12 12 12 eBook compressed quality V 3 PDF file April 15 2026 - Flipbook - Page 142
At the bottom of the mountain decent, the light changed completely. Where
the cloud forest difuses light, the Caribbean side amplioes it. Greens deepen.
Shadows sharpen. Moisture returns as a constant condition rather than an
occasional event. By the time we pushed north of San José and turned toward
Guápiles, the air felt heavy again, familiar in a diferent way than the Osa. |ere
was also the noise of the city that was a striking contrast with the solitude of the
mountains.
When we lev the city of San Jose to cross over the mountains to the Caribbean
lowlands, we were treated to an amazing scene that I was able to capture with my
drone. |is photo was so impressive that I decided to use it as the cover photo for
the book. It shows the incredible contrast between two mountain drainages, one
with crystal clear water on the right and one with an orange silt-olled river on the
lev that converged at the highway bridge. It was very interesting to see the impact
that each river had on the surrounding drainage vegetation.
And somewhere out here — improbably, absurdly — was the white toucan.
|is was not a species search. |is was a singular anomaly. |e white toucan is
not albino, not a subspecies, not a population. It is a single bird, carrying a rare
genetic condition that stripped its coloration and turned what should have been
black and yellow into white. Discovered in September 2019, it exists — as far as
anyone knows — alone. One bird. One place. One set of trees in the northern
Caribbean rainforest.
A chestnut-mandibled toucan.
We searched for two hours that orst day. |is kind of search rewires your
expectations quickly. You’re not tracking habitat patterns. You’re not predicting
behavior. You’re waiting for coincidence to happen while pretending you’re in
control. We scanned treetops. Listened. Moved slowly. Stopped oven. Nothing.
|e absence became the experience.
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