Above, Cattle Egret and cow.



Above, 3 Spoonbills, in the pouring rain.
You can just see the edge of a calf on the left.



Above, an Ahinga. This is also known as a
snakebird. It swims in the water with its long skinny
neck sticking out.



In the afternoon it was so beautiful!



So, off we went to Cano Negro. We left La Fortuna and
drove north. The sky was clear, the sun was out and we enjoyed a really
long, straight, flat road. Most of the scenery was agricultural:
pineapples, bananas, mangoes, and other unidentifiable things (At least
they were unidentifiable going 60mph). We drove for a while until we
arrived in the border town of Los Chiles. It was a pretty sad kinda place.
It was also our first blast of super hot weather. We ran into a small
air conditioned restaurant and enjoyed some yummy local food.
We had a short drive from there to our next destination, Cano Negro.
This is a totally amazing and really different kind of ecosystem from
the one we live in. It's a huge wetland area that is full or water this time
of year (after the heavy rains). It goes from super high water down to
almost nothing.
We stayed at one of the only places in area called Cano Negro Natural
Lodge. It is "full service" (included meals...) because it is so remote.
We took two boat rides, one in the morning, pour rain and then we went out
again in the afternoon around 4 and had much better luck spotting birds
and other animals.
We had our first introduction to fresh water fowl, plus a large number of
mammals and amphibians.