Rica just to see these little animals, which is a task made all the harder by the fact that (1) they are tiny (2) they are nocturnal (3) they get quiet when you get close. There are, of course, places that have these frogs in captivity, but we think that counting animals you see that way is cheating, so we made sure to come see some of our own.

This is no easy feat mind you, based on the 3 reasons given above. However, I did have an ace up my sleeve given that Kathryn is incredibly sharp-eyed AND passionate about seeing everything she possibly can on holiday. It is still beyond me how she managed to find the frog below though. This was about 40 feet in the air, among the leaves and in the pitch black. The photo below was taken with a 400mm lens and has all the flashlights in the group on it, but to the naked eye with a fraction of that light it looked like a slightly lighter leaf.

 Our sighting the following night was a little more co-operative, as this fellow was maybe only 15 feet away and perched at a more reasonable level (the one below is the same one as the top photo, just from the side rather than the front). I particularly like how its legs dangle down below where it gripped on with its feet.