Manuel Antonio National Pack and Curu Wildlife Refuge
Well I don’t really know how to start the description of our first day of the trip but I guess it will be fair to say that we had an incredible day, but let me start at the beginning.
We awoke this morning in front of Manuel Antonio National Park, one of the smallest national parks of Costa Rica and located on the central Pacific of the country. And today we found that the size of the place does not speak for what it has to offer.
Today, we had a great time in this place. The first part of the morning we explored the trails looking for wildlife and we got very lucky in our search. We got to see howler monkeys, white throated capuchin monkeys, central American agouti, but the one that won the morning was the sloths. We were lucky enough to see two species today: the two toed sloth and many more of the three toed sloth, both very well camouflaged in the treetops above our heads. These are some of the slowest creatures in the planet and one of the most primitive mammals still living. They are slow because they feed on leaves, which are a low energy diet and digesting consumes much of their energy. To save energy the sloth can vary its body temperature, lowering it at night when less energy is required.
On our way back from the trail some of us were lucky to see one of the best camouflaged birds of this forest, a common pauraque nesting on the ground which you can see in today’s picture…
Can you see it? Are you sure?
These are birds related to the night hawks, nightjars or goatsuckers and their plumage is a cryptic blending of brown, buff, gray, and black, mottled, streak, vermiculated, or barred. The birds have tiny bills but spacious mouths surrounded by bristles; their eyes are large for nocturnal vision.
During lunch the ship was reposition to the Peninsula de Nicoya and during the sailing we got to see dolphins and a cow/calf humpback whales. Once on the Peninsula we explored the unique ecosystem of tropical dry forest of Curu Wildlife Refuge in which we got to see more monkeys, and even more species of birds.
Well I don’t really know how to start the description of our first day of the trip but I guess it will be fair to say that we had an incredible day, but let me start at the beginning.
We awoke this morning in front of Manuel Antonio National Park, one of the smallest national parks of Costa Rica and located on the central Pacific of the country. And today we found that the size of the place does not speak for what it has to offer.
Today, we had a great time in this place. The first part of the morning we explored the trails looking for wildlife and we got very lucky in our search. We got to see howler monkeys, white throated capuchin monkeys, central American agouti, but the one that won the morning was the sloths. We were lucky enough to see two species today: the two toed sloth and many more of the three toed sloth, both very well camouflaged in the treetops above our heads. These are some of the slowest creatures in the planet and one of the most primitive mammals still living. They are slow because they feed on leaves, which are a low energy diet and digesting consumes much of their energy. To save energy the sloth can vary its body temperature, lowering it at night when less energy is required.
On our way back from the trail some of us were lucky to see one of the best camouflaged birds of this forest, a common pauraque nesting on the ground which you can see in today’s picture…
Can you see it? Are you sure?
These are birds related to the night hawks, nightjars or goatsuckers and their plumage is a cryptic blending of brown, buff, gray, and black, mottled, streak, vermiculated, or barred. The birds have tiny bills but spacious mouths surrounded by bristles; their eyes are large for nocturnal vision.
During lunch the ship was reposition to the Peninsula de Nicoya and during the sailing we got to see dolphins and a cow/calf humpback whales. Once on the Peninsula we explored the unique ecosystem of tropical dry forest of Curu Wildlife Refuge in which we got to see more monkeys, and even more species of birds.
