Animal Behavior

We live next door to a farm complete with cows, horses, roosters and dogs, not to mention the menagerie of wild animals around the place comprised of birds both large and small some of which sing beautifully while others exude a noise akin to the proverbial clanging cymbal.


There are even a few roaming squirrels. Now these are not your typical fat and happy grey squirrels that we are used to seeing frolicking amongst the oaks in our yard in Plymouth. No indeed, these are slim and scrawny squirrely squirrels who seem to serve no purpose other than to walk along the top of our back fence, waving at Nancy as if to say “hey, go get your camera and take a picture of me”. Poor Nancy, so easily enticed, rushes for the camera, flips the on switch, stretches into a pose that a ballerina would envy (a bit of an exaggeration) to capture the perfect shot, only to have the aforementioned critter turn tail (with said tail often uplifted) and heckle “get a shot of this”. Not a pretty picture.

In one of our early blogs we mentioned a pleasant journey to the aerial tram at Braulio Carillo national park. Our biologist guide was comparing Tico culture with North American culture using squirrels as an example. “You have squirrels in Minnesota, right?” he asked. “Yes, and they’re fat and happy” we replied. “Have you seen a squirrel in Costa Rica?” he continued. “Yes, and they’re scrawny and ill mannered” we responded. “I don’t know about ill mannered” he said, “but why do you suppose they’re so thin?” he posed. “It’s because they don’t have to gather food for the winter” he said, “they know that tomorrow will be the same as today. Meanwhile, if a Minnesotan squirrel was brought down to Costa Rica, he would continue to collect and store nuts and the Costa Rican squirrels would be watching him and wondering what he was doing” . And so it is with people. The Ticos figure they can find a mango tree or some other edible plant, day after day, so they only gather enough for that day, even at the grocery store. In the states, you always figure you’re going to need more, and so you work really hard to be able to gather more and more, just in case the winter is long. 



One of the many pictures of  the back view of a red squirrel.




When an oak tree isn't available. Notice the lack of  "bushy" in its tail.




A cow and his friend, a cattle egret.  While traveling, we have seen
fields of cows, where each one has her own bird. 




Mama and her colt




A green bird, Jim and I don't know if its a parakeet or parrot.One day
when we came home from a walk, we saw 12 of these
birds flying overhead.




Blue-gray Tanagers




A Mango tree




Close-up on all of the mangoes.  The students at this school will eat
a mango as a snack between classes.