Volcano Wildlife

 

The rainforests around Arenal Volcano provided the most diversity of wildlife during my trip to Costa Rica. This volcano is considered resting, but smoke still billows from its conical crown.

🌋🌋🌋

I stayed at the magnificent Arenal Observatory Lodge, which has gardens that attract hummingbirds and a fruit feeder that draws colorful birds each morning. I didn't want to leave, ha.

Epiphytes are plants that live on other plants. The rainforest is full of them. No doubt they get a lot of water they need from the frequent rains.

A coati stares down from a tree. He ate a few ripe mangos on the ground before asking me to pay the coati tax and heading up into the trees to see what else he could find. 

An armadillo digs up invertebrates beneath the leaf litter. Armadillo burrows are common sights wherever there are exposed dirt cliffs.

Fog rolls across the rainforest. 

I spied this yellow eyelash viper resting on a branch outside the lodge's coffeeshop. Unreal.

An agouti looks for fallen fruit and nuts on the forest floor. I photographed this one in a coastal mangrove forest, but I saw agoutis in the garden at Arenal Observatory Lodge. These little rodents behave more like deer.

A white-lined bat roosts on the trunk of a tree. 

Toucans called collared aricaris visited the tree in the garden outside my room at the lodge. Wow!

A tiny bananaquit. These little birds frequent hummingbird feeders and sip flower nectar like hummingbirds.

A yellow-billed toucan roosts in a tree at the lodge after spending the day foraging in the rainforest.

A mantled howler monkey prepares for a long day of foraging.

A troop of spider monkeys traverses the row of pine trees that line the back of the lodge. Seeing these monkeys leap from tree to tree was amazing.

A crested guan is the size of a turkey. They eat fruit, leaves and insects.

I had to photograph the bark of this beautiful but nonnative rainbow eucalyptus tree. These trees were imported from Indonesia and the Philippines.

Beehive ginger, another nonnative plant found in the lodge's gardens.

A juvenile great currasow wanders the gardens at the lodge.

A green kingfisher fishes in a creek near the lodge.

A Montezuma oropendola was a regular visitor to the lodge's fruit feeders.

Green honeycreepers also frequented the feeders. 

I had a view of the volcano looming outside my side window. But this view of Lake Arenal dominated my room's picture window. It was the most picturesque place I've ever stayed.