There are certain animals that make you stop, sit up and stare. Animals that capture the imagination, leaping out of the pages of children's books; more real than real, of colouration so intense and vibrant that it remains hard to acknowledge that they are wild and free living. I think no animal captivates this aspect of nature more than the Scarlet Macaw.
Adorning idealised posters of the rainforest, cartoons and animated films, advertising and the imagination of children, this raucous, noisy bird is truly astonishing to perceive in the wild. Familiar from captive collections for many, it's hard to remember that all captive animals are from the wild somewhere in the world. For what most of Latin America knows as the Ara, this is southern Central America and northern South America.
The decision had been made months prior to indulge further in the jungles of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, a decision made with the very conscious knowledge that this is the territory of a particularly successful collection of Scarlet Macaws. Focused on the area of the Parque Nacional Carara spread between two rivers in the so-called dry coastal rainforest belts, the landscape tapers naturally between the rivers up to the diverse cloud forest regions that spine the country.
Costa Rica is an intense country, and deceptively tiny. The tortuous mountain roads and jungle back country make traveling even short distances a much longer affair than one might imagine. The density and success of the western rainforests adds to the slow progress, but I would wager a majority of visitors don't mind the delay as the sights and sounds encountered on a journey here are pause for thought about the hidden magic still remaining in the natural world we haven't yet obliterated.
Carara is a deceptive block of land in its own right. A popular alternative tourist route amongst the conveyor belt of thrill-seekers that make use of Costa Rica's northwest coastal provinces sees those with just a little more imagination venture out of the depressingly American resorts of Guanacaste down to Quepos and Manuel Antonio where jungle tours and a combined rainforest-marine national park provides a more interesting diversion from the somewhat artificial ziplines and canyoning further north.
The coastal portion of the Interamericana highway passes south to the infamous Tarcoles bridge, a hotspot for atrocious food, having your car broken into and (more importantly) reliable sightings of the disturbingly large American Crocodile that languishes on the sandy banks of the Rio Tarcoles, picked around in its slumber by avocets and more adventurous iguanas.
On the far side of the bridge begins the Carara National Park proper, extending down to near the erstwhile coastal resort of Jaco, essentially Ciudad Atlantica and a place now legendary amongst single and not-so-single American tourists where they can expect to be hustled at great expense. Real estate offers from out-of-country vendors and sparkling smiles on every billboard suggest this is a region of shifting fortunes and greedy appetites.
Between these two seedier aspects of northern Puntarenas province, Carara slips quietly into the coastal rainforest. A jewel of wildlife diversity hosting stunning animal species and huge numbers of plants and trees, the park is somewhat neglected by the majority of visitors to Costa Rica, although perhaps this is not a bad thing. The rainforest is a delicate place and footsteps, whether they are the only thing left behind or not, can wreak their own havoc on a place.
The country's National Parks system encompasses at present 28 protected areas, many of which are huge. This number is also independent of the many equally valid private ventures that dominate especially the northern mountainous regions and cloud forests in the country, and between them they represent an astonishing number in a country of this size (the UK has just fifteen National Parks and is five times the size of Costa Rica), and is testimony to the nation's green credentials and savvy command of ecotourism.
The gateway into Carara consists of a wooden gate and an aging concrete car park. One of the standard issue wooden signs greets you and is bedecked with an image of the most representative animal of the park - a feature that adorns all Costa Rican National Parks, and in some cases the only way you know you're in one - in this case of course a Scarlet Macaw. A gang of lazing iguanas lumbers around the entrance and a multitude of bright yellow tanagers and antshrikes circle through the branches of a giant Ceiba tree.
As with most rainforest National Parks in Central America, only a small portion is in use for regular visitors. Secret trails and lesser known areas can be accessed, sometimes requiring the explicit written permission of park authorities. Costa Rica is decidedly lighter on the ridiculous bureaucracy that plagues many Latin American countries, but in some cases it does seem justified.
Once we had our permits we set off, initially on a small concrete-trailed loop adjacent to the parking area. Late April and early May mark the beginning of Costa Rica's intense wet season. The country is no stranger to torrential downpours at any time of year but increasing from May through to November the heavens open with an ungodly amount of water, drowning the jungle and precipitating mudslides, flooding and anxious tourists worried that the rain will spoil their plans (it never does).
Lowland Puntarenas enjoys particularly aggressive humidity and heat, indeed I imagine not unlike the temperatures experienced on Earth around the time of the dinosaurs. Perhaps this is the reason Jurassic Park is set in Costa Rica. The sweltering heat and soaking humidity make for very uncomfortable days no matter what you're doing - the only advice is to just get on with what you're doing and wipe the sweat away.
For the first time on our travels we were carrying a third - our one-year old son, generally perched in his padding backpack seat, an experience that brought him immense joy as he tried time and again to grab passing trees and stare agog in amazement at the fiery red Macaws taking flight and shrieking in the skies above. Costa Rica is already an extraordinarily friendly country, but with the sight of a young child in tow one is treated, in that quintessentially Latin American way, like senior royalty. Such an attitude makes travel here with children extremely comfortable, even if the weather is not.
Shifting the child-laden backpack around to eek a vestige of comfort, we were nonetheless forced to stop frequently on the initial pathway out of the main parking area - the beginning of wet season triggers an explosion of Poison Dart Frogs which can be found ambling across the leaf litter on the jungle floor. At Carara we found huge numbers of the stunning black and green variety, reputed to be the most toxic.
The usual difficulty of photographing ground-based animals in the dark of the rainforest persisted, but having learnt a few tricks on previous visits we made the most of the photographic experience and spent hours capturing them climbing over fallen branches and across mushroom coated roots. In time we made our way across a tributary of the Rio Tarcoles and found the concrete path had vanished. We were now hiking in flat, if somewhat muddy, airless rainforest.
A sudden burst of cackling squawks and we looked up - two Macaws zoomed overhead in the classic paired formation, tails fluttering behind them. The bird seems incapable of flying without alerting the entire jungle that it is doing so. Flying down the Tarcoles valley, they eventually settled on an almond tree further down the river though we lost sight of them in the density of the jungle. Although we struggled to get pictures, we were nevertheless excited to find our quarry so quickly, alive and well in this forest of quiet renown.
Macaws are long lived animals, on occasion in excess of forty years or more even in the wild. Although the paired formation is the one most often observed, they may be found in vast flocks flitting low across the canopy in the early morning and late evenings, seeming to favour the rising mists as a backdrop to their adventures. Macaws can eat a variety of foods but their diet in Costa Rica undoubtedly is centered on specific species of wild almonds and avocados, and select fruits.
They are an endangered species - the local prevalence at a few select spots in Central and South America is misleading and the species is certainly not found equally distributed across its range. The twin threats of habitat fragmentation (reducing large tracts of rainforest to smaller, separate areas) by clear cut logging and the looming spectre of wholesale climate change threatening their food supply takes them ever nearer the brink in our eyes. Many Macaw species in South America have gone extinct or represent some of the rarest birds on the planet.
These birds require large areas of unbroken forest, adjacent to water and with a degree of relief. Increasingly this is getting harder to find, but the carefully managed and protected area of Carara, as well as that of Palo Verde in the North and Terraba Sierpe and the giant Corcovado National Park in the South of Costa Rica's Pacific coast do provide for much of their needs. Small wonder this endangered bird is doing relatively well in these enclaves.
Continuing our trek through the main reserve, we heard Macaws frequently but didn't see any up close. Our attention was drawn to frogs, skinks and iguanas and a hive of colossal (and very angry) bees (or maybe hornets on reflection) that we were unable to identify. We made a quick bypass of the hive and continued as the rising midday heat bore down on us. With child in tow we decided to wait out the severity of the sun, if not the ever-present heat, at the famous crocodile bridge by Tarcoles, keeping an ever-watchful eye on the car and the ropey vendors selling crocodile teeth and candy floss (what a combination!) circulating amongst the traffic.
As the afternoon developed we returned into Carara proper, this time to a distant portion of the reserve off the main highway. Saddled up, we set off on a disorienting circular loop through a dry lake bed at river-level. The area came with a caution of crocodiles roaming the landscape, but we stuck to the drier paths and never came across any. Spiky trees and enormous columns of leafcutter ants punctuated the forest and giant palm fronds hid bugs and amphibians of all shades, colours, shapes and sizes.
Suddenly we heard another squawk, and turned to look upwards at a nearby tree as not one, nor two but six Scarlet Macaws were landing in a tree, jostling and shouting at one another. We stood in stunned silence for a few minutes before remembering we had cameras round our necks and then immediately began the battery of shutter fire. The birds were constantly shifting branches, taking off and landing again. A spread of bright red and blue made it hard to tell what bit of the the Macaws we were looking at times, but the effect was no less mesmerizing for it.
The event went on for well over an hour, and we shifted around on the path adjusting our positions and trying to get the optimum shot of this true spectacle of nature. A further five birds joined in, though some were shooed off by the initial bunch, clearly not welcome in this gathering, and they took flight off down the river to find a more welcoming set of branches. We snapped away, happy as could be, as our backpack-based observer somehow fell asleep in the tropical heat and noise.
Grinning from ear to ear, we made our way back, pleased to see the car was still there with all its windows intact. Driving back to our cabin over the river, we were in for a further surprise as dusk fell over the Tarcoles valley - several of the Macaws had seen fit to fly up to our overlook and were playing around in the trees outside our cabin. We couldn't believe our luck, and broke out the cameras again for another mammoth round of picture-taking of these splendid birds.
As the evening drew on the Macaws spent hours hopping from tree to tree, seemingly finding somewhere comfortable to pick through the leaves. Many parrots undertake this behaviour in the late dusk evening, cycling from tree to tree, perhaps to confuse predators before they settle down for the night. The noisy, bright red spectacle is a lot less subtle than the leaf-coloured Amazon parrots I've seen previously and one can't help but feel the Macaws are wasting their time.
One particularly brazen individual took time out in the pool near our cabin for a drink - perhaps chlorinated water isn't the best thing for these birds, but in the sweltering heat of the late evening it's entirely understandable. Abruptly, in a flash, the two remaining macaws took flight and flew low over the canopy down the valley and off to a wetland region in the distance closer to the coast.
Turning round, we saw the monumental sunset-lit cloud and steam mixture coming off the distant town of Monteverde; our next destination offering an incredible wealth of cloud forest wildlife and some of the widest diversity of species on the planet. The idea of leaving behind the mesmerising macaws was difficult, but one simply cannot stand still in Costa Rica - there are far too many stunning animals to find and photograph.
All photography © Chris Milligan Photo. All views are my own. Seek local recommendations before photographing or approaching any wildlife.
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