Early Morning Walk: Carara Biological Reserve, Costa Rica

Posted on Saturday, Aug 4, 2012

Saturday, March 11, 2000

Mindful of our earlier experience at Manuel Antonio National Park, Darla and I got up particularly early to return to Carara Biological Reserve for a morning walk along the edge of a river. It was still cool and comfortable at this hour as evidenced by the fact that we gave no thought at all to the tropical climate. What did get our attention was the wildlife: There were anhingas diving for fish while other birds watched from the trees. There were basilisks (aka Jesus Christ lizards) running across the water; and giant iguanas wandering down the middle of the trail. There were hummingbirds hovering around the heliconias and morning glories. And there were little crocs hanging out along the riverbank, no doubt biding their time until becoming big enough to compete with the man-eaters in the main channel of the Rio Tarcoles. (These juvenile crocs may actually have been caiman. It can be hard to tell them apart. Caiman tend to be shy so one rule of thumb is that if it runs it is a caiman; if it eats you it is a croc.)

At one point we heard a creature thrashing through the underbrush just off trail. I imagined it being a wild boar. A wild boar is the last thing you want to encounter in the forest. They will come after you. When being chased by a wild boar, climbing a tree is the recommended response—though this too has a downside as there are plenty of tree-dwelling creatures you want to avoid as well. Then there is the fact that not all trees are meant to be climbed. In this case the ruckus turned out to be a coatimundi that headed in the opposite direction as soon as it spotted us.

[Click on a thumbnail to view the entire image.]

©2012 Timothy Linn. All Rights Reserved.

Insects? What Insects? Carara Biological Reserve, Costa Rica

Posted on Saturday, Jul 28, 2012

Friday, March 10, 2000

Costa Rica is amazing in its abundance of life. At Carara Biological Reserve, with scarlet macaws in the air, monkeys in the trees, and man-eating crocs in rivers, you would be excused for overlooking the tiny creatures right at your feet. Yet spend a moment or two focused on the ground and you will encounter all sorts of insects not likely found in your back yard. It only took a few minutes for Darla, Mimi, Papa T, and I to discover leaf-cutter ants, yellow-banded millipedes (a description I just made up), little clouds of flying…somethings, and little piles of red something elses.

The leaf-cutter ants were particularly interesting. Thousands of them were walking along the edge of the trail on their way to and from their nest. The procession was hundreds of feet long—and that was just the part of it that we could see from the trail. Some poor tree or bush was having a bad day.

[Click on a thumbnail to view the entire image.]

©2012 Timothy Linn. All Rights Reserved.

On the Beach: Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica

Posted on Saturday, Jul 21, 2012

Wedneday, March 8, 2000

Manuel Antonio’s wildlife isn’t confined to the trees. There were plenty of interesting creatures underfoot as well. Iguanas were everywhere, in all sizes and colors. I particularly liked this blue one with which we crossed paths as we emerged from the jungle onto a beach.

I stood for several minutes watching waves come in from the Pacific Ocean before noticing movement on the beach. Upon closer inspection I realized that it was covered with small pink crabs leaving little trails as they ventured back and forth from their holes in the sand. I lingered for a good 10 minutes trying to capture a successful image of them with my soft-and-slow 75-300.

In the trees just off the beach we encountered a two-foot tall bird that seemed completely unconcerned with our presence. In fact, if the iguana seemed indifferent, this bird seemed a little friendly. Maybe it was the dog eyes.

After grabbing a shot of Fido, the bird, I noticed that the sand beneath my feet was moving. More crabs. Only this time it was hermit crabs—bunches and bunches of them. And these aren’t the cute little size-of-a-fingernail hermit crabs you find along the shore in Hawaii; these guys were big.

[Click on a thumbnail to view the entire image.]

©2012 Timothy Linn. All Rights Reserved.

In the Trees: Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica

Posted on Saturday, Jul 14, 2012

Wednesday, March 8, 2000

The crescent beaches and abundant wildlife of Costa Rica’s Manuel Antonio National Park make it one of the most popular in all of Costa Rica. In fact, it is so popular that Darla and I considered bypassing it altogether, not wanting to compete with the crowds in what is a relatively tiny park. We ultimately decided to dedicate a day to the area and were rewarded with the best wildlife experience of our entire trip.

Our exploration began early. We had arranged for a private guide through our hotel the previous evening. This guide turned out to be a friendly teenager, maybe 16 or 17 years old, who met us at our Quepos hotel before anyone else was up. We rode with him in the back of a beat up pickup truck to the park, where the three of us were dropped off with the sun still low in the sky.

It didn’t take long before our guide proved his worth, pointing out birds and sloths that we would have otherwise missed. He walked over to a large, drooping leaf in some nearby vegetation to reveal a bat that had taken up residence there for the day. Before I had a chance to lift my camera with its glacially-slow-focusing 75-300mm lens, the bat decided to relocate to a more solitary location.

No guide was needed to spot the monkeys. The howler monkeys could be heard from a quarter mile away; they are loud. The capuchin monkeys all seemed stricken with an extreme case of ADHD. They don’t exactly sneak up on you either. We only caught a glimpse of a capuchin during this morning walk.

We also discovered the snake on our own; our guide wanted nothing to do with it. He didn’t know what kind it was and did his best to keep us away from it. I would have moved in closer but I couldn’t locate its head at the time. (It is only as I look at this image now that, for the first time, I see it.)

It was good that we had arrived as early as we did. By mid-morning the beaches and trails were filling up; and it was getting hot. Our guide took us up a short steep trail to a viewpoint overlooking the coastline. It was a nice view but the walk up in the heat and humidity made Darla sick. We decided it would be smart to return to our hotel room so Darla could rest.

By late afternoon it had begun to cool off so we decided to drive back to the park on our own. I hoped that we might catch sight of the capuchin monkey we’d seen earlier in the day. In the short time it took to reach the park entrance, Darla realized she didn’t have the energy to participate in my monkey quest. She waited in our rented 4Runner while I grabbed my camera and returned with fingers crossed to the place we had spotted the capuchin that morning.

Neither of us really expected to see that monkey again so I was surprised and delighted to discover not just a single capuchin but an entire troupe of them waiting for me as I arrived back at the spot of our previous encounter. Some were lounging around on branches while others swung around in the trees harassing each other with no concern whatsoever over my presence among them. They put on quite the performance. Darla didn’t believe me when I got back to the 4Runner and told her what I had seen. If not for the photographs, she might still be skeptical.

[Click on a thumbnail to view the entire image.]

©2012 Timothy Linn. All Rights Reserved.

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon

Posted on Saturday, Jun 30, 2012

April 21-22, 2012

One of the first trips we took in our camper was a January 2005 expedition to the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex. We had a great time among the largest concentration of bald eagles and other raptors in the lower 48 states. It took another 8 years before we got around to exploring the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, 150 miles to our east. Once we did we wondered why we had waited so long.

We were actually here a few weeks past the peak of activity along this section of the Pacific flyway but there were plenty of birds nonetheless. Even for a non-birder like myself, it was impossible not to be impressed by the sheer variety and number of birds that could be found in and around the refuge. In fact, more birds can be found outside the refuge than in it at this time of year.

The only thing more abundant than birds were insects. We saw (and drove through) billowing clouds of them. Fortunately, none of them bit; they were strictly flying food. It is easy to see why insect-loving birds would be attracted to the area. Yellow-headed and red-winged blackbirds could be seen everywhere performing aerial manuevers as they plucked insects out of the air. As they paused to rest on a reed or a fencepost they would look up at all the insects and call out as if overwhelmed by the abundance.

[Click on a thumbnail to view the entire image.]

©2012 Timothy Linn. All Rights Reserved.