Monteverde Cloud Forest

Well, I spent the last few days catching up on our travels in Santa Rosa, which is in the Guanacaste Region of Costa Rica. Now I'll have to catch up on Monteverde. A few days ago we got on the bus again to travel to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. Wow, the ride up the mountains was gorgeous.

For a little background on the area, the Monteverde Cloud Forest has several reserve areas on mountaintops, and these were either made by the Quakers (more about them in the next post) to preserve watershed, and more recently with money collected by children in the US and Europe. Monteverde's mountaintops are made up of tropical moist forest, which means there are a lot of tall trees, and tons of epiphytes (plants that grow on trees) , and clouds surrounding the mountaintops much of the time. It is a gorgeous place, with many brightly colored flowers, insects, and birds.
This first video is in a lower range of the Children's forest, and although it is not the best, you can hear something that sounds a bit like a squeaky door hinge. That is a glass bird call. We heard a LOT of these sounds throughout the cloud forest.



We saw toucanettes, and many other birds, and were even able to hear a quetzal call.

The fern trees in the forest are huge, and a great sight to see.

There are huge strangler fig trees that grow around other trees (yes, and kill them), but then they leave a hollowed out network of branches that intertwine, making climbing them easy. I got to see a heliconia plant, which has really pretty flowers that hummingbirds pollinate.

I think my favorite part, other than the awesomness of the variety of plants in the forest, was seeing at least four different kinds of hummingbirds. The best part about hummingbirds is that their feathers are iridescent, which means that they shimmer and have different colors depending on how light hits them. The Children's Eternal Forest Reserve has an area where hummingbirds flock to eat, and you can see many of them interacting with each other. I have never seen this, and it was quite a show.



Here is a picture of a strangler fig tree covered in epiphytes.


Heliconia flowers.

Strangler fig roots.

Picture of the group in the forest. The trees are TALLLLLL!!!!



This butterfly's wings are see-through!

When a big tree falls, it will take down several others with it, creating a clearing like this, which is a chance for new trees to spring up.