Hello everybody. We've left Peru and are now in Costa Rica. To start our adventure, we were picked up by a guide named Mario from the Turtle Beach Lodge who showed us around some of the Costa Rican rain forest in Tortuguero National Park. At around 1 p.m., we got to Lodge, which stayed at for the next three nights. The first night, we went out on a night walk through the rain forest to look for red-eyed tree frogs. Not only did we get to see them, but we saw them mating, which Mario had only seen once before in his ten years of guiding.The next morning, we went on another walk through the jungle and saw
some hard-to-find white tent bats. These bats chew on the edge of a
palm leaf until the ends fall down and forms a tent. There were seven
little white bats all huddled together under the leaf and each one was
only about the size of a thumb.
On
another walk we took, we saw a different type of tent bat that was just
as tiny, but brown in color. Mario told us that about half of all the
mammals that live in Costa Rica are bats.
That night, after doing a zip line through the canopy of the rain forest during the afternoon, we met up with one of Mario's friends named Josh who manages a research station run by the Canadian Organization for Tropical Education and Rain Forest Conservation. As part of his research there, he took us out to search and count for caiman. Caiman are like small crocs that live in the rain forest wetlands.
To find them, we looked for their eye-shine with a flashlight and it didn't take long to find a bunch of babies. Josh even picked one up and let us hold it (with him supervising of course!).
After
we left the babies, we found a larger one that Josh went over and
grabbed so he could examine it. While he had it out of the water he
told us all about it. Later that night we saw an Annulated Tree Boa
snake, which Josh had been hoping to find for a long time. He made a
bag out of his shirt so that he could bring it with him back to the
research station to take some photos. Stefan and I told him the GPS
coordinates of the tree we found the boa in so that Josh could put the
snake back in the same tree when he was done studying it.
The next day we went on a canal tour with Mario and the first thing we saw was a very colorful bird called a Rufescent Tiger Heron. We saw a bunch of other cool birds and turtles, but the best part was seeing a river otter eating a crab and playing in the water. During the afternoon we went back out exploring on the canals, but this time in a canoe. We ended up seeing lots of spider monkeys and cool looking white-faced capuchins.
For our last night in the rain forest, we went on to the beach to see if we could find any turtles coming up to lay their eggs on the beach. By August, thousands of green sea turtles will come to this beach to lay their eggs. But we saw nothing, so we went on another walk through the forest. There we saw more red-eyed tree frogs, some insects shedding their shells, and some cool reptiles. One of the coolest ones we saw in the rain forest was what they call the Jesus Christ lizard, because it runs on water. We didn't see them run on water, but they're really cool to see run on land too.
Now we said goodbye to Mario and next we're going to check out a cloud forest. So, that's all for this blog.
That night, after doing a zip line through the canopy of the rain forest during the afternoon, we met up with one of Mario's friends named Josh who manages a research station run by the Canadian Organization for Tropical Education and Rain Forest Conservation. As part of his research there, he took us out to search and count for caiman. Caiman are like small crocs that live in the rain forest wetlands.
To find them, we looked for their eye-shine with a flashlight and it didn't take long to find a bunch of babies. Josh even picked one up and let us hold it (with him supervising of course!).
After
we left the babies, we found a larger one that Josh went over and
grabbed so he could examine it. While he had it out of the water he
told us all about it. Later that night we saw an Annulated Tree Boa
snake, which Josh had been hoping to find for a long time. He made a
bag out of his shirt so that he could bring it with him back to the
research station to take some photos. Stefan and I told him the GPS
coordinates of the tree we found the boa in so that Josh could put the
snake back in the same tree when he was done studying it.The next day we went on a canal tour with Mario and the first thing we saw was a very colorful bird called a Rufescent Tiger Heron. We saw a bunch of other cool birds and turtles, but the best part was seeing a river otter eating a crab and playing in the water. During the afternoon we went back out exploring on the canals, but this time in a canoe. We ended up seeing lots of spider monkeys and cool looking white-faced capuchins.
For our last night in the rain forest, we went on to the beach to see if we could find any turtles coming up to lay their eggs on the beach. By August, thousands of green sea turtles will come to this beach to lay their eggs. But we saw nothing, so we went on another walk through the forest. There we saw more red-eyed tree frogs, some insects shedding their shells, and some cool reptiles. One of the coolest ones we saw in the rain forest was what they call the Jesus Christ lizard, because it runs on water. We didn't see them run on water, but they're really cool to see run on land too.
Now we said goodbye to Mario and next we're going to check out a cloud forest. So, that's all for this blog.
I can't imagine a red-eyed tree frog! I can only imagine a orange eyed tree frog!