Well, we were up at 4:45 yesterday in order to leave at 5:30, and this blogger was just too pooped to pop last night!
We headed northwest along the coast towards a national park: Manuel Antonio, for an early morning guided bird tour. We have decided that having a guide is truly the only way to go: Oscar is in his low 30s and his father was a guide – he knows the birds by their calls/songs, AND knows a ton about everything natural. AND he knows where to park, whom to pay, and how much. So $360 was what the group paid, and it was well well worth it.
First we went to a road overlooking a valley near the Rio Naranjo. The toucans and birds were far into the distance and we felt a little nervous – were we only going to see things far away? Then we went into a private reserve in Esquipulas where a family visitors and provides glamping in cute things and breakfast. We could hardly eat our tico breakfast of cooked rice
with frijoles and scrambled eggs and a huge bowl of pineapple, papaya, and these apple bananas without hopping up to get better looks at the amazing birds on the feeders. Afterwards we walked along a road to listen and spy more – including a great photo of a toucan. Evidently this is a great example of Oscar started asking the owners of this property if he could bring birders. Then they decided to offer the breakfasts and delicious coffee. Then they built the overnight tents on bases: double mattresses with nightstands and lighting just with tentflaps. Not on our list.
We also nearly got run over by a number of mountain bikers. Evidently there are groups that go coast to coast with guides and an assisting truck, taking 15 days. This was the beginning. Cant imagine the mountains, and the fact that the back roads are unpaved, very lumpy bumpy.
Davids photos will identity the birds on his photos, eventually!!, but in general we have new birds from yesterday alone, and they are all SO amazing in their coloring. Hummingbirds, toucans, hawks, tanagers that are pale blue, a tanager that is
really 2 colors of amazing blue but happens to also have red legs. My neck is stiff from all the turning. And David went thru 3 batteries!
One of the neatest things is that Oscar has a Swarovski scope, and an attachment to hold phones – so he takes photos on the phone THROUGH the lens. Then he airdropped the photos and the list to each of us. Theres just so much info, and of course David cant technically add a new bird to our list unless he sends a photo thats identified by the app called Merlin, that it will take us days to sort them out.
Before we went to the national park we went down a lane, with houses, but definitely not urban – as nothing is here. Oscar was going to show us a stick bird = technically a Common Potoo. Yes, the mama lays one egg on the top of a post that is reasonably concave, and sits there as still as she can. Because the post is right next to the road, predators are reduced, and she wasnt bothered by us at all.
sloths! On the way to pick up Oscar, the 2 lane highway was blocked for a few minutes by – we think – a rescue effort. And just in the news today it mentioned how a baby sloth had been separated from his mother, captured by such a group, and then they mimicked the calls of the mother so well that they somehow reunited the family. Ahhh.
Even before we entered the park we had spotted our first sloth – hanging from a high branch in the typical trees they like – above the road. How he saw it I do not know. So we pulled over into a parking lot and watched this guy – and it was a SLOTH. As opposed to the He was casually scratching away.
We stopped for a quick bite of lunch at a cafeteria within the park, and then walked about 5 mins towards the beach. It had some good rolling surf there, and we only had 30 mins to stay by then, so just Matt and the kids went in.
was excellent. We ordered a shrimp and cheese, and added garlic butter. Wow. Really hit the spot.
