Puntarenas, Costa Rica.

This week, Tina Schell asks us to interpret our own concept of “wild”. She focuses her camera on animals captured in the wilds of Africa, but allows the freedom to explore the other many definitions of the term as we see fit. You can read her entire challenge post here. Though I could have gone with images of “The Wild West” or “Wild in the Streets”, I decided instead to feature some wildlife from Costa Rica.

A 45 minute bus ride from the cruise ship docks at Puntarenas will bring you to a wildlife sanctuary known as Natuwa. The birds and animals there are typically recovered from the wild and are cared for as they have some disability that keeps them from living a normal life in the wild. Birds and animals are kept in enclosures, however the large number of beautiful macaws, like the one in the opening image, and other birds native to Costa Rica have found a shelter and friendly people to come and visit. In the trees above the refuge we saw many of these wild birds taking advantage of a protected area, but still living in the wild and free to come and go as they please.

Near the exit, hanging lazily in a tree, a juvenile sloth completely ignored the many people from our cruise ship who wanted a photo of this little guy. He was high enough in the tree that I had to use my 300 mm zoom lens at its maximum reach.

High in the trees above us in the sanctuary, a macaw couple rested on a branch. I have many more images captured from the sanctuary that I will be sharing in a future Travel Tuesday. This week’s challenge allowed me to provide a “teaser” preview of some of the exotic birds and animals we saw at Natuwa.

John Steiner