Tornado and Dragon's Eye Sunset

OK, these ones are getting their own little post as they are too cool. I popped down to town for a look about and caught these pics.  A fantastic dragon's eye sunset, and a tornado/waterspout out at sea!

Costa Rica - Manuel Antonio

Our trip was supposed to include 5 days in Nicaragua, but with the recent political and civil unrest there the tour was altered. From El Salvador we flew to Costa Rica rather than driving there through Nicaragua. From the airport we took a bus to Manuel Antonio, a small town on the west coast with a national park.

On the way, we stopped at a bridge where crocodiles gather. According to our guide, it's only older crocks that remember when people used to feed them from the bridge that gather there. They certainly were rather sizable!

As well as the crocks there were a few birds, apparently unphased by their presence.

Love the feet on this snowy egret

Tricoloured Heron

Being a regular spot for the crocodiles meant that there were people cashing in on the tourist trade, with sellers of crocodile teeth, toys etc.  There was even a large advertising board which seemed to be passing on some sort of subliminal message, though I'm not quite sure what the message was!

We also briefly saw another species of Croc there, which didn't seem to want to socialise with the others.

Next day we had a morning exploration of the national park and saw a huge variety of stuff. A lot of it I just wouldn't have seen without the guide!

Snake of some sort in the bushes

Bats

Stealth Lizard

Millipede

Tiny poisonous grasshoppers.  Spotted by seeing the leaves of  the host plant having been eater.  It's the leaves that make the bugs poisonous

White Faced Capuchin

With what's left of an iguana

Three toed sloth

Tent Making Bat

Termite nest up a tree

Purple Crown Fairy Hummingbird.  Our guide was extremely pleased - these are quite rare.

At the far end of the national park is a glorious beach, said to be one of the best in Costa Rica.  It was used as a location for a number of films.

 

Even this beach had a bunch of wildlife, including an agouti that was eating turtle eggs! (filmed by Tim, not me). My guide was very interested in this as agouti are only known to eat fruit, nuts and berries, so I've sent him the video which he forwarded to the unversity!

More jungly stuff on the island that made the beach, including some nice butterflies and a hermit crab.  The drab brown butterfly was huge and brilliant metalic blue on the upper side of it's wings, but of course it wouldn't move to let me take a photo.

Then through some mangrove to get back out of the park and I saw a caymen and some more crabs.

Back in town there was more monkey business.

Capuchin flagrantly disregarding the sign

Central American Squirrel Monkey