Costa Rica - Nature Watch 1

For you nature lovers out there, on this and future 'nature watch' blogs I'll 'catch' a few of these many species for your perusal.

From wikipedia:

Costa Rica supports an enormous variety of wildlife, due in large part to its geographic position between the North and South American continents, its neotropical climate, and its wide variety of habitats. Costa Rica is home to more than 500,000 species, which represents nearly 4% of the total species estimated worldwide, making Costa Rica one of the 20 countries with the highestbiodiversity in the world. Of these 500,000 species, a little more than 300,000 are insects.^[1]

Firstly there were the series of scorpions sneeking into Cindy's house.

Then there were the AMAZING hummingbirds!

Some of my students at Monteverde found a big blue mushroom on our walk up to the kiosk.

On the way to town one day Snowdon and I passed by an injured bird - it was beautiful.

There's always the house lizards.....

our mango munching monkeys....

and sneaky squirrels.

This morning Snowdon noticed that an Iguana had come to visit us.

And then this afternoon we came home to hundreds of scurrying crabs. Cody told us they come down from the hills after the first rain (which usually happens in May, but we had one last night).

Snowdon found out that they're called Tajalines and that they are off to lay eggs on the beach (http://www.nicoyapeninsula.com/wildlife/crabs.php)