Trip 24
Oct. 29th to Nov 5th. 2016
Saturday: Day 1 Oct. 29th 2016
Today we are flying into Costa Rica from different part of the USA, except for Mike P and Linda, who arrived yesterday. On this trip we have two newbies Linda and Ricky. The rest of this crew is: Donna and Mark, there 6th trip with CRHA, Mike O, his 3rd trip with CRHA, Dan and Mike P both there 2nd trip with CRHA and myself on my 24th trip and they all have been great and I would not trade anything for all those trips. Ricky traveling from Austin, TX was the last one in, he caught up with us in the restaurant while we were having dinner. Something new happened this trip which I hope to make permanent. Our car rental company called and wanted to bring our cars to the hotel and do the paper tonight. My anwser was a loud YES, please do. They had a lot of deliveries in the morning and that would work well for them and just beautiful for us.
Sunday: Day 2 Oct. 30th 2016
We could leave an hour early; of course we didn’t, maybe twenty minutes earlier. But we could have left a lots earlier if we had put out a little more effort. Once on our way we had to stop for gas. We had three cars, Mark and Donna usually get their own. This rental company delivers their cars with whatever is in the tank, I like a full tank and I return with a full tank. But, I go with the flow you can’t have everything always go your way. As we got over the mountains and started hitting the small towns, we finally came to the town that has a grocery store open on Sunday that sells rubber boots, which some of the guys needed. We are making better time now and soon we got a beautiful view of the Arenal Volcano and for the new comers its a Wow moment! That reminds me of my waiting at the Orlando Airport for Jet Blue to board us for our flight to CR. They made an announcement there would be a 40 minute delay because the Volcano in Turrialba was erupting and sending debris into the air that was not safe for the planes to fly through. But, forty minutes later we got an all clear and were on our way. An hour later we were on the 3 kilometer cobblestone road to the Arenal Lodge, our home for the next six days. As soon as we got there, we went to the front desk where our room keys were waiting for us. We have the Junior Suites faceing the volcano. I always take room 6 on the end, easy for everyone to me find there, then switching every trip. But the guy at the desk told me the room was being repaired. Ok, I’ll take room 7 this time. After getting the bags in the rooms, we were going meet for lunch. But, both Mark and I met on the side of room 6, the end room being rehabbed. We were there looking for an Eyelash Viper that was spotted within 5 minutes of parking the cars on arrival of trip 22. What a start for the first hunting day of trip 22, we totaled 25 snakes that Sunday night and broke a 100+ snakes that trip. But neither Mark or I found any snakes at that moment. But I had a feeling things were not as I remembered from the last trip and Mark had the same feeling. We could not figure it out, so off to lunch. After lunch I took the group on a hike of the Jungle Trail, which is made with brick pavers. This trial is usually the first one on every trip just to get everyone back in the rain forest and introduce the new herpers to the primary and secondary forest. And perhaps find a snake or two, but it is a tune-up for the feel on things since the last trip. No snakes today but a few frogs, toads and lizards. The rest of the afternoon was the pool, hot tub or just rest up for tonight’s walk. I had to go to Fortuna and pick up Miguel who would walk with us tonight and all the nights of the trip. Miguel had worked at the Arenal Lodge for 12 years and knows the property better than anyone else, and as a plus he loves snakes. After dinner and about a half hour after dark, we started our first night’s hunt on an easy trail. It took maybe 25/30 minutes to find the first snake, which was a Cloudy Snail-eater. So now I know we were not going to get skunked on this trip. We ended the night with 3 Eyelash Vipers, 2 Blunted Tree Snake, 2 Northern Cat-eye Snakes, 1 Red-ringed Snail-eaters, 3 Cloudy Snail-eaters. But one unusual find that made the night for me was a Canopy Lizard about 30 inches. We found two Canopy Lizards and I was hoping to find more on this trip..
Monday: Day 3 Oct. 31th 2016
Our day started with a yummy breakfast; the lodge puts out a great meal in the morning. They have a self service table of coffee and fruits. The fruits are my favorites starting with fresh cut pineapple, watermelon, papaya. Then the waiter comes to the tables and takes order for your eggs and etc. We will need engery for our morning walk down the field behind the lodge. This hike is 2 1/2 to 3 hours. On this morning’s hike we did not find a snake. But 2 or 3 trips ago Mike O. found a beautiful red tail boa that made some great photos for that group along with a nice golden Eyelash Viper.
We don’t find many snakes in the daytime but every once in a while we do find a snake or two. If we are in the field we do find lizards, frogs, mamals, birds ( as a matter of fact, we did see 2 toucans yesterday that I forgot to mention). Being in the field is where I try to put myself everyday while I’m here. Back to this walk. We did not find anything note worthy. But, for me just walking back up the hill without stopping for a rest was a big deal. I have been working out at the gym using a stair machine, It looks like an escalator with the stairs coming from the top to bottom. Before this trip I worked hard with this machine for 5 minutes a day. The best I did was 26 floors approximately 460 steps in the 5 minute period. Then It took me 5 minutes to getting back to breathing normal. Well, not 5 minutes but I was huffing for a good while. So, if you plan to take one of my trips, you will be doing yourself a favor by working out hard. This trip can be like boot camp if you are not prepared, well not really boot camp because you are there only 6 days in the field, But it will bring back bootcamp memories, if you every been there. After lunch everyone went their own ways: the pool, hot tub, nap, short walks wherever. We would meet for dinner, put on our gear and be ready for the night’s hunt. Dinner was over and we were geared with our boots, snake hooks, long pants, rain gear, flashlights, headlights and most important cameras or as some people used smart phones. Tonight we are starting in the citrus tree area and expand from there back to the entry road. This little walk is going to take 3 to 4 hours maybe more. Mike O. found a glass frog which was on his list of thing he wanted to fine on this trip, he also spotted a small Rainforest Hognose Pitviper coiled at the base of a tree. Overall we had a great night we found 6 Eyelash Vipers, 3 Blunted Tree Snakes, 1 Northern Cateye Snake, 1 Red Coffee Snake, 1 Rainforest Hognose Pitviper and 8 Cloudy Snail-eaters. This was good night because we had 19 snakes, 6 different species. I drove Miguel home along with Ricky to make sure I didn’t fall asleep. It was 1:30am when I hit the shower.
Emerald Glass Frog??
Tueday: Day 4 Nov. 1th 2016
After breakfast I was in my room when Donna knocked on my door and said that she and Mark had found a Coral Snake. Mark sent her to get me and away we went. Mark was standing on a path pointing to a pile of leaves with the Coral Snakes tail on top of the leaves. We looked very carefully for where the snakes body was. We could not tell for sure so we used our best guess. I put my snake hook over the stop and pressed down. I thought we had him but soon notice we did not have him at all. Next we had two snake hooks pulling though the leaves. After a few minutes we knew he was gone. About that time I remembered I had my welding gloves I care just for Coral Snakes. It seems every time I use a snake hook to catch a Coral I loose him when I use the gloves I catch them. I should tell everyone on the trip if we see a Coral Snake they yell at me “Jim Use Your Gloves”… Corals make such nice photos but not for this trip, thanks to me. But I’m working on another problem now, I seem to have a flat tire on back left tire and I need to change it. I went back to the room, then started with the tire. I got the trunk open and one of the hotel staff working near by saw what I was doing and he came over and ten minutes later the spare was on and the flat was in the trunk, and he had an extra five in his wallet. That afternoon everyone decided to go to La Fortuna for a little this and that, you always can use another “T”shirt. Dan brought a hand carved Iguana he fell in love with. I went in my car to get the tire fixed, I was amazed at the equipment they to change and fix a tire. It’s been a long time since I had to see a tire changed and fixed. I had been having a problem with my Coast Rica sim card, so I asked one of the guys where the Kolbi office was; he gave me directions only 3 blocks away. Just like all the phone companies in the States, I had to get a number and wait. Once I got to the desk and told him my problem I was out with a new password and no more problems. I then called Miguel and went to his house to wait for him to get home, his wife made us some coffee and rice pudding, both very very good. As a matter of fact Miguel brought containers of rice pudding for all our Herpers. That ended up being my dinner. A half hour later we were on the trail and found a Cloudy snail-eater; at some point a little later Mark asked if anyone was interested in see this little teeny-weeny frog that is making the loudest noise that we are hearing. I walked over and Linda and Donna were already looking at the little follow blowing himself up and serenading us. Someone yelled Snake, this snake came out of nowhere. He was crawling around up a foot or so from the base of the tree the frog was sitting in. Someone said cat-eye, but I said no, it is a Eyelash. I put my hook on him as he was moving fast around the tree and I needed to stop him. This was like no Eyelash Viper I had ever seen before. Its base color is yellow/brown with darker brown half broken circles. Without seeing the head, I could see it being it called a Cat-Eye. He on the tree Mark found the frog in. Take a look for yourself:
This one is a real beauty and so, so different. Mark said he completely looked the tree over for snakes before even looking for the frog. He could been behind a plant on the tree. I find it amazing the speed he was moving when I first saw him. Eyelash are ambush predators and are not known as fast moving. You learn something new every day in the Rainforest. They went on to find 10 snakes that night; 2 Eyelash vipers, 2 Blunted Tree Snakes, 1 Costa Rican Coral Snake, 5 Cloudy Snail-eaters.
We found also find an Olingo, a small mammal that stays in the top of large trees along with their buddy, the Kinkajous. But the Olingos have bushy tails. I had seen one on Trip 23 but I was not sure if it was a Kinkajous or the Olingo. Before putting on my web site at “Mammals We Have Found” I wanted to make sure I was correct, the key difference between the Kinkajous and the Olingos is the Olingo has the bushy tail which is not a Prehenside tail as is the Kinkajous.
Wednesday: Day 5 Nov. 2nd 2016
After breakfast I decided that I wanted to try for some snakes I had seen on the very first trip to the Arenal Lodge and had not seen again. The snake I was looking for was the Costa Rica Worm snake (Geophis brachycephalus) ; we found them by a stream of running water, they were under rocks at the edge of the stream. I was walking the trail to the stream when I saw a little snake ahead of me. I dropped the boots I was carrying, my snake hook and took a dive before he could get over bank and be lost for ever. I got him and when I say little, I’m talking 7 to 8 inches. At this point I still have not been able to ID the photos I have of him.
After bagging him, I tried for the worm snakes with no luck. Weeks later the above snake was ID as (Coniophanes fissidens ~~~ Brown Debris Snake). (I had found this snake on 3 previous trip but, they were all adults and the color is much darker.) We had a bit on wet weather and now the sun was out after lunch, most everyone in our group found their way to the pool or hot tub. Tonight we are going to hunt fields where the horses are pastured. This is close to the Lodge and we do OK here, some times it a little slow but we will see how it is tonight. We found some cat-eyes and snail-eaters, we were spread out a bit. I was by myself on a dirt road when I spotted a snake in a bush about 40 feet from the road. He did not like the light and was moving fast on a skinny limb. I knew I had to move fast or I would lose him . I moved through the 3 foot high grass like a sprinter and made the catch. It was about 30″ long and a type of Parrot Snake I had never seen before.
This of course made me very happy. One of my goals is to keep finding new species on every trip. Today I now had 2 new snake species. I later found the snake was a Bronze-striped Parrot Snake (Leptophis nebulous). I thought this snake was a juvenile with juvenile colors that would change as an adult. But this snake was a full grown adult; they top out at 3 feet. This snake has a great colors – bronze on the back and a blue-green strip fading into a green/ yellow to a white belly. This was great find! For today we found 4 Eyelash Vipers, 3 Blunt-nose Tree Snakes, 3 Northern Cateye Snakes, 3 Cloudy Snail-eaters, 1 Bronze Striped Parrot Snake, 1 No ID. for a total of 14 snakes. Not a bad night. I drove Miguel home and got back to the Lodge around 1am. I turned off the car but couldn’t get the car into park so I could the key out and lock up. I kept tryin everything I could think of, but no luck. I had to leave the car unlocked with the key in the car. Oh well!!
Thursday: Day 6 Nov. 3rd. 2016
After breakfast my first job was to get the car runing again. Number one, see if there were any car mechanics in our group. Well of course all the guys wanted their try at it…. they pulled this and pushed that, all to no avail. The best helper of the group was Mike O. who went straight to the internet. We did have old beat up cars – all 3 car were 2016 Kias with less then 2,000 kilometers on them. What Mike found was that Kia was have lots of problems similar to mine. Plan two was to call the rental company which I did. They told me do this and that, then talk to their mechanic who said then try this. No more I said – they agreed and sent their guy with an exchange car, three and a half hour I had another Kia. They got the other car shifting and was on his way and to San Jose, hope he made OK. We had dinner, then jumped into the cars to head for Red Frog Mountain (at least that what I call it). Because it has the red and blue Dart Frog on it. This mountain is above us, the mountain next and a little below us both have the red and blue Dart Frog. The mountains the lodge does not have and has not had them the whole 12 years that Miguel had worked here. Make you wonder! Well now we are at our location last trip we did pretty well here. One snake comes to mind was the first snake we caught that night was the Fales Coral Snake ( Scaphiodontophis annulatus) that was a first for CRHA. Made great photos I hope we find another one. This time the first snake was Cateye, but that is a start. We covered the same area we did not the last trip. We doing OK our numbers were slowly climbing. Then we came to a place where they had cut the under growth but did not clear it away. They cutting small trees from 5 to 20 foot total must of the trees had vines attached to them. It made go real tuff in hind sight we should have turned around and head the way we came, but that hind sight, we push now. We would fine a snake and that kept us move on. And to make matters worse there were cattle on the path we were following. We had heavy rain for about hour before we got there. So tripping over trees and vines a lot of steps when into hole left by cattle hoves. It was bad and mine bad, I was yelling to Miguel get us the hell out of here. I have very good balance because I have been doing Pilates every days for 10 years. Walk fields at night I’m use to getting tript by vines and stumbling but I always stay on my feet but I fell on my belly. In total we walked in these condition for 45 minutes until we got to a dirt road another 25 minute we were back two our cars. I salute everyone of the Herpers that made that trek that night under those conditions. We happy to get back to our bed that night. We did get some snake not as many as the trip before but did work hard getting what we got. 4 Eyelash Viper, 1 Blunthead Tree Snake, 1 Northren Cat-Eye Snake, 3 Lichen-colored Snail-eater for a days total of 9 snakes.
Friday: Day 7 Nov. 4th. 2016
It aways get around to this our last day and night for Herping. Tomorrow is a travel day. So tonight is our last shot. Last Trip 23 we had under a hundred snakes and we wanted to beat the then standing record of Trip 22 which was 101 snakes. We knew we were very close and the Friday night was on us like a ton of bricks. After all was said and done that Friday we were sure we had set a new record. Bryan said he woke up at 3:00 am and he went outside and hunted until he finally found a Cat-eye Snake. Just one more in case we didn’t get over 101 mark. We did the final tally and new record which still stands today was 104 set by Trip 23, our Champion Ship Team. For Trip 24 no one was excited about setting a record. We were going to hunt the area behind the Lodge down the hill, we already hunted this area on Monday during the morning with no luck. We did good at night on the last trip in this area. As we got down the hill Linda spotted a Fer-de-Lance the first of the trip. It was a small one setting in a coil with his head waiting for a frog to hopp into his mouth. We walked on and found an Eyelash Viper. We got to the bottom and found that the gardeners had cleaned out the basis under the trees. Of course when this happens they will come across snakes and chop-chop so we did not any snake in that area. On our way back up to the lodge Linda found another Fer-de-Lance a little larger then the first one she spotted on the way down. So for tonight it turned out to be a record 3 snakes for the day. 2 Fer-de-Lances, 1 Eyelash Viper. I want to say that weather was a factor I our production on this trip. We had a few days where a cloud was sitting right on top of us. From the restaurant you could see only 200 yards in back of the lodge. We end Trip 24 with 69 snakes, which is not bad.
~~~Mike P, Dan, Jim, Linda, Mike O, Miguel, Donna & Mark~~~
A full Group Photo Ricky was in the one above.
Mike, Linda, Donna, Mark, Mike, Dan, Rick & Jim
Saturday: Travel Day Nov. 5th. 2016
After a super large breakfast we all started packing for our trip back to San Jose, we will over night at the Hotel Aeropuerto and get our flight home. As usual not everyone goes home after out Herp Trip, Ricky is going to a cave tomorrow then stay for a wait longer. Linda go the the Osa peninsula for a week. On the way back I made a wrong turn coming into San Ramon, trying to correct my mistake I lead our little caravan the wrong way on a one way street. Oh well we are on an adventure can’t expect everything to go as planned. Once we got to the Areopuerto we had dinner and said our goodbyes as every everyone but me was leaving before breakfast.
Another trip in the old Snake Bag!!
Thanks!
Jim
Statistics for Trip 24
| Bothriechis schlegelii | Eyelash Viper |
20 |
| Bothrops asper | Fer-de-Lance |
2 |
| Imantodes cenahoa | Blunthead Tree Snake |
11 |
| Leptodeira septentrionalis | Northern Cateye Snake |
9 |
| Micrurus mosquitensis | Costa Rican Coral Snake |
1 |
| Ninia sebae | Red Coffee Snake |
1 |
| Porthidium nasutum | Rainforest Hognose Pitviper |
1 |
| Sibon annulatus | Red-ringed Snail-eater |
1 |
| Sibon longifrenis | Lichen-colored Snail-eater |
3 |
| Sibon nebulatus | Cloudy Snail-eater |
19 |
| Leptophis nebulosus | Bronze-striped Parrot Sn |
1 |
| Coniophanes fissidens | Brown Spot-belly Snake |
1 |