Hi it's Tyler! Today was our final work day here in Costa Rica. We returned to the same village today that we distributed shoes in yesterday. Today, as we arrived, the pathway to the building we would be in was so crowded with kids, we could hardly get into the building! Today was spent playing with the kids in the area while some of the members continued to do shoe distribution. We played a very fun game of Costa Ricans vs. Americans soccer in the little concrete plaza at the center of the town. The problem was, the village is built over a huge ravine that is washed out due to constant flooding of the area. The ball would fall down there constantly because the fence around the plaza was in bad condition. After lunch, we retuned to the village and continued what we had been doing when we left, but this time, we had brought meals for some of the families and went to their homes to deliver them.
Here is a view of the village from the top of the hill. The yellow buildings in the back were built up on top of the hill so that people driving along the road would not be able to see the poor village behind it. About 450-500 families live in the area in the picture.
This is the ravine that runs throughout the entire village. On several occasions, families have lost their houses due to erosion and the houses collapsing.
Here is Ethan, Hugo (pronounced with a silent H), and Me. Hugo is an amazing man who after having an extremely rough childhood, was able to found Sonrias con Esperanza, or Smiles with hope. Hugo has made such a difference in the lives of the people in the village. While walking through the village with him, I couldn't even count the number of times a kid would come up to him calling him dad. He was always just as excited to see the kids as they were to see him. Everywhere we went, every kid would drop what they were doing and run to him, stick their heads out a window to see him, or would yell from inside the house to tell him hi. He loves every kid in that village so much and is able to provide them with a safe play to play everyday.
Now about the birding. Today was getting a little better as Ethan and I are now familiar with the common species and are able to notice more of the ones that seem different from the common inca dove, white wing dove, blue grey tanager, and social flycatcher. Today we were able to add 8 species to our trip count, putting us at 39 for the trip, (This number is about to drastically increase as the birding portion of the trip begins friday. The habitat nearby the clinic is not what we expected and 36 is actually more than we initially thought we would see here.) During breakfast, Ethan and I were able to get good looks at a band tailed pigeon that was flying around the clinic. In the village, we were able to see both Rose Throated Becard and the similar White Winged Becard. During one of the shoe distributions, my dad came in to grab Ethan and I because of a strange woodpecker outside. After getting a good look, we were able to identify it as a Rufous Winged Woodpecker. We had been seeing several Great Kiskadees and one of them looked different, but not smaller like the social flycatcher. We noticed the bird was Kiskadee size, but lacked the bright rufous coloring in the wings and tail the Kiskadee would have. It turned out to be a boat billed flycatcher! Throughout the day, Ethan and I had been seeing many White Crowned Parrots and Crimson Fronted Parakeets, both of which are absolutely beautiful birds. In the van heading back to the clinic, Ethan and I talked about how we had been here 3 days without seeing any raptors! We thought we would have a competition, first to find a raptor wins. When we got back the clinic, Ethan and I both ran to the top floor balcony which had become our birding deck. After about 40 minutes Ethan excitedly says "Raptor flying over the clock tower!" The bird was very distant but he was able to pull of a photo just good enough to see that the bird was a White Tailed Kite!
Tomorrow will be a day for the whole group to travel to Poás, a volcano that is north of San Jose. This place is supposedly very good for hummingbirds and other tropical species. We will be there all day tomorrow and are hoping for a very good day to bring that 39 species count even higher!
Thats all we got for today! Hoping for another great day tomorrow!
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