Costa Rica- Tarcoles to Rio Claro - the Golfillo area

On our last morning in Taracoles, we met up with Franklin for one more 5am birding opportunity.  I’ve decided to change the saying “the Early bird gets the worm” to “the early bird gets his photo taken” !

Our drive today is the longest yet, 250km, about 4+ hours if we don’t make too many stops along the way.  Because of this and our desire to arrive at our new destination in the daylight, we gave ourselves until 10am for the morning session.

While the guys were chasing bird songs and bodies, I wandered along between car moves.

I thought these trees looked very Halloweenish, or like something out of Lord of the Rings.  

The road for the morning.

Somehow, Franklin ended up with a mating pair of Walking Sticks on his back.  He places them on a fence post to continue with their ‘thing’. I was able to get some interesting photos of them.  

It appears that the male, wraps his ‘end’ around the female then clamps onto her with a pincer of some sort.  Obviously, she wears the big pants in this bug family!

We pulled into Hospedaje Poly in the town of Rio Claro about 2.  Anna and her husband have a lovely piece of property and also like birds.  They’ve got the right plants, flowers and some feeders to keep birdwatchers occupied for hours.   I think Tom found 6 new birds in the afternoon. 

 A short nap, some dinner and to bed…. We’ve got another 5am birding trip planned for morning.

And this car made me think of my friend and yoga partner!  Lisa - you should get one of these cars!