Costa Rican Wildlife

We're here  primarily to work with leatherback, olive ridley, and black (green) sea turtles, but there is an abundance of wildlife in this area. Yesterday, we took a tour on the Estuaro de Playa Grande.

There is amazing bird life here in Costa Rica. Here are just a few of the species we saw:

This cormorant had dreams of grandeur...
the fish he caught was WAY bigger than his head,
and eventually he had to let it go...

Tri-colored Heron

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

Common black hawk in flight -
note the stripes on his tail

Common Black Hawk

Not only did we see birds, but we hunted for crocodiles as well. There are estuaries on both ends of the beach - to the north at the end of Ventana, and to the south between Playa Grande and Tamarindo. What we are looking for are saltwater crocs, who sometimes go onto the beach or swim in the ocean. In fact, one of the other Ventana night patrols saw croc tracks leading from the estuary over to the beach, right next to where they take their breaks. In the Playa Grande estuary, we only saw one:

He quickly slipped back into the water...

 We are also always excited to see howler monkeys:

Howler monkeys

Along the street walking to dinner, we see howler monkeys (and in the mornings we can hear them too). This guy was directly over our heads when he got mad at us:

Howling howler monkey

The nice thing is that we don't really have to go far for wildlife. Here at the station, we're visited by a variety of different animals.

This Hoffman's Woodpecker comes out every morning

White-throated Magpie-Jay

Great Kiskidae

Great-tailed Grackle drink in our pool every day

We also have our resident Ctenosaur (Spinytail iguana) that hangs out by the bodega (the little storage shed in the yard where we keep the hatchlings and other supplies), who we've nicknamed Tiny Tim: 

as well as tons butterflies, dragonflies, grasshoppers, and other insects:

Eek! A scorpion! Even creepier at night,
when we're only allowed to use red light.

This poor stickbug lost one of his front legs

The project might be the charge of the Leatherback Trust, but we've definitely had our share of other animals!