A Passion for the Natural World

While in Monteverde I had the great privilege to go out with two outstanding guides. Their passion and knowledge of the flora and fauna of Monteverde area is infectious. On Thursday night, I went with Will Nunez on a night tour. We saw all sorts of animals including my first keel billed toucan. Lots of birds sleeping including striped tail hummingbird, brown jays, toucanet, warblers, and wren in its nest. Cool spiders, crickets, and a walking stick. Some frogs including tadpoles wiggling in their eggs on a leaf way up in a tree. A fascinating luminescent fungus. And a strangler fig tree with the original host tree gone so you could enter it and light up the tree from inside. But the highlight was watching a pit viper working to swallow a large bat. Wow. The amazing power of natural selection.

On Saturday morning I met with Christian Mena at sunrise for a wonderful morning of birdwatching. So much fun seeing his passion for birds and nature in general. We saw lots of species and Christian turned me on to eBird to help keep track of them (as well as Merlin which I already was familiar with). He put together our bird list for the morning to include in my eBird account.

You can contact Will or Christian for a tour by Googling their names. Highly recommended.