Heliconia B&B • Ecotours • Azuero Sunset Coast

Mariato district was founded on June 25, 2001. This is a short slideshow of Mariato’s birthday party June, 2014

Victor is a black vulture and so is Victoria. Here is a photo of this pretty pair:

Victor’s parents lived on our land and raided our composting area on a regular basis. Everyday we throw out our organic waste near the banana trees. Whatever was considered edible, and that is just about everything except the coffee grounds, was eaten by Victor´s parents. Although they did appreciate chicken bones and fish heads much more than overripe pineapple. Victor’s parents decided that the easiest way to ensure Victor a good future, was to nest close to the cornucopia that is our compost heap.

We found out fairly quickly where the nest was located – a hole in the ground somewhere behind and below our upper water tank. Victor as a baby was a cute thing – all fluffy white with a black bill. So when we had some especially delicious leftovers, like a fish head or tail, we brought them all the way up and fed them to little Victor. Victor learned quickly that we were a source of food rather than a source of danger. He may be on the ugly side, but he is definitely not bird-brained.

And he has not forgotten either. As an adult vulture, he started to visits the compost heap every day to check it out for edible titbits. He quickly learned that those edible titbits were brought there by us in a blue bucket. Then he learned that making an appearance in front of one of us usually resulted in the appearance of the blue bucket. Next he found out that the blue bucket is normally located in our kitchen.

After a few visits to the kitchen by Victor, we learned that we had to close the kitchen door when no-one was inside. Then Victor found out that the kitchen could also be reached via the front door. We have been busy to train him (or he us?) that he will get his food, if he just waits patiently at the back door. This appears to work.

Since a month or two, Victor has been bringing a friend, Victoria, to share in the bounty of our compost heap. After feeding, they used to rest on the support structure we made for the new veranda. But, as the work on the veranda progressed, there was less and less support structure and they started sitting on the wooden veranda floor. This was not to our liking. Mostly because Victor and Victoria were not exactly house-trained, but also because black vultures have the unsavoury habit of sh*tting on their feet to cool down. And that results in white splotches and/or white foot prints on our new veranda.

We have managed to learn them not to sit on the veranda (at least not in our presence), but house-training them is proving to be very difficult. Perhaps they are bird-brained after all? Whatever the case, we assume that they are a happy couple because we have seen them trying for a Victor(ia) Junior. As soon as we know the result, we will let you know.

Eric & Erica

When you live in Panama and have a garden of about 8 hectares (20 acres) there are a number of animals you could keep. But we opted to not “keep” any, no cattle, no dog, no cat… However, animals are starting to surround us, or seeing us as their caretakers. We are going to introduce them to you.

Eric and Erica are “our” squirrels. They are of the variegated squirrel species, and have a blond belly and black back. Only certain times of the year when they take up certain positions can we tell who is Eric and who might be Erica.

In 2007 when we saw the first squirrel of their kind on the edge of our reforested garden we were very happy. It was after all a pastureland that we bought and we were turning back into a forest.

By now, there are enough high trees, bushes and palms that Eric and Erica can do a circle around Heliconia Bed and Breakfast. They do so daily. There are areas such as our driveway where the coconut palms do not touch the cecropia tree on one side. But if you climb high enough on the leaves and jump your best, you just make it to the other side. A similar problem exists between the mango tree and the beach almond (btw – we are not on the beach, it is just a common tree name). Sometimes a jump goes wrong. But they never lay still, the ground is very dangerous, so no matter how you fell or how you feel, as soon as possible, you get back in the nearest tree.

Erica is very fanatic about regularly eating a coconut. She likes them green, and the best of these are between the cecropia and the beach almond… It takes a beginning squirrel on average 2 days (not fully employed) to make the hole. And then drink as soon as possible and scrape that delicious young coconut out of the hole. Sometimes you she needs to make the whole bigger, or her head does not fit in. By now, Erica is very experienced and she can make the hole in one morning.

Erica does not like competition in the same tree. So if Eric is also coming around, she goes after him or he after her. It is a bit like in the Ice Age film – sharing a (coco)nut with a squirrel of the other sex may be tempting but in the end keeping it to yourself is better!

So nearly every morning we listen to her gnawing for several hours…

Once in a while, if we want to barter fish for fresh coconuts, we take of a whole bunch out of the various coconut palms. When Eric(a) then arrives at the palm, you can see her wondering… who was here? They were such good nuts? The right size and all…

Sometimes (s)he leaves the coconut after drinking and goes about other squirrel business. That is a wrong move because other animals in our garden take advantage. Like a small woodpecker, or a blue and gray tanager, or one of our other “pets”, Victor the Vulture.

The green and black poison-dart frog Dendrobates auratus

You may have heard that many amphibians are threatened by a fungal disease. The fungus Batrachochitrium dendrobatis is linked to dramatic declines in populations of amphibians. It appears that the fungus has been around for a long time, but only started to threaten amphibians in the last 15 years. No one knows why. Some speculate that the fungus has mutated into a more virulent one, while others think that climate changes favours the fungus. But it is certain that many populations of amphibians have declined and some species are now extinct.
The western side of the Azuero peninsula is home to a few dozen species of amphibians. The most common and obvious ones are the Cane toad, (Bufo marinus), the Tungara frog (Physalaemus pustulopsus)) and the milk frog (Phrynohyas venulosa). But there are also a few populations of the Green-and-black Poison dart frog (Dendrobates auratus). The poison-dart frog occurs mostly in the Cerro hoya National Park, but there are remnant populations in other areas. Apparently the poison-dart frogs are most sensitive to the fungal disease, while other species hardly suffer (well, I have to admit that it is difficult to imagine the Cane Toad being sensitive to anything at all, except maybe a sledge hammer).

Last week we had two Dutch guests, Alex and Patrick, who are very keen on frogs, especially poison-dart frogs, which also suffer most from the fungal disease. Alex and Patrick brought some test kits to check whether the fungus is also present on the western Azuero peninsula, especially in the poison-dart frogs. We first went to the Cerro Hoya but found no poison-dart frogs there. They do spread out during the rainy season, but we were (are) slightly worried that we did not find a single poison dart frog. The next day we went to another place, near Quebro. Here we did find the frogs and Alex and Patrick took samples from six frogs.

Alex and Patrick sampling and photographing Dendrobates auratus

Taking a sample means that they take a swab from the skin of the frog with a small ball of cotton. The frog is not hurt in any way and is released immediately after the sample has been taken. The swab is sent to the University of London for analysis. We hope to get results in about two months time

Mariato is a very young district, on 25 June 2011 we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the district. This celebration was a typical Panamanian event with a parade through the district capital:

The mayor of Mariato leads the Parade

 Many people were dressed in the traditional Panamanian rural festive dresses and all communities elected a princess to represent them at the festivities:

One of the princesses

  After the parade, the princesses performed a tradicional dance with their ‘caballeros’:

Traditional Dance