This Variegated Squirrel (link to article on “Canopy Family” website) is the most common squirrel in Costa Rica and here he seemed to enjoy the warm sunshine in the branches of my Guarumo or Cecropia Tree one morning back before my Esquinas Trip. He is seen all over Costa Rica as my Variegated Squirrel Gallery shows. Here’s two more shots for my collection . . .
In a tree alongside Calle Nueva I observed this Variegated Squirrel forage for food, in this case some kind of seed, nut or other fruit on this tree I cannot identify. He is almost an acrobat! 🙂
Variegated Squirrel Eating Breakfast on Calle Nueva, Atenas, Costa Rica.
There was more than this, but these are the ones I have useable photos of beyond the birds and butterflies already shown. All wildlife is so interesting and varied anywhere you go in Costa Rica. One pix for the email announcement and then a gallery of all 9 photos.
He’s the most common squirrel in Costa Rica, a Variegated Squirrel, and I managed to get these two shots of him looking for green figs on my Strangler Fig tree Sunday morning and he did eat that one he’s approaching in the second photo. The first photo would be my favorite if the leaf behind him wasn’t “sticking out of his head” like a Unicorn, but to remove it in Photoshop would mean removing some of his whiskers and I didn’t think that would look right either, so “this is the way it really was!” 🙂
Variegated Squirrel, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
In next photo he approaches the tiny green fig that he ultimately eats.
At the same breakfast stop for the Macaws shown yesterday, I got a photo of this very common Variegated Squirrel. Then, while on the trail at Tenorio Volcano National Park, a shot of an immature or juvenile Brown Vine Snake. We could have seen more wildlife in that park had it been our target instead of waterfalls. 🙂 But I stayed focused on my target of the day! 🙂
Variegated Squirrel, Canas, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.Immature Brown Vine Snake, Tenorio Volcano National Park, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. And if you have trouble finding it , it runs from upper left corner to lower right corner. Yellowish Brown.
I’m back to sharing nature from my garden again for a while and this morning the first thing I saw from my terrace was this Variegated Squirrel (Sciurus variegatoides) is a tree squirrel in the genus Sciurus, the most common squirrel of the 4 or 5 species of squirrels found in Costa Rica. He can be seen at many elevations and is more numerous than any of the others and varies somewhat in looks and color combinations with black, white, gray and reds or oranges.
This Variegated one is found only in Central America from Southern Mexico to Panama and is the most common throughout Central America. For anyone really into squirrels, the 4 others said to be in Costa Rica are the Central American dwarf or pygmy squirrel, Microsciurus alfari LR/lc; Deppe’s squirrel, Sciurus deppei LR/lc; Red-tailed squirrel, Sciurus granatensis LR/lc; and Bangs’s mountain squirrel, Syntheosciurus brochus LR/nt.
This dragonfly and squirrel round out my photos of wildlife at Xandari, having already done posts on Birds and Butterflies. The latter giving me 4 new species! Dragonflies seem to interest everyone almost as if magical or “fairy-like” as butterflies, though the larger ones are easier to photograph than these tiny blue ones. See my separate photo galleries for Costa Rica Dragonflies and for Costa Rica Damselflies for more of this magic!
Variegated Squirrel
And finally, every man’s pest, the squirrel, in this case the Variegated Squirrel, the most common in Costa Rica. But there are other species of squirrels and I have galleries on 3 of them:
Variegated Squirrel – La ardilla centroamericana (Sciurus variegatoides)
Yeah, I know, that’s what old men do – watch squirrels in the park! 🙂 But I haven’t done that until recently and snapped a few shots with my phone camera. These are called Variegated Squirrels in English, the most common squirrel all over Costa Rica. I hope that in the future I will sit in the park more whether watching people or squirrels or just relaxing or reading. It is a good place to be! To be in nature and to be in community. And eventually we will have a newly remodeled park which will necessitate more photos! 🙂
Note that we also have a lot of birds in the park also with parrots coming to the tops of one group of palms at one particular time of year and we also have had some Montezuma Oropendola nests in another part of the small park. I’m hoping they keep the trees with the remodeling!
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
~John Muir
Rough translation of sign in park: “Celebrate your life, take care of nature”
And finally, every man’s pest, the squirrel, in this case the Variegated Squirrel, the most common in Costa Rica. But there are other species of squirrels and I have galleries on 3 of them:
