Bananas — and Birds

We passed acres of banana plantations on the road between San Jose and our hotel in Tortuguero. Bananas are a major part of Costa Rican economy — this small country is the third largest exporter worldwide.

The blue plastic hanging on the plants caught our eyes. We learned that these bags are used to protect developing fruit from insects, birds, sunburn, and such other “inconvenient” problems.

Almost everybody loves bananas and we all expect each one we purchase to be a perfect yellow picture book example. This leads to unfortunate downsides which can include use of fumicides and insecticides. We did learn that there is some movement toward more organic practices at least in parts of the country.

At first I thought this framework was some kind of elaborate play structure , but our guide explained that it was part of what he called “a banana train.”

A ton or more of loaded banana bags hangs on hooks on these railings. One worker walking alone pulls the loaded “train” along these narrow rail tracks. A hard job, but an efficient way to move heavy fruit through the often wet terrain to the docks where they will eventually be loaded onto trucks.

It can be quite thought-provoking to learn about what is involved in getting food to our table.

The banana plantations above were seen on the first full day in Costa Rica, when we were our way to Tortuguero (previous post).

The rest of these pictures feature bananas — and birds –seen in La Fortuna, which was where we stayed for a few days after we left Tortuguero.

We wouldn’t buy or eat bananas that looked like this, but these honeycreepers sure loved them. These bananas here were never meant for human consumption, but were grown as part of a demonstration garden, where we had gone to learn more about Costa Rican agriculture.

The Green Honeycreeper on the left above was certainly well camouflaged. I almost missed seeing it when downloading, even though I was looking for this particular picture because I remembered taking it.

The bananas attracted some creatures besides birds. This is a Central American Agouti. The picture is zoomed — it was about the size of a housecat.

We took two different excursions purposely to look at birds, but the ones we saw on this tour were all “accidental birding.” Quite often, I’ve found that those kind of sightings are every bit as rewarding. We enjoyed the part of the tour we came for and I was especially grateful to spot these interesting — and new to us — birds.

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