Mount Totumas Cloud Forest

One of our recent guests, Lisa and her family, made Mount Totumas Cloud Forest one of the their stops on their family home schooling travels. Below find a link to their blog entry regarding their visit…. brings back memories about our own year of home schooling our two daughters on the road years ago.

Family Travel Link

Back at Mount Totumas after a 2 month break. Wandered up the cascade trail today in late afternoon, a troop of howler monkeys lazily looked down on us. When we rounded the bend the view of the small canyon and waterfall opened and a large brown bird flew up to the rim of the canyon and landed on a bare branch behind a cluster of red hibiscus flowers. Through the foilage the face of a beautiful Spectacled Owl Pulsatrix perspicillata stared down at us then flew off, fortunately to a spot where the trail continued and we were able to catch a couple of more glimpses of this magnificent bird before he disappeared in the dark forest.

No pictures of the owl. We can’t leave this blog entry with only text. So here are some shots of a lovely vine that is flowering throughout the cloud forest at this time. Both the leaves and the flowers are spectacular. I wonder what this is??

I am following up this blog post a couple weeks later. Carla Black, resident of Volcan and master gardener and naturalist, keyed out this species as Columnea chiricana. Thank You Carla