Geodog

Impressions of Costa Rica after a month's visit: Biodiversity

In Costa Rica biodiversity isn't a just a slogan or a buzzword, it is an observable fact. The country is teeming with life. We saw amazing numbers of birds, reptiles, insects and plants. Even when we weren't looking for them, the number and kinds of birds and insects that we saw just walking around rural towns was astonishing, and the variety we saw when we were hiking in the national parks was awe-inspiring. For example, on one short afternoon hike on Rincón de la Vieja I saw 2 species of toucans, 2 species of parrots, a laughing falcon, a cuckoo, a woodpecker, several kinds of finches, flycatchers, magpies and jays. That was just some of the birds. I also saw 2 bats, an agouti, a snake, several kinds of frogs and toads, several kinds of lizards, several kinds of ants including leaf cutter ants and army ants, and thousands of butterflies. I'm not much on plants, so I can't name many of the different trees I saw, but in the course of one afternoon I passed through at least 5 kinds of habitat: cloud forest, tropical rainforest, dry tropical forest, open savannah and what looked like California live oak highlands. I have done a lot of hiking in the United States, and I have never seen anything like it. As the guidebooks point out, there are more species of birds in Costa Rica (650) than in all of the United States and Canada combined. All of this in a country the size of West Virginia. If you like hiking and wildlife viewing, especially bird-watching, it is hard to imagine a better place. And if you are a fan of the writings of Charles Darwin, David Quammen and Edwin O. Wilson, as I am, it is a great place to see, in the flesh as it were, exactly what they were writing about.