Today we awoke to the distant sounds of roosters crowing at a reasonable time of 7am.
The mornings activities included making a cheap breakfast in the cabin & relaxing by the pool.
I finished another book, a book that I only started 2 days ago called The Anomaly by Michael Rutger. The completion of this book takes my count up to 30 books since March, Ive read more books while on holiday this year, than I have over the past 3 years! It's not a bad read & I've enjoyed actually having a paper book in my hand as opposed to the digital kindle app.
We had another veggie burger for lunch at the soda across the road & waited patiently for the afternoon to tick towards us. I've organised a local sloth sighting tour & I'm super excited to finally see one of these totally adorable & very strange creatures in the wild.
The tour started at 2pm & we were picked up by our guides who were called Oscar & Gerald. There was 8 of us who wanted to do the tour & we were all very excited. After being picked up we drove 15 minutes down the road to a section of bushland that is being protected for the resident sloths. The tree's & a small stream create a corridor between residential areas. The sloths are protected, as is the tree's they live in. Costa Rica has an awe inspiring amount of protected habitat, however the sloths who stay 'protected' in residential areas, like this one, face challenges from living so close to humans.
Each sloth is said to have a territory of 40 trees & they move from tree to tree eating the younger leaves. Having nowhere else to go & only a few potential mates, the sloths that remain stranded here could have problems from inbreeding. Other such problems are from dogs & humans, we were surprised to learn that sloths can move quickly when they want to & can use their claws to defend themselves. The guides know of a local dog who has scars disfiguring his face after he went to attack a sloth. Sadly, the guides also know of 2 other local dogs who aren't allowed to leave their property after they killed a sloth. Sloths of the same sex will also fight each other.
It's a very precarious situation for these sloths, a situation that the community, guides, environmentalist's & government is trying to solve. There is some understandable resistance about relocating them & Costa Rica tries very hard to limit the handling, disturbing or having sloths in captivity. In Costa Rica they aren't endangered, however they use to live from Mexico right down to Costa Rica & mass deforestation in other countries has led to their disappearance.
There are 2 species that we could see today in this region, the 3 toed sloth & the 2 toed sloth. Within these 2 species there are sub species which can be found in South America.
At 2.20pm we saw the first sloth which was a 2 toed sloth, hiding in a dense patch of vines. This one wasn't in a position to see with binoculars or the scope & us tourists really struggled to find it. If the guides didn't have a green laser pointer to direct our eyes towards the sloth, it would have been nearly impossible. It was very exciting, we had only been searching less than 5 minutes before the guides spotted it.
The 2nd sloth was found within minutes after the first. A fully grown female 3 toed sloth who was moving along a branch! She was surprisingly active & very photogenic. We're very lucky to have seen a 3 toed sloth so soon. Nearly all sloth sightings in this region are the 2 toed sloth. We spent ages watching her & she could be seen with the naked eye from where we were standing. However, looking through binoculars or one of the two scopes that the guides brought along, rewarded you with lots of detail. You could see her smiling face, claws, colours of her fur, particularly her green back which was the moss on her fur. We could also see the moths that lived with the moss in her fur, sloth moths! Haha it's a bit of a tongue twister.
By 2.38pm we had seen a large iguana in another nearby tree & another large 2 toed sloth, who was lounging across a branch, partially obscured.
Our guides with their incredible eyes have found the fourth one, a 3 toed sloth, sitting right at the top of the tree, scratching. I can't believe how many we've seen or how lucky we were to see the 2 toed female sloth in such a prime position.
We walked back & around to the other side of the 'tree corridor' & nearly immediately spotted 1 young female 3 toed sloth sitting high in a tree & underneath her was another 3 toed sloth that we could see in amongst vines. This one wasn't in a photographic position & again without the laser pointed help from our guides we would have missed it.
While we gawked at the female in the tree who was being very photographic & showed off eating leaves, the guides found a tiny blue trouser dart frog. It was only the size of a finger nail & posses a potent Neuro toxin that the indigenous people would put on the tips of their darts & spears.
Sloth 7 was found by 3.06pm & it was a 3 toed sloth which was a young female. She was hanging out & looking directly at the scopes, we got a great view of her head.
We left in the van to go to a large tree were yesterday a male & female were spotted together. We drove 200 metres down the road to the tree.
We saw the male first & it's another 3 toed sloth. He's sitting with his back towards us & his sex is identifiable by the stripe on his back. The guides shortly after found the female who was sitting right at the top of the tree.
I can't believe we have seen 9 sloths! It was really nice to see them not in cages, though I do worry about their future in this particular clump of trees.
As if the day couldn't get any better, we started our hunt for Toucans, a bird that I was dying to see! Our first sighting was the Black Mandibled Toucan. They are quite large boys, undeniably exotic & with very cheeky personalities. They literally hop along the tree branches & each species makes different noises, some squawk, while others make a deeper noise like a frog & another species sounds like a dog's squeaky toy. The Black Mandible'd Toucan, didn't stick around for too long, but Tom managed to get a good picture.
Our next sighting was that of the more widely known keel billed Toucan, Rainbow Toucan or Fruit loops bird! How gorgeous are those colours ?! I'm so glad we got to see 2 together in the wild that were frolicking around on a branch & gave us plenty of photo opportunities.
- Alli
The mornings activities included making a cheap breakfast in the cabin & relaxing by the pool.
I finished another book, a book that I only started 2 days ago called The Anomaly by Michael Rutger. The completion of this book takes my count up to 30 books since March, Ive read more books while on holiday this year, than I have over the past 3 years! It's not a bad read & I've enjoyed actually having a paper book in my hand as opposed to the digital kindle app.
We had another veggie burger for lunch at the soda across the road & waited patiently for the afternoon to tick towards us. I've organised a local sloth sighting tour & I'm super excited to finally see one of these totally adorable & very strange creatures in the wild.
The tour started at 2pm & we were picked up by our guides who were called Oscar & Gerald. There was 8 of us who wanted to do the tour & we were all very excited. After being picked up we drove 15 minutes down the road to a section of bushland that is being protected for the resident sloths. The tree's & a small stream create a corridor between residential areas. The sloths are protected, as is the tree's they live in. Costa Rica has an awe inspiring amount of protected habitat, however the sloths who stay 'protected' in residential areas, like this one, face challenges from living so close to humans.
Each sloth is said to have a territory of 40 trees & they move from tree to tree eating the younger leaves. Having nowhere else to go & only a few potential mates, the sloths that remain stranded here could have problems from inbreeding. Other such problems are from dogs & humans, we were surprised to learn that sloths can move quickly when they want to & can use their claws to defend themselves. The guides know of a local dog who has scars disfiguring his face after he went to attack a sloth. Sadly, the guides also know of 2 other local dogs who aren't allowed to leave their property after they killed a sloth. Sloths of the same sex will also fight each other.
It's a very precarious situation for these sloths, a situation that the community, guides, environmentalist's & government is trying to solve. There is some understandable resistance about relocating them & Costa Rica tries very hard to limit the handling, disturbing or having sloths in captivity. In Costa Rica they aren't endangered, however they use to live from Mexico right down to Costa Rica & mass deforestation in other countries has led to their disappearance.
There are 2 species that we could see today in this region, the 3 toed sloth & the 2 toed sloth. Within these 2 species there are sub species which can be found in South America.
At 2.20pm we saw the first sloth which was a 2 toed sloth, hiding in a dense patch of vines. This one wasn't in a position to see with binoculars or the scope & us tourists really struggled to find it. If the guides didn't have a green laser pointer to direct our eyes towards the sloth, it would have been nearly impossible. It was very exciting, we had only been searching less than 5 minutes before the guides spotted it.
The 2nd sloth was found within minutes after the first. A fully grown female 3 toed sloth who was moving along a branch! She was surprisingly active & very photogenic. We're very lucky to have seen a 3 toed sloth so soon. Nearly all sloth sightings in this region are the 2 toed sloth. We spent ages watching her & she could be seen with the naked eye from where we were standing. However, looking through binoculars or one of the two scopes that the guides brought along, rewarded you with lots of detail. You could see her smiling face, claws, colours of her fur, particularly her green back which was the moss on her fur. We could also see the moths that lived with the moss in her fur, sloth moths! Haha it's a bit of a tongue twister.
By 2.38pm we had seen a large iguana in another nearby tree & another large 2 toed sloth, who was lounging across a branch, partially obscured.
Our guides with their incredible eyes have found the fourth one, a 3 toed sloth, sitting right at the top of the tree, scratching. I can't believe how many we've seen or how lucky we were to see the 2 toed female sloth in such a prime position.
We walked back & around to the other side of the 'tree corridor' & nearly immediately spotted 1 young female 3 toed sloth sitting high in a tree & underneath her was another 3 toed sloth that we could see in amongst vines. This one wasn't in a photographic position & again without the laser pointed help from our guides we would have missed it.
While we gawked at the female in the tree who was being very photographic & showed off eating leaves, the guides found a tiny blue trouser dart frog. It was only the size of a finger nail & posses a potent Neuro toxin that the indigenous people would put on the tips of their darts & spears.
Sloth 7 was found by 3.06pm & it was a 3 toed sloth which was a young female. She was hanging out & looking directly at the scopes, we got a great view of her head.
We left in the van to go to a large tree were yesterday a male & female were spotted together. We drove 200 metres down the road to the tree.
We saw the male first & it's another 3 toed sloth. He's sitting with his back towards us & his sex is identifiable by the stripe on his back. The guides shortly after found the female who was sitting right at the top of the tree.
I can't believe we have seen 9 sloths! It was really nice to see them not in cages, though I do worry about their future in this particular clump of trees.
As if the day couldn't get any better, we started our hunt for Toucans, a bird that I was dying to see! Our first sighting was the Black Mandibled Toucan. They are quite large boys, undeniably exotic & with very cheeky personalities. They literally hop along the tree branches & each species makes different noises, some squawk, while others make a deeper noise like a frog & another species sounds like a dog's squeaky toy. The Black Mandible'd Toucan, didn't stick around for too long, but Tom managed to get a good picture.
Our next sighting was that of the more widely known keel billed Toucan, Rainbow Toucan or Fruit loops bird! How gorgeous are those colours ?! I'm so glad we got to see 2 together in the wild that were frolicking around on a branch & gave us plenty of photo opportunities.
We arrived back at the hotel just before 5pm & get ready for dinner out in the town & drinks. It was a really nice night full of good food, drinks, giant jenga & ridiculous karaoke.
- Alli
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