Saturday 4 February 2012

Monte birdie

On our third day at Monteverde we decided to pay for a bird guide, this proved to be an excellent decision as we saw many great birds and about 25 species new to us. Our guide, Esteban, was excellent and he had a scope which was great for taking a few picks of what we saw. 


Euphonia, can't remember which one because you can't see its crown in the photo

Not sure why all the photos seem to be coming out super skinny these days


Woodpecker, possibly Hoffman's


Looking out across the forest to the continental divide.


View across the pacific slope down to the Nicoya peninsula and Pacific Ocean.


The Monteverde Cloud forest reserve together with the Children's Eternal rainforest (22 500 ha) protect a huge area which would otherwise have become grazing land like that in the foreground of this picture, remaining forest can be seen behind it.  Swedish schoolchildren and then others from 40 different countries raised money in the 1980's to buy up primary and secondary rainforest as well as surrounding farmland to be reforested,  this is now the Children's Eternal Rainforest.


Not the best light for a photo


Dragonfly


Orange bellied trogon


Us with Esteban our guide


Another random dog


Great view


The hotel Bellbird which we chose based purely on the name and logo.  We are hoping to come back in our final week to see a bellbird as they should have arrived at Monteverde for breeding.


Ralph found this in a just seventeen magazine and was compelled to share it


The sunset just across the street from the Bellbird

1 comment:

Grant said...

Just Seventeen? Hmmm... bit advanced isn't it! Wouldn't Top Gear be better for high tech clothing?