Costa Rica Vacation - The Wildlife

The Wildlife in Costa Rica is just amazing.

As you may know from my travels, we only visited 3 main locations for wildlife in Costa Rica, but we certainly saw more than we bargained for.

I’ve just summarized here the main types of animals you can see in the various locations and what you might see if you had the patience (and a really good guide).  I have included some of our photos and amazing videos……

Monte Verde/Santa Elena:
In the mountains, you had very lush cloud forests, and plenty of birds, mammals and insects to see.

During the day, there were plenty of birds either soaring above the valleys like the turkey vultures, or sitting in the trees calling out - many of which you couldn’t see! Our guides knew their calls so we at least knew what we weren’t seeing!! This included quetzals and wattled bellbirds amongst others.

Almost everywhere there were flowers there were hummingbirds, at least 6 species were seen almost every day, including the ubiquitous rufous-tailed hummer. Giant guans would just sit in the trees watching you while tinamou pecked their way across the leaf litter.

Beautiful mot-mots and manakins were all around the secondary forests, but hard to identify as there are so many different types around, and we also saw one single keel-billed toucan high up in the canopy.

Around the town there were many swifts and more vultures, along with flycatchers (and the kiskadee), wrens and the easy to spot grackles. We also saw some parrot-lets, but flying too high to identify.

Mammals were also plentiful here, with sloth, agouti, capuchin monkeys and coatis around almost every corner in the quieter reserves - but in the main cloud forests we didn’t see a soul except a tame collared peccary.

Insect life was abundant - but you should do the night tours if you want to see them (and hear them) in their glory, along with frogs and scorpions included, or not do the night tours if you can’t stand cockroaches as they were everywhere in Monte Verde!!! Bats were also feeding at the hummingbirds feeders at night.

Did I forget to mention the hundreds of orange-kneed tarantulas in the banks and sides of all the footpaths!!!!!

Samara:
Down in the heat here, we had more ctenosaurs (black iguanas) than you could shake a stick at - it really was a giant reptile resort. They didn’t do much, but they were quite a size!

A whole range of different birds were here - along with our friend the rufous-tailed hummer - including giant frigate birds, wading birds and many green parrots of all sizes as well as the splendid blue jay - and my favourite the little noisy and brightly coloured rufous-naped wren.

Mammals were narrowed down to just variegated squirrels and howler monkeys (which isn’t a bad deal really) but there were plenty of dogs and horses roaming the streets and the beach to keep your attention.

We also saw quite a few snakes here, along with gecko’s, cane toads, small lizards and damselflies - and mosquitoes!!!!!

Arenal/La Fortuna:
This area had the largest variety or mammals that we had come across with more sloths as well as anteaters, agouti’s and howler monkeys. It was also a great place for bird variety with both keel-billed and emerald toucans all over the place, along with dozens of smaller birds including the tanagers and manakins, parrots, trogons, tree creepers, flycatchers and the amazing oropendola’s with their giant hanging nests.

Add to this the huge numbers of soaring birds including black vultures, swallow-tailed kites, hawks and falcons circling the volcano sides and you have quite a ’twitchers’ fest! Oh and don’t forget even more hummingbirds here!!!

Insects were also abundant here with leaf-cutter ants leading the way. A vast number of butterflies including the blue morpho could be seen along with swallowtails and glass-wings, but also snakes, frogs and small lizards were around if you stopped to look - we found a bright yellow eyelash viper at the side of the road leading the Arenal Volcano which was almost invisible - which is really frightening - you could have leant against that bank to catch your breath without thinking!!!

A fantastic trip to nearby Cano Negro with Canoa Aventura was where we found the beautiful water birds including the perching anhinga’s and cormorants and the circling wood storks! Plenty of spoonbill, ibis and heron for any bird lover here! Not many ducks, but woodrails and jacandas were on every corner as well as active kingfishers the length of the river.

You will also find a huge number of caiman in the water, and we were lucky to spot a feeding boa on the river bank - swallowing a huge iguana.

We were also very lucky to see a troupe of capuchins dangling off the trees over the river, scooping up water to drink with their hands - very dangerous with all the caiman around!!!

Add to this some amazingly vibrant green basilisks sun-bathing on the banks alongside uneaten green iguanas (over 3ft long), several types of turtle and some well camouflaged Brazilian long-nosed bats on a low tree which really took some staring at to make out which was tree and which was bat!

I haven’t named everything we saw in our month long visit, but it included hundreds of creatures that we were able to identify - imagine all those we saw (or walked right past) that we couldn’t record.

We can’t wait to go back next year!!

.