Sample of wildlife at Finca el Tigre:

White faced monkeys
They are thieving little rascals.
You can hear them coming from inside the house - trees rustling with little feet scurrying about. You look out the window and see the head monkey, the most daring of the bunch, glancing furtively around to make sure the coast is clear of any humans. It's a go! He lopes over to the nearest banana tree and up to the top in a flash. Grabs a banana. You rush out the door, arms waving and yelling - "Hey! Get out of there!" The monkey faces you and hisses, and dashes off, with a bunch of bananas under his armpit. This scene repeats itself regularly. We intend to plant new banana and papaya trees so there will be enough for us all.

Howler monkeys
We haven’t seen them yet but we sure have heard them.

Fiery-billed Aracari
The Aracaris look like smallish toucans. We saw one perched on a small tree just outside the house. So we all ran out to take a look. We hear another bird raising a racket nearby and realize that the Aracari is raiding the eggs from a clay-colored robin's nest! "Hey! Get away from there!" The Aracari doesn't budge - he just looks down at us with those beady bird eyes as if to say - "Oh just piss off, you interfering humans!"

Sloths
We love the sloths and it’s a thrill to see one. They seem to have such sweet little smiles as they hug the cecropia tree. If I so much as tap a cecropia, the ants swarm out and attack. Why they don’t attack the sloth is anybody’s mystery. They all just exist together harmoniously. Then a few days later when we go back again to see the sloth, he has gone…moved on to another tree.

Terciopelo Snakes
It’s very important not to disturb a sleeping Terciopelo, even if he’s curled up in the middle of the trail and blocking your path. It’s best to silently walk around and give him a wide berth. I found that out the hard way.

We see the tracks of many other animals, especially near the streams, but rarely see them.

Then there are the stable farm animals:

Horses
The usual routine is that the horses leave the stable at 6AM and return punctually at 4PM. They do not like their schedule interrupted by, say, a pesky human wanting to go for a ride mid-morning. They are happy to let us ride them first thing in the morning or late afternoon, before settling down in their stalls but woe to the human who intrudes on their schedule between those hours. First of all, you have to search the pastures just to find them. When you eventually spot them - grazing some 500 meters away, they will immediately perk up and look you over. If you are a recognizable human, they might trot over to say 'neigh', especially if you're holding a carrot. But if they also spot a harness, they will keep their distance - even if you coax them with a whole bag of carrots and bananas! They've got better pickings out in the pasture so - NO WAY JOSE. We'll see you at 4PM!

Barnyard cats
Last week, we had two cats in the hay barn. This week, we have ELEVEN - two mothers and nine kittens. Anybody want a cute little kitten? We will keep them long enough to sterilize the whole lot of them and allow mother cats to train the little ones how to hunt. Assuming the kittens take after mother cats, they will all make excellent mousers. We've never spotted the father - he is a marauding, philandering mountain cat who is known to promptly eliminate all other male cats. These are not your typical lap-cats.

Dogs
We have nine strays at the moment. It's rare to be anywhere at the Finca without a couple of the dogs along for company. Usually two or three of them accompany us out into the forest when we go hiking and they have a ball crashing in and out of the charrales. They never stray too far from us though and follow us out of the forest and they've never killed any of the wildlife - probably because the wildlife is smarter out there. We did lose a couple of dogs to the forest (and also two cats) but that's because these animals went in there at night when the snakes are active. One of my favorite dogs, Maggie, had a bad habit of going out hunting in the forest for days at a time. She always returned with some injury or another. One time a snout full of porcupine spines. And always with cuts and a limp of some sort. Then one time she never returned and we could never find her again. The guys were amazed that she lasted as long as she did. After Maggie's demise, we tried keeping the other vagabond on a leash for his own safety but he howled with such misery that we finally relented and out to the forest he went. We lost him a few months later. At this point, the rest of the pack is smarter and stays close to the stables at night and only goes into the forest when we go. Perhaps they saw something... It's a rough life for the dogs in the tropics. We treat them for parasites and ticks but there's nothing we can do about the torcelos. I was quite disgusted the first time I had to squeeze a big nematode out of a dog but we squeeze them out on a weekly basis at this point and the dogs always appreciate the service. Ivermectin does not work in preventing Torcelos! The first week the drug kills them but you still have the squeeze the dead worms out - which actually causes the dog more infection in our experience than just squeezing them out while still alive.

Hens
We built a nice hen house complete with perches, yards and egg-laying beds for our 20 plus chickens and one rooster. They wander outside during the day but head inside at night to keep safe from the hawks and snakes. The rooster enjoys herding them hither and thither. You learn rudimentary politics watching the chickens – I can definitely understand where the term ‘pecking order’ comes from. It’s quite fun watching them cluck about, chasing and herding. Sometimes I get in there and play Chief Justice.

We are so easily entertained out here!

Greetings to you and all your critters, Victoria