Catching a glimpse of toucans up close on Costa Rican adventure.
COSTA RICA — We all stared wide-eyed at a black-mandibled toucan perched 23-feet in front of us while its outsized, brightly colored beak scooped up chunks of bananas as though eating ice cream.
Kathy and I were leading a group of birders and photographers on a tour of Costa Rica when we saw the bird at Dave & Dave’s Nature Park, a privately owned preserve in Sarapiquí.
We stood just outside a 900-square-foot covered and handsomely designed photography platform. The toucan first popped up amidst a dense forest canopy along a hill 230-feet above the Sarapiquí River.
It then flew down to bunched up bananas placed on a tree trunk along the forest edge.
David Lando Ramirez, co-owner of the preserve, explained that when toucans realize the reward is worth the risk of encounters with people, they’ll come down from the forest canopy to feed on the handout of bananas.
Meanwhile, we had a show of shows watching the strikingly hued bird. Rapid camera flashes made us seem like the paparazzi shooting photos of Angelina Jolie. Not that the glamorous toucan was a female. Both genders look the same.
The bird is the largest toucan in Central America, with a bicolored beak that is gleaming yellow on the upper mandible offset by dark mahogany at the base and all along the length of the lower mandible. Its head and upper back are maroonblack and the lower back a deep blue-black.
Aqua-green surrounds the eye to accent lemonyellow on the foreneck and breast, with a thin white and red band separating the yellow breast from the blackish belly. A bright red patch shows beneath a white rump as the black tail extends a half-foot long.
The bulky, 7-inch long beak, which is one-third of the bird’s total length, is amazingly lightweight but strong. It’s also remarkably dexterous, with the lower mandible hinged against the jaw, somewhat like a human jaw, to move up and down when munching — like on a banana.
The toucan eats on fruits and berries with an occasional delicacy of invertebrates and vertebrates like insects and small snakes.
Before landing on the perch, the bird announced its presence atop the tree with vociferous yelps sounding like “HEY-HEY,” y’all, picture me. And we did. “Our mission,” said Ramirez, “is to turn people on to nature, and we do that by bringing wildlife up close and personal, where you can share space with these beautiful animals.”