Costa Rica part 12: Manuel Antonio

Our last proper stop on our tour of Costa rica was along the southern coast at Manuel Antonio. This is half a beach resort and half a nature stop, as the National Park is right next door! It took us a few hours to drive there but we got to our very comfortable hotel overlooking the beach by mid afternoon.

We were set back from the beach a bit but I could still see lots of seabirds off the coast including a new trip tick, brown booby!

With an early start the following day to visit the park we just settled down to a lazy afternoon on the beach and in the hotel grounds. Two immediate highlights cropped up. First, a sloth right outside our room!

As befits its species it stayed soundly asleep all afternoon and I couldn't find it the following day! Much more compliant were the hermit crabs on the small beach. We sat having a nice pineapple smoothie and they were pottering about on the sand all around us. I had to have a play with them and set up a few shots with one that I started to annoy a bit.

There were also quite a few large iguanas wandering around, though the waiting staff seemed less keen on having them in the actual beach restaurant. I suspect they waited till after dark and then scavenged around!

The following day, our only full here, we set off just after an early breakfast for the short trip to the national park next door. We got there before the main rush, but it was still quite busy. Fortunately we had a very good guide who found us lots of nice stuff.

The main things was sloths, both two- and three-toed. We saw 13 or 14 including mothers with young. Some were hard to see in the trees, others were much easier and lower down.

 The strangest one is the last one, the three-toed with a baby. This was in a palm tree right on the beach with sunbathers sitting right underneath it! I had to be very careful where I pointed the camera.
The beach was very popular with locals who were coming down to picnic and of course in Costa rica where there are picnickers there are monkeys. These were particularly tame and clearly on the make.

You had both squirrel and white-faced capuchins hanging around. One had even worked out how to drink from a water-fountain!

We also saw quite a few nice birds. The rarest was this great tinamou, like a large chicken in the undergrowth.

This lesser nighthawk, a close relative of our nightjar, was a good find, though as ever how much it was a guides-banker as it always roosted there you'll never know!

We did see a few hummingbirds though they were generally elusive. This crowned woodnymph was defending a territory deep in cover but did stop to preen once! Very difficult to see here but it had beautiful iridescent plumage.

It wasn't only birds, we also had good views of a giant red-winged grasshopper,

and helmeted iguanas.

The star of the show was actually outside the park. On the road leading to our hotel was a large tree behind a cafe. The guide stopped and ushered us out. On the branch was a black-and-white owl with its chick!

This was right beside a very busy road. I actually had two go's at it. On the following day when we were leaving I stopped and got out. Other tourists kept asking me what I was looking at and seemed very disappointed it wasn't only an owl and not a sloth. No pleasing some people I suppose!

A very nice finish to our last proper stop before we headed back to San Jose for our flight home. Hopefully even this would give us another chance to see some wildlife though!