Costa Rica III

Check out Costa Rica Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

We woke up today and decided to stay in the area another night.  The friendly monkeys thanked us with showers of excrement.

We went on a different hike on the property, but only were able to get pictures of a lizard we had seen around yesterday but never photographed.


Sceloperus variabilis

It began to get a little stormy, so we used the pouring rain as an opportunity to head into town, pay the ticket, grab some supplies.  We were really in herping mode, and were very surprised to see this large stick in the road just outside of the lodge.


Oxybelis fulgidus

It started booking away very quickly so we had to settle for a few crappy road shots after grabbing it and some posed tree pictures.

It really started to pour now, so we spent the next hour fighting with the bank.  We then used a lull in the rain to check out the beach, and of course had it to ourselves.  The body surfing was great.

We checked some mangroves near the beaches for crocs, but struck out.

It was getting late in the afternoon and so we headed back in town to grab a quick bite to eat.  The meals at our lodge were out of this world, but they liked to eat at 7pm, family style.  The conversation was excellent, but it was getting dark around 530 and we couldn't justify all the missed roadcruising time.  A quick snack and we were heading to the areas we wanted to cruise again.  Our first border patrol stop loomed ahead, and we started to prepare our passports from the glove box.  Imagine our suprise when my passport had mysteriously disappeared...

Brian was furious.  We spent 10 minutes tearing through the car in a fit of rage, with the friendly policia rummaging through our bags, quite frustrated at the stupid gringos.  I last had it at the bank, and although it was closed now, he sent us back to our hotel for the night with plans to visit the bank in the morning.  We were pissed...  On the way back, I stopped at a place we gassed up and grabbed cokes, and we decided to tear the car apart again.  Brian had checked the glove box a few times already, but when I went to check it again, he brought up the concern of what if the passport fell into the dash from the glovebox.  There was a crack at the top when the box was opened, and I was able to squeeze a few fingers in there... Would you believe I could feel the damn passport!  I was able to carefully extract it, and with large sighs of relief we headed back to the check point.  The policia laughed at our story, waved us on our way, and left us alone for the night.

Right off the bat, a new turtle was spotted on the wet roads.


Kinosternun scorpiodes

The frogs were out tonight.

Smilisca sordida

We had seen 3 or 4 flattened DOR hognose vipers the night before, and a few of them were only noticed after we stopped for a frog or a different object (sticks, etc).  Brian was a little frustrated and didn't think we were seeing these little guys from the car.  I had faith, and was explaining I felt a live Porthidium would be fairly obvious, no matter how small, and I thought it would have a pretty distinct posture on the road, nose up.  Seconds after finishing that statement, I spotted a classic viper pose on the road, nose to the sky, and stated "just like that Porthidium there"!


Porthidium ophryomegas -  (turns out we are both fools - this is a young Bothrops asper)

The DORs started coming hard after that.  Sibon, Leptodiera, and a large Trimorphodon were all noted.

Lots of Scinax staufferi

A Lithobates forreri

A few roads later we were investigating sticks on the road when Brian started paying closer attention to some nearby frog calls.  They turned out to be calling from the roadside ditch.

Engystomops pustulolus (only crappy pic I could get of them calling)

There was a much larger, prettier DOR porthidium.

But things started to slow down.  A few more hours of cruising yielded a couple more DORs and this little Ninea sebae

We had were starting to tire of the DOR parade, and excited to get into actual rainforest.  We woke up early, photographed one of our hosts cascabels as a consolation, and spent the next day making the long drive over to the Atlantic slope.  It poured the whole way over, and was another DORfest.  We were crushed to see most of these animals dead.

Crotalus simus

Chironius grandisquamis

And who gets fricking eyelashes (pretty ones to boot) DOR?

Botriechis schlegelii

The roads made it a slow going.

We finally arrived at La Selva right before dinner.  This ended up being our home for the next 4 nights.  We had some other plans but things got changed last minute a few times due to getting stuck in the field longer than planned, running low on cash (feeling that speeding ticket...) and other commitments.  In the end, I was tired of the driving and ready to just hit the trails hard.  The animals really started to come now, and I will save you any more DOR shots from here on out...

Atlantic slope to follow soon.

Check out Costa Rica Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

Costa Rica part II

Check out Costa Rica Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

Dead set on getting started on the right foot and getting this trip turned around, Brian and I awoke at our impromptu hotel early and hit the road.  We would not waste another day.  We spotted a DOR boa on the side of  the road, grabbed some quick voucher pics and moved on.  We arrived at one of our destinations an hour or so later, and we set out to hike with the day in front of us. 

Right off the bat, I turned up the ubiquitous cane toad, Chaunas marinus.

We would be exploring a drier part of the country for the next couple of days.  The habitat looked very different from the rest of the trip.

 

We explored for a few hours but weren't about to turn up too much.

We found a number of Leptodactylus poecilichilus clustered around areas with water.

As well as Incilius valliceps.

Unfortunately, about this time, early afternoon, clouds rolled in the heavens opened over us.  We made the few km hike back to the car in the rain without turning up anything else.  We decided to take advantage of the rain to get situated with our lodging for the night.  We were going to stay at the Palo Verde research station, but the nice hosts at the first bed and breakfast recommended a couple that owned a farm, had some cottages and reported they had rattlesnakes on the farm!  Being one of our primary targets, we decided to check it out.  We pulled into the farm mid afternoon, and it was nice and sunny here.  We were able to get a nice clean room for $45 a night, extra for meals.  The meals were home cooked, and were by far the best food we had all trip.  The farm was situated on a river, with its own native crocodiles, and the owner even had  a couple of the rattlesnakes he had caught on his property the last few years.  Herper heaven...

We checked in and quickly hit the trails.  Within a few minutes, we noticed projectiles being thrown our way.  Looking up in the large trees over the property, we spotted large numbers of howler monkeys and spider monkeys.

Basilicus vittatus from the farm.

Howlers.

A much darker Incilius valliceps

Boatbilled Herons along the river.

Unfortunately, the river water was high and we never did lay eyes on one of the resident crocs.

We were enjoying one of the trails over the farm, basically through floodplain, then farm pasture and secondary growth forest when the trail ran into a barbed wire fence.  We could see the sign posts on the other side of the fence, but all the fences so far had a form of gate.  Not this one.  We were complaining about having to go under through the mud, or try to climb over, when Brian spotted a turtle right at our feet.  I am sure we would have missed it had there been a gate...

Rhinoclemmys pulcherrima

Otherwise, we enjoyed nice vistas and the local troupe of spider monkeys prior to a delicious dinner.

We enjoyed our meal greatly and quickly headed out for some road cruising.  This was a tough night.  Snakes were moving, but we were destined to only find them flattened.

Imantodes cenchoa

Porthidium ophryomegas

Ninea sebae

Leptodactylus labialis that I stupidly opted not to photograph better...?

And the heartbreaker, still squirming Micrurus nigrocinctus

Things slowed down, and we continued to cruise for a few more hours.  Another DOR porthidium, and a DOR boa and I started to work my way home.  Brian was dead asleep in the passenger seat when right by the turn off to the motel, I noticed a very alive coral booking it across the road.  I straddled the snake, yelled coral, and Brian was surprisingly out the door with tongs lickity split.  It was a large one, and refused to be corralled on the road.  We tried the tongs as a last resort, as well as forceps.  It was almost too big for forceps and too small for tongs.  You can see where this is going...  As Brian was booking it to the car, he made the mistake of taking the route near the edge of the road.  The snake squirmed loose and vanished in seconds off the road.  There was a very heated and furious exchange of words as our first live snake in 3 days, and one of our main targets was lost quickly, and all the pent up emotion and frustration of the past few days quickly boiled over.  To make matters worse, I noticed this pancake on the walk back to the car...

With a third or fourth wind now caught, we cruised a few more hours near the hotel, where a recent drizzle had wet the road.  While not super productive, we were bummed to find DOR Leptodeira annulata and Gymnopus multiplicata

We finally turned in, feeling good about evidence of animals moving, but still bummed about the lack of live specimens to show for it.  Luckily, tomorrow is always another day...


Check out Costa Rica Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

COSTA RICA AT LAST!

Check out Costa Rica Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.


I try to make a dedicated herp trip each year, usually as the wife, money and time allows.  I was hoping to return to Arizona with Carl, and hike some of the ranges we scoped out a few years back now.  I had been to AZ in June (post to come!), managed to turn up some neat animals, and wet my appetite for more.  For various reasons, the trip fell through early on.  I have mentioned before my brother Brian was in Costa Rica for 2.5 months, and what better way is there to kill a week of vacation than a trip to the tropics?

Brian had finished his summer project, and had a couple weeks left in the country.  I flew into San Jose on Sat morning, met him at the airport and off we headed on our adventure.  We had a loose itinerary, and had planned on some wiggle room.  Various plans fell through, for better or worse, and I think we both learned many lessons in traveling in a 3rd world country.  After getting lost numerous times in San Jose, we finally got out of the city and on the road.  Our first destination was a lovely B&B south of San Jose in the mountains.  We really should have skipped this, if only due to location, but the possibility for montain species such as godmans vipers, palm vipers and black milksnakes lured us in.  The property owners were extremely helpful, pointed out all the haunts of the various serpents they had seen in the past 1-2 weeks.  We enjoyed wonderful food, great conversation and some nice hikes.  Unfortunately, we only had scenery, birds and a lone frog to enjoy.

I have a fond spot in my heart for Akita's, and enjoyed Kuma immensely.

And our lone frog, Craugastor crassiditus

Let the fun begin...  Alas, our trip continued to creep along at a slow start.  We were planning on heading to a completely different region of the country, and totally miscalculated how long it would take us to get there.  We were told a major bridge was out, and 2 alternate routes were recommended.  Both sounded pretty terrible.  In the end, we decided to try a ferry...  (don't ever take the ferry!).

Along the way, we turned up a tragic DOR, Drymobius margaritiferus

( Let me take this opportunity to apologize for the large number of DOR pictures to come.  I honestly can say I would much rather show live shots, but information can still be learned from DORs.  Unfortunately, many of the diurnal snakes this trip only made appearances as DORs. )


Brian had never seen a croc before, and we were anxious to get to a popular spot.  Unforunately, I failed to notice the speed limit go from 80kph to 60 kph and got nailed going 85.  About $550 later we were furiously on our way again.  DO NOT SPEED IN COSTA RICA.

The rest of the day went from bad to worse.  We caught the ferry, got lost many times on small back roads, ended up traversing washed out bridges in the middle of the night, saw few to no herps, and lost many hours.  Our 6-8 hr drive was sitting around 12 or 13 hours and we still were a few hours from our destination for the night when we finally started to get back on pavement and near a decent sized city.  We pulled over at the first motel we saw, sadly hit the sack, and vowed to have a better day tomorrow...

A couple Smilisca baudini showed up prior to us turning in, as well as an Incilus coccifer.

Two tough days down, and spirits are running low.  Did we make a huge mistake?  Our we wasting our time and money?  Or do we need to just get out of the car (we want to believe me) and hit the trails?


Until next time...

Check out Costa Rica Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.


BH

Summer Doldrums

It has been a very slow July, and I haven't been able to do much.  I did try canoeing a bit with my wife and the dogs, but we didn't see a single turtle despite 4 hours on a nice river.  I am heading out for another canoe trip Tues and hopefully we will have some better luck on the west side of the state.  Other than that, I don't have much interesting to offer at this point. 

I have tried to get my brother to share his Costa Rica adventures, but despite initially being excited, I think he is just too busy at the moment.  I can't blame him for wanting to waste time in the country on a computer.  Hopefully he will share when he returns.  I will be flying down to meet up with him for a week in August.

About this time of the year in Ohio, I would start focusing on herping in the late afternoon/evenings and then roadcruising in the hot humid weather.  This ended up being a very productive method at turning up some interesting pitvipers.  Depending on your selection of roads, and persistence, you may happen upon a few of these...

Timber Rattlesnakes Crotalus horridus

and even more of these

Copperhead  Agkistrodon contortix

We will try our luck a bit with roadcruising in Costa Rica and hope to turn up other members of Genus Agkistrodon and Crotalus.

BH

Some Habitants of Michigan Fens

Don't expect any herps in this post.  I am on a steadily lengthening string of failures. 

On a trip early in the year I found an excellent looking marl fen than I know has wonderful herps hiding in it.  I have struck out on a few trips to the area, but the habitat is so wonderful I manage to forget the lack of success.  It wasn't a surprise then when checking out the fen a few weeks ago I managed to stumble into a nice area with a couple Michigan carnivorous plant species.

I usually see the pitcher plants at most of the bogs and fens I check out. 

Sarracenia purpurea

 If you look closely in the bottom left though, you will see something I don't often see...

Drosera rotundifolia

I ended up see hundreds of little sundews littered around the property, mixed in with the pitchers...  score!

No massasaugas or spotted turtles today, but Michigan has many other natural wonders to keep you busy even on the slow days.


BH

Meet Joy

Molly and I decided to adopt a second dog a little while ago, and I am shocked I haven't shared pictures of her yet.  Her name is Joy, and she makes an excellent addition to the family.

We thought Cid would enjoy a friend to play with and Molly picked her out a crowd because she looks like his sister.  We also thought we had been sleeping too well lately.

 Things were a little dicey at first, but they get along wonderfully now.

She makes an excellent addition in the field, but I wonder how many animals they scare off when they run through my fields.

I recommend rescuing dogs to anyone looking for a family companion.  The application process can be tough, but we have been able to pick up two wonderful friends this way.

BH