Another early riser this morning. Up and at em and on the road by 6AM, an extraordinarily bumpy off road all day. Turns out we are in the middle of a tropical storm, so it’s even rainier than the normal rainy season. But alas we still got some solid animal sightings in between the rain. Before we took off in the van, we did a quick property walk. Not too much action besides some beautiful butterflies, a lizard here and there, and boat billed heron (funky bill that’s for sure).
On the road we started off by seeing macaws abnormally low eating almonds off a sea almond tree. The shells of the almonds are apparently stronger than coconut shells, but not a problem since apparently macaws can bite down with 750lbs of force.
Capuchins are the rarest monkeys to find here on Osa Pennisula, but it was the first troop (that’s the technical name for a group of monkeys) that we found. These monkeys are the smartest of the four types you find here. They are also quite malicious and kill baby mammals.
Next up was a baby black hawk eating a crab its mama caught for it. It squawked at us a lot and made sure we didn’t snag any of its breakfast.
I spied the next critter out of the adventure van and it ended up being a shy coati. It was eating some mangos from the mango tree it had climbed. This was our second time seeing a coati but the first time was only briefly, as a refresher they are cousins of the raccoon.
Gunter had the next spot, a sloth with what appeared to be an old but very deep wound on its back. Hopefully the sir is doing better these days. I won’t post a picture here to spare the guy his privacy.
And again with a monkey spotting, this time a sole howler monkey. Fact time, the howler monkey is the loudest land animal. Its hoots and hollas can be heard from three miles (five km for you European folk) away. The howler monkey can produce sounds that reach 140 decibels, as noisy as a jet engine taking off.
More birds after that. A red bellied bird called the red breasted meadowlark, contrasting nicely with the extra green grass from the pouring rain. And a lineated woodpecker doing what he does best, pecking wood.
An impressive silk orb weaver spider (aka banana spider), we boinged his web like a guitar string - it’s the strongest webbing of any spider. It’s considered a natural marvel, stronger than steel and up to 100x stronger than any synthetic material used for medical surgeries.
At the spot for lunch we spotted some absolutely beautiful grasshoppers (who knew grasshoppers could be beautiful). And chowed down on the best food of the trip by a mile made by a local family very casually amongst a host of road dogs that for sure had fleas (but I couldn’t resist the temptation to pet). The food was seasoned to perfection and what might sound simple was somehow complex with flavors. We had a guava like fruit drink fresh from their backyard tree, friend plantains, mango ceviche, cassava salad, beans, rice, and a pork stir fry. I wish I could go back for another round right about now. Also in their backyard were some turkey like bird called the Great Curassow. The guide was quite excited, and after our now research we found they are pretty close to extinction.
The rain let up in the afternoon to our surprise. We came across a truck that had been stuck in a ditch on a hill, who was now attempting to be towed out which was quite the scene. Simultaneously we found a large troop of spider monkeys, these guys have the strongest and most flexible prehensile tail of any mammal in the world. There were two monkeys that were cuddling which was pretty cute, but then a few more came over and four were cuddling which was even cuter. While this peaceful scene was unfolding the truck was successfully removed from the ditch, turned around and got stuck on the ditch on the other side haha. Again, as Gunter and I are excitedly snapping away photos of the monkeys, the truck manages to get down, tries to go back up the hill and falls back down the hill. And icing on the cake an impatient car that tries to pass by, also gets stuck in the ditch. So spider monkeys were accompanied by chaotic background activity.
Our spider monkey activity was not yet over. After this, we passed another grove with highly active monkeys. These guys were very playful and the star of the show was the baby. He/she was very curious about me and came down to curiously look me and my camera up and down. When I focused my energy on the other monkeys I found one in particular that wasn’t so happy about being there. It would come down and look me face to face quite closely and shake a branch aggressively at me. A few times I had to back up abruptly since I wasn’t too sure of its agenda. Now that we looked it up, it was apparently demonstrating its “fearlessness”. At the end of our viewing party they decided to descend from the tree one by one and run (okay their so called run was very embarrassing for them I must say), through the field up the soccer goal post and to the next grove of trees. This also is not very common they rarely decide to touch the ground.
Another successful day out in the jungle, and hopefully this time around you learned some more animal facts.Read more
Traveler Numme nit gsprängt! Powernap in luftiger Höh für 2 🐒🐒
Traveler Wieder ganz schöni 4 Sichte ufs Meer, wie uf ere Südsee-Insle. Gauguin lässt grüssen!
Traveler Find jo Hüsli-Schägge ganz härzigi, schützenswärti Tier. 🐌 Het sich do öbbe en Eisiedlerkräbs in eme fremde Hüsli breit gmacht?
Traveler Ja genau 🙂 Hat ganz viele hier