The following day we had a morning excursion to a nearby nature reserve, if that is the right phrase for a country that is one giant nature reserve anyway! This was to the hanging bridges, a series of walkways in the canopy of the rainforest in the shadow of the volcano. Carrying on the theme we were on the "early-bird" tour which meant we were at the park not long after dawn, and were the first car in the car park. We were greeted by a lone coatimundi scavenging around the waste bins at the entrance!
It didn't hang about and I suspect wasn't a welcome guest when the tourist hordes arrived later on! Our guide took us on a walk for the next couple of hours which took us round the forest and over about 15 bridges, both suspension and fixed.
There was a lot of wildlife around in the forest, much of it easier to hear than to see, with a few mixed flocks of birds coming though causing bursts of excitement. If they were hard to see they were even harder to photograph so we had more success with leaf and tree shots!
We did find a few wee beasties to photograph, the most interesting probably being this eye-lash viper.
This is a small snake, only a few inches long and a bit larger than pencil in thickness. It is one of the most dangerous in CR though, with only a few minute drops of its venom being deadly! It is for this reason that you are advised to keep your hands well and truly away from plants, bushes, walkways, leaves etc as one could be lurking anywhere. We kept a very discrete distance away from the one, which was only a foot off the main path!!!
Another surprise was these white-lined bats on a tree. Apparently when they roost they line up along the trunk, it is thought to mimic the outline of a snake and put-off potential predators!
This strange construction is the end of a bee nest. They are absolutely tiny little bees which you can just see at the tube entrance. The nest is further into the crack of the tree. The bees themselves are stingless and are one of a number of similar species in CR. They produce honey which is said to have a number of medicinal uses. Although stingless they are not defenceless. If an invader enters the nest then soldier bees will vigorously flap their wings, creating a rise in temperature in the nest which will overcome the invader but not the bees.
Bird photos were generally not of the publishable quality but these two at least you can see the bird. The first is a second species of woodcreeper, this time wedge-billed, a smaller, more delicate bird than streak-headed with a plainer breast and neck.
One of the rarer birds we saw, pottering about in the leaf-litter were these song wrens. CR has a variety of wren species, most of which were lurkers and hard to see but not hard to hear.
We also saw a number of other nice birds, including ruddy tree runner (endemic to CR), yellow-throated vireo, bay wren, orange-billed sparrow, northern waterthrush, crimson-collared tanager and slate-coloured grosbeak.
By the time we had finished our tour the car park was filling up with tour coaches and mainstream tourists heading out for their walks. Another good tour in this wonderful country.
No comments:
Post a Comment