'Olla' everyone. I'm in Costa Rica and having a great time seeing animals and rare birds.
We went to a town in the mountains called Monteverde where we stayed in a tree house. It was really cool because we were in the cloud forest and had a great view. One morning, we went on a guided hike in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve. Having a guide was important because they really know where to look for stuff. The most amazing thing we saw was the rare Quetzal bird.
When we were finishing our hike, there were all these guides with telescopes and binoculars running around because someone had spotted a Quetzal. So we followed them and everyone was chasing the bird around, including us. Every minute the Quetzal would fly to a different tree, so everyone would go running again. It was really funny. Finally the Quetzal stayed in one tree and we got a really good look at it and even got pictures of it through our guide's telescope.We spotted a male, which has two beautiful long feathers that they use to attract a female. Check out Tyler's blog for a great picture of it from the front and here's a good one I got of the cool tail feathers:
We went to a town in the mountains called Monteverde where we stayed in a tree house. It was really cool because we were in the cloud forest and had a great view. One morning, we went on a guided hike in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve. Having a guide was important because they really know where to look for stuff. The most amazing thing we saw was the rare Quetzal bird.
When we were finishing our hike, there were all these guides with telescopes and binoculars running around because someone had spotted a Quetzal. So we followed them and everyone was chasing the bird around, including us. Every minute the Quetzal would fly to a different tree, so everyone would go running again. It was really funny. Finally the Quetzal stayed in one tree and we got a really good look at it and even got pictures of it through our guide's telescope.We spotted a male, which has two beautiful long feathers that they use to attract a female. Check out Tyler's blog for a great picture of it from the front and here's a good one I got of the cool tail feathers:
They only have these feathers in breeding season and after that they
drop them and then grow new ones the next breeding season. What is also
cool about these birds is that they find each other and then after
breeding season they separate, but find each other again the next year.
Monteverde has a park called Selvatore, where we went on a treetop canopy walk along a bunch of suspended bridges. We also checked out their bug and snake exhibits. All of the bugs were dead and in glass cases, pinned to the wall, or displayed on a table. There were 500,000 different types of bugs here, some really big and others pretty tiny. They had lots of butterflies, giant cockroaches, jewel-colored beetles, tarantulas, and praying mantises.
The
reptiles were also really cool. They had all kinds of snakes, lizards
and frogs. I liked all the different tree frogs, dart frogs and the
huge cane toad the best. But walking thru cage after cage with all of
those venomous and non-venomous snakes made me really glad that they
were all behind glass!
Costa Rica is filled with so much cool stuff to see and do! I'll tell you more about it in my next post.
Monteverde has a park called Selvatore, where we went on a treetop canopy walk along a bunch of suspended bridges. We also checked out their bug and snake exhibits. All of the bugs were dead and in glass cases, pinned to the wall, or displayed on a table. There were 500,000 different types of bugs here, some really big and others pretty tiny. They had lots of butterflies, giant cockroaches, jewel-colored beetles, tarantulas, and praying mantises.
The
reptiles were also really cool. They had all kinds of snakes, lizards
and frogs. I liked all the different tree frogs, dart frogs and the
huge cane toad the best. But walking thru cage after cage with all of
those venomous and non-venomous snakes made me really glad that they
were all behind glass!Costa Rica is filled with so much cool stuff to see and do! I'll tell you more about it in my next post.
hi i must tell i am from costa rica and i do not really know what you mean by olla i think you wee trying to say hola which is hello in spanish
Well hola Stefan and when you Olla it is Hola now i am from costa rica and the thing ia that i have seen what you have seen but i have the most rareist bird in the worrld!!!!