Close Wildlife Encounters in Just One Morning Without Leaving Our House by Maeve.

This morning I woke up and heard a hooting sound that sounded like it was in my room. I opened my eyes to find the noise was a couple of monkeys in the treetops outside the window! I sat up and noticed that they were not all howler monkeys like we usually see. Some were spider monkeys! I called Sam and Mom and Dad and we took some photos and videos. I named this baby monkey Cuckoo. It was hard to take clear pictures because there are so many leaves in the tree and the monkeys were moving around a lot.

When we were looking at the monkeys, I saw an unusual hummingbird fly past. I looked in our field guide and I found out it was a Purple throated Mountain Gem. I named it Gem! It’s bright green and tips of the feathers are a little grey and it has a blue tail and a purple throat and there is a white stripe around its eye. It was one of the most beautiful birds I have ever seen.

One tree in our front yard is home to a variegated squirrel that when we first saw it when we arrived here we thought was a monkey. But it turned out it is red belly squirrel with a gray stripe down its back and tail. This squirrel seems to be alone and I like to watch it climb. It’s a good climber. I named it Pepper. Today, sharing the tree was this iguana. Isn't it awesome?!

After breakfast, I was about to go brush my teeth and I saw what I thought was a leaf stuck on the window been blown inside by the window. When I looked closer I saw it had a body and a head. If it was autumn (in Canada, not here) then I think it would have camouflaged perfectly with the tree because it was orange-ish, yellow-ish.

In the past few days and this morning Apricot Sulphur butterflies have been so popular fluttering around everywhere around our house. There have been at least 100.

A couple hours later Sam and I took out the compost and when we came back in we went on the deck and saw lots of coatis eating it and there was a baby! And it looked right at me! I named it Popo! They climbed the trees when they were all done with their snack.

Overhead, just before lunch, we saw a Roseate Spoonbill. I think it was on its way to the beach to scoop around for fish and crabs with its really cool spoon shaped bill. It was bright pink and at first I thought it was a flamingo. I wish I got a picture.

Oh, and there were plenty of ants as usual. Dad says we just have to accept them as part of our home and be happy they don’t really bother us. Mama is not so happy with that idea, especially when she found them in the cereal this morning.