December 4, 2017 - La Fortuna

Monday

… started the first tour of the cloud forest at 08:00. Amongst other things Ursula was very pleased that we saw, finally, a Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno), or rather a couple of them, though they were a little far away for me to get a good picture of with out a telephoto lens. The guides all carry spotting scopes on tripods, which, when a smart phone is held up to it, will take a quite passable picture. The guides who took us around seemed to know the locations of some fairly interesting plants or animals, so if there are no big drawcards found, they can reliably point out the interesting smaller things. We also saw some White Headed Capuchins (Cebus capucinus), a well hidden sloth (probably Bradypus variegatus), various fungi, butterfly chrysalis and a wasp with, reputedly, the nastiest sting in Central America.

After three hours walking through the cloud forest we sat down in the Hummingbird Cafe and I shared a pineapple cake with Ursula. The café is so called due to the large number of nectar feeders hung around under its verandas. The hummingbirds come up in droves to get the nectar and fly around amongst the people who are here. They make a quite loud whirring sound. I had seen a single hummingbird at our hotel just on sunset the previous evening, but there were literally dozens of them from the forest near the cafe. It is very difficult to take a good picture of them due to their high speed in everything they do.

In the afternoon we took the “free” bus up to the Selvatura Park skywalks, but when we got there it didn’t look too promising to see much wildlife as the day was warm and there was so much noise from the zip lines and other park attractions. We went back down to rest at the hotel for our night walk. Because it looked like rain we spent some time wandering around the town to try to find some rain protection. Our temporary ponchos which we had earlier in the trip hadn’t survived this far. After dropping in at a few of the tourist places we were directed to, all sold out, we finally found a good selection in the little general shop not too far from the hotel. The night tour organisers had ponchos anyway!

The night walk started at 18:00, and though it was windy and rainy, we saw a very good selection of creatures, despite the dark. The guide was very well versed in places to find things. Even including small scorpions in an old abandoned shed. There was a sloth with a baby swinging in one of the high wind blown trees. Some of the others on the night walk were a bit upset when the guide said that if the baby fell the mother would not go to retrieve it. In any event it never fell, even though it climbed a small distance away from its mother. We saw:

Emerald Toucanette (Aulacorhynchus prasinus)
Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra)
Swinson Thrush (Catharus ustulatus)
Wood Thrush (Hylocichla musteline)
Tennessee Warbler (Oreothlypis peregrine)
Katydid – leaf mimic and a green one
Yellow Throated Vireo (Vireo flavifrons)
Kentucky Warbler (Geothlypis Formosa)
Crab spider
Sloth (probably Bradypus variegatus),
Side Striped Palm Pit Viper (Bothriechis lateralis)
Golden Browed Chlorophonia (Chlorophonia callophrys)
White Throated Thrush (Turdus assimilis)
Blue Headed Motmot (Momotus coeruliceps)
Chachalaca (most likely Ortalis vetula)