| Our Costa Rica Animal Family |
All the photos are thumbnails. By clicking on them you will get a full-size photo.
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| Donaldo on Clothesline Pole |
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Oh where have you gone Donaldo, Donaldo?
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| Donaldo In the Fish Pond |
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| Donaldo on the Roof |
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In February 2009 we returned from a trip to the Caribbean beaches with Jay and Betty Norman to find Donaldo swimming peacefully in our fish pond.
He had never been there before and we had no idea where he came from. Betty named him Donaldo Duk and after we fed him some corn meal he just floated in the pond, perched on the clothesline pole and slept on our roof.
A little research and we found out that he was a male Muscovy duck, who fortunately doesn't quack or make any sound at all, for that matter.
He was pretty smart and soon, each morning, he would follow Mary around until she filled his bowl with cracked corn and scattered some fish food on the surface of the tilapia pond. After a couple of days he found the fish food to be quite tasty also and he started jumping in the pond and eating some of the fish food before he got out and ate his corn.
Nearly every afternoon he went through his exercises and would rapidly flap his wings and drag himself quickly from end to end of our little pond. Occasionally he would dive down in one end of the pond and then reappear at the other end. Sometimes he would use the pond as a runway, take off like a B-29 and circle the valley returning to land with either a big splash in the pond or with a thump on the roof. Every day at sundown he would fly up on the roof and sleep there until daybreak.
He seemed happy alone and remained that way until Woody, an enterprising grey necked wood rail, decided to raid Donald's bowl and from then on Mary had to increase the daily ration so they both would get some corn. Woody was also helpful in cleaning up the tadpoles in the pond. He would walk around the pond on his long skinny red legs, twitching his little black tail, dipping his head and quickly snapping up the tadpoles. We were pleased with this part of his diet as we had hundreds of tadpoles and were looking unhappily towards a bumper crop of toads keeping us awake all night.
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| Woody Fishing for Tadpoles |
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| Donaldo and Woody |
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Suddenly one morning near the end of April, Mary went out with her bowl of corn to find Donaldo gone. So far he hasn't returned and we surmise that love called him away and he is somewhere with a beautiful female and a brood of little ducklings. We hope that next winter they will start to drive him crazy and he will return to our little pond for some peace, quiet and a nice bowl of corn.
But for now Woody has the corn all to himself and although normally a very timid fellow he has started calling for his corn at 4:45 am. Mary usually doesn't succumb to his insistent wails but the other day she got up and made a video of Woody as he bellowed his wake up call. You just won't believe it when you click on the video. Pay attention to the audio portion as it was pretty dark and you can only see our living room. It takes a little while to load so please be patient. Heeeeres Woody!
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There are nearly 700 species of birds in Costa Rica and Mary has identified nearly 80 that she has seen, many that visit our banana feeding station daily. We see Cherrie's tanagers, blue-grey tanagers, rufus-naped wrens, Hoffman's woodpeckers and many more including one of our favorites the beautiful, blue-crowned Motmot. Costa Ricans call it the Bo Bo bird referring to its low pitched call as it waits on the feeder for its daily ration of bananas. It is a large bird so it gets dibs on the bananas and the other birds either wait till the Motmot has had its fill or sneak in for a tidbit when it is not looking.
We also are able to spot keel-billed toucans, but they rarely come close to the house and most of their diet is unfortunately baby birds or eggs from nests. They also eat fruit but most of their diet is carnivorous. They are large and notoriously poor flyers and you will see them land in a low branch, climb up from branch to branch until they have enough height to make it to their next target.
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| Mot Mots |
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| Toucans |
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We have plenty of other animals including lizards, geckos, toads, frogs, and squirrels but rarely do we see any snakes or dangerous animals. In fact I have only seen three snakes in four years.
The squirrels are quite comical to watch as they will struggle to get away with an entire banana or orange, and usually do. At night the toads line up near the window and feast on the bugs attracted by our lights. Unfortunately, they leave short, cigar shaped excrement for me (not Mary) to clean up the next day.
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| Squirrel on the Feeder |
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| Toads Awaiting Dinner |
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While Costa is rich in wild animal life and while we enjoy observing the habits and beauty of the abundant fauna, we still count on our cat Chloe.
Chloe will be thirteen this December and like us is taking a few more naps.
That's it from the jungle
Fred and Mary
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| Chloe |
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