Our Local Wildlife

With two little boys and an adventurous, nature-loving husband, we are never without some form of wildlife about us! I am happy to see our boys take such an interest and notice even the smallest of creatures God has made! We often say, "Thank you God for making ______ (lizards, butterflies, rainbows, etc.)!"
Since we are a family that loves birds...we'll begin with our feathered friends.  The boys and I came home from the store one day, amazed to find an injured Brown Throated Parakeet right outside our porch door!  We got to look at this sleeping guy for a while before it flew off!

 In addition to the Venezuelan Troupial (which we haven't been able to get a picture of, but is beautifully black and orange/yellow) we have a few varieties of orioles - this is the Yellow Oriole.

 There are also a few species of humming birds.  One got caught up in the roof of our palapa and Josh was able to use the swimming pool skimmer to capture it and let it rest a while before it flew off.  The boys were mesmerized by this little thing....so tired and stunned, it sat like a statue!  But we saw it fly off and begin happily eating from a yucca tree soon after.

 We've tried to attract more hummingbirds by using a feeder....but instead, we attract the Bananaquits, who LOVE sugar!

 Jack is learning to use binoculars to observe animals in the wild....like a flock of flamingos!  We even spotted a few white ones.  These are strange creatures, indeed!

 And Brown Pelicans fly around the coast all the time...but this one was spotted at our local beach.

 Thanks to Grammy who sent us some bug-collecting kits and magnifying glasses, the boys were entertained for hours by collecting some spiders, bees and beetles one day. They are still on the hunt for insects whenever we go out. 

 Wasps are plentiful here and occassionally come into the house.  We often find old wasp nests under eaves of electrical boxes or mailboxes.  They feel like soft foam and flatten if you step on them!  (Unfortunately, in the last week, both boys have been stung for the first time by wasps! Not fun!)

 At night time, our adventurous men-folk discovered a whole new world of wildlife around our yucca tree.  (Incidentally, the yucca provides food for just about every bird, insect and flying mammal around, but it is only in bloom for a short period of time and each plant blooms only once in seven years!)  Since I am NOT a fan of night-flying critters, I am happy to stay indoors while the boys explore.  Josh was able to catch a photo of this giant moth (we had one up on our porch one night, too....ugh)......

...and this bat!!!  Look closely in the bottom, right hand corner of the photo! 

At the beach one day, we had a plentiful supply of wildlife to keep the boys entertained.  Josh and Jack caught some small, silver fish.  (When we snorkel, Josh and I can see schools of THOUSANDS of these fish swimming around!)

And then Josh rescued a small lizard which had gotten lost at sea....

Which prepared him for catching this HUGE lizard - an iguana!  He watched as a feral cat chased this iguana off the nearby cliff and into the ocean.  When he swam out, he found the iguana on a rock, somewhat stranded, so he caught him and swam back with him!  Josh said when out of the water, the critter struggled and whipped his tail about in defense...but under water, he closed his eyes and seemed to relax!  The boys were completely enthralled!

After a few minutes of looking at him up close, Josh let him go back onto a cliff.

Jack, our one to not miss any small detail, found this small collection of sea snail shells today at the beach....so interesting!

Josh caught this sand crab...check out the video clips below to see some of the antics of this poor crab! :-)

Jack knows the difference between different types of crabs, because we have become the owners of two hermit crabs!

About two weeks ago, we found a small hermit crab out in our back yard, named him Pete and decided to keep him.  We read a little online about what to do to make a home for him. 

Then about a week later, we found a HUGE hermit crab walking across our porch steps!  Of course, we added him to Pete's home and decided to name him Paul.  But, Paul is an escape artist and tried to get out of the plastic box right away, so we had to make a larger "crabitat" for him! 

Now that we are the owner of TWO hermit crabs, we decided we needed to learn a little more about them.  (This is when it would be nice to have a local library to go to!)  We collected information on the internet and made our own book about hermit crabs.  And it was a good thing we read up on them, because we discovered interesting things like:
     - hermit crabs (despite their names) are very social creatures and in the wild travel with up to 25 other crabs!  They need buddies!
     - hermit crabs molt, or shed their exoskeleton, sometimes up to four times a year and need new, bigger shells to crawl into (we're working on collecting some new shells!)

We are really enjoying these new pets.  The boys love watching them in their "crabitat" and help me feed them little bits of fruits, vegetables, crackers or their favorite: shredded coconut!  And once in a while, we let them out and they get to run around a bit.  Jack thinks it is hilarious to put Pete on top of Paul's shell.  (You can see some of this and hear the giggles in the video clip!) 

We highly recommend hermit crabs as pets.  Already, they have fascinated us and they are very low maintenance!  Great learning opportunities! 
So...now that you've had a large dose of Curaco wildlife, we'll leave you with a few video clips!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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