Costa Rica Trip IV and NYPhil.

2-3-19 SHORT HILLS: We were in the city for a NY Phil concert last night. They opened with Mozart’s Symphony No. 1, composed when he was 8 years old, and closed with the Jupiter, Symphony No. 41 his last. In between Emanuel Ax played Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D major, and after halftime, Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra. We had dinner with Sarah and Jon at Bar Boulud before the concert.

Back to Costa Rica—Day IV…

1-25-19 MONTEVERDE, COSTA RICA: We had an early bus ride to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve at the top of the mountains. We were led by our guide, Tony, on a walk across many hanging bridges that spanned deep gorges. The tour had a lot of up and down and crisscrossed the continental divide. There was dense forest growth, some of it primary forest. It was cool, misty and foggy with occasional drizzle. There was a huge diversity of plant species, and even bigger diversity of epiphytic growth on the trees.

Hanging bridge through the forest canopy.

Tree covered with a epiphytes.

Tony demonstrating a flower stalk. The flowers open sequentially from the top downward. The long flowers, open in the middle of the stalk,  are evolved to be pollinated by hummingbirds.

The clouds dipped in and out of the forest.

Trees with plant friends, or enemies, from a bridge.

Canopy from a bridge with clouds settling in.

A bridge from lower in the gorge.

We saw the Resplendent Quetzal, a dramatic bird, two males, blue-green with long tails, in flight and a female eating in an avocado tree. It is harder to spot the fauna here because of the density of the flora. Tony showed us an orange-kneed tarantula.

The female Quetzal in an avocado tree. Those grape-sized fruits are the avocados. Avocados come in a variety of formats. The large ones from the supermarket grow on a bush.

Tarantula with orange knees on the doorstep of its house.

At 11 AM we were back on the bus to town.

After lunch at the hotel we saw other birds and a bunch of coati.

Rufous-collared sparrow pokes around in the grass.

Social flycatcher darts in and out of the trees eating insects. Eat away, bird.

Coatis, about a dozen, crossed the hotel grounds, going from one side of the forest to the other.
They have stripped tails like raccoons. We also saw them on the road begging for food.

We did a night walk at SantaMaria's Night Walk with guide Roy, a different Roy. They are located in Monteverde between a couple of farms on a few acres of forest. We walked around the trails with flashlights starting just after sunset. He showed us katydids, spiders, lizards, three green vipers, four armadillos, one skunk, one sloth and an immature broad winged hawk. The pix were disappointing, not because of the dark, but because the flashlights were too bright.

Lizard at night.

Green palm viper, AKA side-striped pit viper. It's hard to spot in a tree.

Sloth, two-toed, giving us the eye.

Armadillo, nine banded, headed toward us.

Broad-winged hawk, immature, trying to nap.

Back at the hotel, we packed for the next transfer after a late dinner.