This is an AUTOMATIC english translation of a post originally written in Spanish “Un dia cualquiera”
Klik hier voor een automatische vertaling naar het Nederlands.
You don’t know what time is it?
Or maybe you do?
Now that we are spending our days at home, we are learning the routines of the different animals that go through our garden. One can almost guess the time by the sounds emanating from the jungle.
It is 5 in the morning, it is still dark and we are in the fifth heaven, but the “Chirincocos” (Gray-necked wood rails) are already awake with their pipopipopipoparapipo po po po. When it seems that they are falling and you start to fall asleep again, the scoundrels start with their piropipopopopopo again. Give me a break! The prom is that it is not that they have a volume that makes a music festival sound manager pale with envy, but also, they encourage each other and in the end you have like hundreds of pyropopiopipoporopipos singing to you right on the eardrum.
Apparently, the scandal not only affects us, but also annoys (and very much) the howlers who, as the name suggests, begin to howl.
I think you can get an idea. At 5 in the morning, EVERYONE is awake around here. Soon after, the first humans begin to be heard, the engines of the motorcycles of those who already leave to work. In the distance, a bird with a melancholic song is heard, which we have not yet identified. Piuuuuuuuuuuuuu Piuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. It looks like the soundtrack of a ghost movie.
A little while later, we are on the porch having breakfast. We are not the only ones. With the “cool” morning, the little birds fly from tree to tree in search of seeds, fruits or insects. It is a hubbub. Baltimore Orioles (Baltimore Orioles), titiras (tityras), tile tanager (blue-gray tanagers), tropical perlite (gnatcatchers),… ..
Frank and I had an interrupted breakfast. Muesli spoon. Binis. Camera. Costa Rica bird book. Another spoon. Oh no! does not reach the mouth. There is another new bird. One blue with red legs. Where? There. Where the heck is there? Do you see the Mango? Yes. To the left of the Mango, the tree with the large leaves? Yes. The one behind with the small leaves? Yes. More or less on the third branch to the left. Yes. Wow, he just flew …
Breakfast, depending on the show and the novelty of it, can last an hour. Phew! Is it 0800 already? Running we brush our teeth and sit at the dining room table to work. But we are not alone.
Chiun Chiun. Two green bullets just passed us under the nose. They look like Starfighters (X-wing) from Star Wars. But it is a hummingbird (Rufous-tailed Amazilia) chasing another …. through our living room. A little while later we received the visit of our dear Gonzo (photo on the left). A long-tailed hermit hummingbird that hangs in front of us for a long time, as if saying good morning, before going to the feeder that we have hung from the mango tree.
In the distance we hear the calls of the river wrens. Sometimes from howlers or squirrel monkeys. Most of the time, from the scarlet macaws. At ten o’clock, when the heat begins to tighten, a song is heard that the locals say announces that “YA-ESTA-EL-CAFE”. We who are very compliant, pause and have a coffee.
At about 11 and until 1, as if someone had hit a switch, all the noise stops. Dead calm. Come on, the limpets don’t open their beaks. Ah! I lie, there is always a pigeon to liven up the food. pupurrruuuupu. In the sky, the black vultures get carried away …
We finished eating and, between the heat and the early morning, my eyelids fell … so I retired to my rooms to iron my ear. I swear by everything what more I want that I do not share my plans with anybody… but boy, I do not know how they do it but three nano seconds after resting the head on the pillow, a group of scarlet macaws is installed in the handle that is in front of the room. GRAAAAAAAAA! says one GRGRGRGRGRGRAAAAAAAAA answers the other.
The other day there were up to five. And I say,
a) If they are one GLUED to the other, what need do they have to yell at each other.
b) If they are quiet and so cute until 1, why do they have the need to speak loudly at nap time… and the million dollar question…
c) How do you know when I am going to sleep?
The conversation of the macaws continues throughout the afternoon. While we work, hummingbirds continue to visit us inside the house. The rufous tail chasing another rufous tail. The tail rumbles chasing the long-billed, the long-billed that hides behind the sofa and when he sees no Moors on the coast, he goes out painting the feeder. Anyway, we are very entertaining.
And when I start to hear the first monkeys, it’s time to close the beach bar. It is five in the afternoon. The sun is already low and outlines the silhouette of the howlers, the squirrels and the capuchins jumping from cup to cup. It’s rush hour on the primate highway .
Already at night, we dined on the porch watching the fireflies through the trees. Occasionally strange sounds, dry leaves that move and two eyes that shine in the porch light. We grab the flashlight and voila, an anteater looks us in the eye before disappearing into the bush.
And in the end, silence. It must be 10 o’clock at night.
3,2,1… woof woof woof auuuuuuuuuuuu… ..the barking chorus has only just begun…. and who said that the roosters crow at sunrise? … It must be someone who has not lived near a rooster in his life … What a night awaits us …
THE FLIP FLOP LIFE 