This morning, Jimmy the boatsman took a different route through the Caño Negro wetlands: one less travelled. Deeper, denser, tree-lined with narrower, swiftly flowing channels. Speaking of channels, I began channeling a combination of Ernest Hemmingway, Indiana Jones and a little Humphrey Bogart for good measure.
It was a equally rewarding morning, with a concentration of herons, including the appropriately-named boat-billed heron which I had never even heard of before.
Enjoy.
Saw this lineated woodpecker, er let’s say it was pointed out to me,
50 meters from the hotel entrance as I was heading down to the swamp.
Boat-billed heron. A nocturnal bird, it is seldom seen in the daytime. He was deep in a (mangrove?) tree and I had to crank the ISO to 6400, testing the limits of the camera. (ISO is equivalent to the old film speed on celluloid film. Some of you will remember that standard film was sold as 50, 100, 200 or 400 ISO, so 6400 is a fair leap)
A rail (exact species not identified yet. Elusive, and dartingly quick: I have many poor shots of this
I believe this to be a juvenile black-crowned night heron
We saw his brother Kingfisher the other day
The little green egret
Snowy Egret, one of the most stunning of the egret menagerie
Waiting. Always waiting.
In the afternoon, I made the rough but gorgeous drive to Monteverde. The road began in the humid, tropical lowlands, wound by Lake Arenal, through deep hills and valleys that resemble Switzerland more than Central America,  and ended in the much colder (sorry Canadians, cold here is 18 Celsius) cloud forest.
Quick: Central America or Switzerland?
I checked in a small lodge which is right at the edge of the cloud forest itself.