Heavy hot winds raged the whole night and throughout the day today. Nikolaus and Chris want to do vacation things and sleep in until 8:00, but I didn’t want to risk missing potential new birds, so I got up at 6:00am and explored up and down the coast.
Not a lot to report on the birding front, the Frigatebirds, the Pelicans, and the Vultures had their fun in the high winds, but the smaller birds all hunkered down not to be blown away.
The rest of the day was a bit of a lazy beach day, not a normal Eberstein Urlaub. We still had fun.
The wind reached 40km/h in gusts over 60km/h, but at 35°C it was still unbelievably hot. The wind just let the sweat dry quicker, we felt salty, sticky, and coated by a layer of drifting sand. But then there was the Pacific for cooling relief.
I have mentioned before that the dry season is from mid November to mid May and as it is so hot (especially at the Pacific side), plants have developed the survival strategy to lose their leaves.
I guess from a biological perspective leaf shedding is caused for the same reason in Europe and Costa Rica: Energy conservation during a period of no growth. But the root cause is different, in Europe growth is slowed by low light intensity and low temperatures, here it is the seasonal dryness that prevents growing.
The Guanacaste tree is typical for the region and easy to recognize as it likes to stand alone and by the beautiful shape of its tree crown.
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