February 20 – Corcovado National Park

We were up very, very early this morning to catch our 6:00am tour to Corcovado National Park.  It was so early that the sun wasn’t quite up. The light was beautiful though.

The tour starts with a half hour boat ride to the park.  Corcovado National Park is only accessible by boat.  We are a group of four.  The other couple, Lee and David, are from South Dakota.

A half hour after launching we arrived at a small bay where the boat backed up to the beach and we all waded ashore. There is a ranger station here and facilities...

and a nearby small stream that we needed to wade across to get to the jungle path.

The entire morning is a nature walk.  The park contains the largest area of old growth/virgin forest on the American Pacific Coastline...

and there our guide, Jose, found many animals for us. 

Brown Pelican on the rocks along the beach

very white and very large Fungi

Common Clelia Clelia (harmless but pretty annoyed by the time Jose let him go)

Golden Orb Spider (we tied plucking a piece of the web…very strong).  The web was huge and glowed in the sun.

The male is really tiny compared to the female.  In this photo you can see it almost directly above the female.

And the spider gets its name from the web that looks golden when the sun is on it just right.

Common Agouti.  He was very shy and hard to photograph...he was buried in the bushes.

Common Black Hawk

Howler Monkey

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Video of Howler Monkey
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White Nosed Coati.  We saw a band of these busily moving about the forest floor.  They totally ignored us.  

We also saw one in a tree...

and one on the beach.  He appeared to be munching on a coconut (or maybe it was the hermit crabs in the coconut). 

Black Throated Trogon

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Video of Black Throated Trogon
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Hermit Crabs on the beach

Woodpecker

Black Cheek Tanager

Passion Flower (gets its name from the Passion of Christ…12 petals for the 12 apostles, etc.)

Female Blue Crowned Manakin

Ant Eating Bats

Yellow Headed Caracara hanging out on the beach

Northern Tamandua Anteater.  I didn't know anteaters climbed trees but these sure can.  

We also saw Black Palms with it's wicked spikes all along the trunk...

and palm tree seedlings.  

The walk looped through the forest to a small stream...

and then we headed back along the beach for a while.  

We took a break on the beach and sat down on a log while Jose gave us a tutorial on how to open coconuts.  He was just about done with the coconuts when a scarlet macaw sailed into a nearby tree.  We cut the demo short and all had a good time taking photos of the macaw.  He spent a lot of time in the tree eating his way through leaves and the almonds on the tree.  We got lots of good photos.

When we made it back to the station we had some snacks.  We also got to see a crocodile floating around in the water near the beach.  They usually stay in fresh and brackish water but do occasionally spend some time in the ocean (the river outlet was right by the beach so the crocodile probably had wandered out to sea recently. 

We were back at the hotel by about 1:00.  We had lunch at the bar patio overlooking the pool and bay.  Lovely views, Mary took a shower and worked on photos.  Paul took a nap.  Then it was dinner and another early bedtime as we have another very early tour tomorrow.