The tayra and the nest in the ceiba

On the foothill slope of the sanctuary, José Marín managed to pull out his phone just in time. What he recorded is not something you see every day: a tayra climbing with purpose up the trunk of a ceiba, heading straight for an owl's nest. Up in the branches, the chao chao were already calling — that nervous, repeated alarm that just last week rang out when a víbora patoco was prowling near Carlos. They warn like that, together, whenever something isn't right. The tayra reached the nest without hesitation. It knocked the owlet to the ground. The small creature did not survive the fall. We still don't know what species of owl it was — that question will go unanswered for now — but the moment was preserved in two videos that José was fortunate enough to capture at precisely the right time. What strikes you most is not only the predation itself, but the chain of signals that surrounded it: the chao chao working as a shared alarm system, alerting anyone who knew how to listen. On the piedemonte, the forest speaks before anything happens.