Towheeblog

A close friend from my college years, Roger Rugterink, just got back from Costa Rica and saw my earlier quetzal blog.  Here’s his email: “We just came back from Costa Rica ourselves. We were lucky enough to see Resplendent Quetzals two days in a row. The first day there were four flying around. The second, we saw one sitting and were able to get a picture (attached photo).  We had excellent weather while touring the Monteverde Cloud Rain forest. That, unfortunately, is bad news. This particular rainforest depends upon misty, often decidedly windy and chilly weather.  When  we asked the naturalist who was guiding us about global warming, he cited all the changes he is seeing in the weather at Monteverde. On another walk, he went past a fallen tree with different epiphytes attached to it. He said about eighty percent of these epiphytes were dying from too much exposure to sun and warmer weather. By the time the naturalist was done about the differences in weather he sees from growing up in Monteverde  (he talked for about ten minutes on the topic), he was all but in tears.”