Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Costa Rica - Day 4 at a Glance

The day started off as usual; we wake up to the sounds of a Pygmy Owl calling, get ready in a hurry, call the pygmy to no avail, & go to breakfast (no monkeys). After breakfast, we go to our new hotspots, check things out, roam the area, come back to the room, pack for the beach and go.



This time, we were driving, spotted a huge Iguana, & stopped. Took a few photos, and saw him acting alittle funny. He started bobbing his head at something. We then saw his attraction. Another Iguana, just about as big, was headed his way. He did the head bobbing thing too, so we knew we were in for something... The 2 greeted eachother with some hissing, then the fight began.



Each twisted and gained advantage with great wrestling moves, and were extremely quick. The bites sounded crunchy, like bones and cartilage, but both fought through eachothers injuries for at least 45 minutes.



When all was said and done, the winner claimed victory with a hissing display to my camera!



We then headed to the beach for the afternoon...




We got hungry, went to the beach snack shop, tried some ceviche for the first time, and were greeted by another family of Coatis'.




This time, there were babies that had an orange coat to them. They were quite funny, because they would steal peoples stuff from the beach, run up to where we were, and rip open their prizes. We watched them until the sun was about to set, and headed home.




We decided to go out calling for the Pygmy Owl (at dusk), and got a response. We called some more, and knew he was above us in the nearest tree. Called some more and found him. I aimed the camera, shot a few, adjusted settings, still not right, adjusted some more, and he was gone. We called some more in a different spot, heard him again, and zeroed in on his new location. Tried again, and found the tree. I kept calling, he called back, and again, I spot him. I took a few shots, they looked right, and waited for him to look down at me. He never did. He got bored with my calling and left, but of all the times I called (every night at dusk, and every morning at dawn) , and with luck, found him, I never did get him to look down ( I took a total of 7 pictures from various locations). Here is my best shot:

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