Costa Rica · Osa PeninsulaRainforest Creek
In the Osa rainforest, trees top 50 metres and a creek runs past their buttress roots.
What you’ll hear
- Creek
- Waterfall
- Tropical birds
In the 3D scene you can change the time, season and weather, or follow the local time.
About this place
The Osa Peninsula lies on Costa Rica’s southern Pacific coast. Corcovado National Park, created here in 1975, covers about 424 km² and protects the largest tract of lowland rainforest on the Pacific side of the Americas. The canopy can top 50 m and more than 3,000 mm of rain falls each year. The wet season runs from May to November, wettest in October, when the creek runs full; from December to April the water drops and trees in the distance flower pink and yellow.
By day a pair of scarlet macaws crosses the valley, a yellow-throated toucan calls from a branch, squirrel monkeys run through the trees and blue morphos drift over the water. A three-toed sloth hangs all day from a limb of the big tree while leafcutter ants carry leaf pieces over a boulder. At dawn and dusk howler monkeys roar in the distance and a tapir comes to drink at the pool below the falls. After dark the frogs start up, fireflies blink along the creek and fungi glow faintly at the foot of the buttresses.
Through the year
Rainfall follows the monthly pattern in gridded climate data, not local station records.
Month by month
- JanuaryDry season; the creek drops and pink trees start to flower
- FebruaryThe driest time; trees in full flower
- MarchStill dry; leaf litter on the forest floor
- AprilThe rains begin to return
- MayThe wet season begins; the creek rises
- JuneWet season; frogs call at night
- JulyA little less rain
- AugustThe rain picks up again
- SeptemberThe second-wettest month
- OctoberThe wettest month; the creek at its fullest
- NovemberThe rains ease as the wet season ends
- DecemberThe dry season sets in from mid-month
Four seasons
October · Wet season
The wettest time of year: the creek is full, the falls widen and the water runs yellow after rain.
February · Dry season
The creek drops to show its gravel, pink and yellow trees flower in the distance and leaves cover the ground.
Best moments
A wet-season morning
Oct 1 · 11:25 · Clear
An October morning with sun through gaps in the canopy onto the creek and falls in the distance.
Rainforest dawn
Oct 1 · 05:35 · Clear
First light, mist still in the forest and the birds starting up.
The creek at dusk
Oct 1 · 17:15 · Clear
Evening light warms the trunks and the water as the forest slowly dims.
Night of fireflies
Oct 1 · 22:00 · Clear
After dark the forest is almost black, with only fireflies blinking along the creek.
Dry-season bloom
Feb 15 · 11:50 · Clear
In the February dry season the far trees flower pink and the creek runs clear and low.
Dry-season dawn
Feb 15 · 06:05 · Clear
Dry-season dawn light is clearer, rimming the canopy in gold.
Rain in the forest
Oct 1 · 11:25 · Rain
A wet-season downpour, falling through layer on layer of leaves into the creek.
The valley is an artistic re-creation, not surveyed terrain or any particular creek. Some animal calls were recorded outside the peninsula, and the water, wind and rain come from a general sound library.
In the 3D scene you can change the time, season and weather, or follow the local time.
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