Saturday's Critters #365

 Welcome to Saturday's Critters!

Hello and happy Saturday!

 

 If you love all God's creatures like I do and also like to blog about them and take critter photos this is where you can share your critter post. Link up your post and share your critters, join in with my critter party ! You can share any kind of critters the real ones, pretend ones, statues and paintings, a new or old post!

 

I wish all who celebrate... peace, love and happiness this Hanukah season!

 

I am running out of critters and bird photos to share. So I am sharing some of my archived photos from our 2010 trip to Costa Rica, we took a guided trip staying at various hotels starting at San Jose, Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast, Fortuna the gateway to Arenal Volcano Nat'l Park and Guanacaste on the Pacific Coast. We visited a coffee plantation, pineapple plantation, the butterfly garden, various nature river boat rides from the lodge in Tortuguero and a nature boat ride at Caño Negro, we hiked in the Poas Volcano Nat'l Park Cloud forest, on the Arenal Nat'l Park hanging bridges trail and walked on the beach in Guanacaste located on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. 


1.  The Butterfly Garden, various species of butterflies and lovely flowers and plants. 

 

 Click on photos for better viewing.

 

 

2.  Insects and reptiles and other miscellaneous wildlife. We saw Rhinoceros Beetles, Hercules Beetle, Crocodiles and Caiman, Iguana, various lizards, turtles, Beetles, Long-nosed Bats, Pit Viper,  Orb spiders and Ghost crabs.

 

 

 

 

3. The wild monkeys we saw in Costa Rica were the most common seen and heard Howler Monkey, Golden-mantled Howler Monkey, White faced Capuchin Monkey and Spider Monkeys.

 

 

4.  The flowers must taste delicious, this monkey was hanging a tree branch with just it's tail. The photos taken from the moving boat ride are not the clearest. But, I think it is cute.

 

5. Costa Rica bird lifers...These are not all the birds or lifers I was able to see on my trip. 

Ringed Kingfisher, Amazon Kingfisher, not sure if seen below we also saw the Green Kingfisher, Grey-necked wood Rail, Great Potoo, Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Slaty-tailed Trogon, Blue-Gold Macaw (not-sure if these two were escapees, seen in a tree at the Hanging Bridge Park area), Red-lored Parrots, Montezuma Oropendola, Passerini's Tanager, Palm Tanager, Blue-gray Tanager, Great Kiskadee and the Variable Seedeater.

 

 

6.  Before our breakfast or boat ride tours I walked around the grounds of the Tortuguergo Lodge. The Montezuma Oropendola had nest in a lot of the trees. 

 

7. It is a cool looking bird and they make some strange sounds. The male can be 20 inches long.  Their tale feathers are a bright yellow.

 

 

8. The nest is woven with fibers and vines, similar to an Orioles nest.

 

 

9. Costa Rica Toucan lifers...The top two toucans are the Collared Aracari, in the second row is the Chestnut-Mandibled Toucan and the last row is the Keel-billed Toucan. Seeing the Toucans in the wild was a treat for me. 

10.  Various wildlife seen in various areas around Costa Rica. Streaked Backed Oriole in Guanacaste,  Brown Pelicans, Iguana, the Coati (about the size of a house cat) crossed the trail in front of us at the Hanging Bridge park, a sloth was seen hiding in a tree above the river, a large Black Oxen, other Oxen and some horses seen along the road.

 

 

11.   The Collared Aracari was seen often by the boat dock at the Tortuguera Lodge.

Costa Rica was one of my favorite trips, the wildlife sightings are amazing. I took over a hundred photos each day we were there, I do have some previous blog post on Costa Rica.  I would love to take another trip to Costa Rica seeing parts of the country we missed. 

 

Thanks to all my visitors and for all your comments. Stop back to see any replies to your comments. I appreciate everyone who loves critters and has linked up their critter post.


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Also visit:  I'd-Rather-B-Birdin. Thanks to the host Anni.

Costa Rica bird Part 5....Montezuma Oropendola

Montezuma Oropendola  is a very strange name for a cool looking bird I saw in Costa Rica. It is a resident breeder in the Caribbean lowland from Mexico to Panama. The males are mainly chestnut with a blackish head and a bright yellow tail.  The male song is heard during a bowing display and consist of  bubbling followed by loud gurgles. Sounds weird right?  I found these sounds to be funny and we heard them often at the Laguna Lodge in Tortuguero.

The Montezuma Oropendola's nest. I didn't count the nest but there were a lot of them hanging from the palm trees.

The Montezuma Oropendola is consider a common bird in parts of its range. It is seen in small or larger flocks foraging in the trees for insects, fruits including bananas. There are a lot of banana trees in Costa Rica.

The Montezuma Oropendola is a colonial breeder and builds it hanging woven nest of fibers and vines and hangs high in a tree.

For two days we were able to watch these birds flying around with there bright yellow tails making their crazy sounds and then land on the trees that held their nest.

Each colony has a dominant male which mates with most of the females following a elaborate bowing display. The female will lay two eggs which hatches in 15 days and they will fledge in 30 days. There are typically about 30 nest in colony.

I loved all the birds I saw in Costa Rica but I found the Montezuma Oropendola to be one of the more interesting birds.

You can also visit Michelle's Nature Notes and thanks to Michelle for hosting this great meme.

To see more critters you can visit Misty Dawn's Camera Critters Thanks to Misty Dawn for hosting. 

To see more wonderful birds and critter please visit the Friday Ark

As always thanks for visiting my blog and have a great weekend.