Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

-Albert Einstein

The Animal blog from Finca Coconuts

There is absolutely no doubt that living next to the jungle and sea give you more opportunity to see wildlife. We’ve had a few excursions where we went to see specific things, but just being here day to day has had plenty of amazing things happen.

Near the end of the year, we had an opportunity to go to the Zapatilla Islands. They are pristine nature reserves out at the far Eastern edge of the Bocas del Toro archipelago. It was a day trip with a group to see a turtle hatching. It was the end of the season for the hatchlings and the begging of the bad weather season which makes getting to and from the islands more difficult. The local guide from the park had marked the site and knew the turtles had hatched. He opened the nest and made a sand ramp to ease their passage. There were about 200 of the little hawksbill turtles in the nest. They were so adorable. I wanted to pick each one up and give it a good luck kiss. They’re on the critically endangered list and we felt very grateful to have seen what we did.

Speaking of endangered…Sloths. They’re not endangered, but I honestly don’t know how they have survived this long. They’re slow. Everyone knows that, but they don’t have any defense either. I’ve had two of them growl at me. And they fall out of trees all the time. We’ve had 5 fall down just here on the property. One fell the first day were on the property. Two others, were a set of males fighting over territory and presumably a female. We have a tree here that we call the Mating Tree. Once a month or so there is a female that will sit up there and literally whistle for a male to find her.

you can hear one snort at the beginning

young lady fell down

We had a very special sloth this winter. Edna was a baby that fell out of the tree. We helped her back up. The next day, same thing. On the third day, she fell out again so we contacted a friend that has rehabbed sloths before and knew the local veterinarian that deals with them. It was decided she was too young to be on her own. We gathered her up, fed her some sugar water, and handed her off to our friend who got her to the vet. Turns out little Edna was special indeed. She is a 3 toed sloth with only 2 toes on her front feet. She is missing a vertebra in her neck, and might have digestion issues. The vet was able to get her health over the next few weeks but will never be able to release her due to the other issues.

They don’t call it dolphin bay for nothing. We see them quite often. We sit out in the overwater rancho most afternoons. We see them from there once or twice a week. We’ve almost hit them while in the boat, been close enough to hear the breath exhale, and see young ones with the adults. You never get tired of seeing them.

While snorkeling in front of the property we’ve spotted 4 types of jellyfish, many other fish including Barry the barracuda that lives near us. There have been sting rays, an octopus, and a spotted eagle ray.

We have small brown bats that swoop through the trees each night, scooping up the bugs. I also had the fortune to catch some larger bats over the water. I think they were catching bugs as well, or maybe tiny fish. Saw them again last night.

On the topic of bugs, we have leaf cutter ants here. They’re very plentiful and you can see them on almost any walk through the jungle. They make paths to favorite plants and cut off pieces to take back to the nest. There they farm them into an edible fungus. The agricultural prowess of these critters is second only to humans.

I accidently grabbed this vine snake when clearing dead palm leaves. Neither of us were harmed in the encounter.

Honorable mentions – opossum, cows, lizard, dogs, and of course birds. Jodi is loving her bird app, Merlin. She will leave it on for a minute and it identifies what it hears. She’s up to about 30 identifications.