2008/03/19

Iguana 'watching'... in a public plaza!

Hi there! Back in Lima now! My first post about the trip to Guayaquil has to do with a park in the middle of the city...

Parque Seminario
, also known as 'Parque de las Iguanas' is a few metres across from Guayaquil's Cathedral.


It is a small park with a few trees and possibly a couple hundred of iguanas!


Some of them come down the trees at around noon and go back up when the sun sets...


They share the park with some birds, mostly pigeons, that look strange while walking around the iguanas... I think some pigeons might want to 'change flocks', as the long tailed fellows get more attention (and food) from the visitors.


All sizes and colours: from one to five feet long, from bright green to dark brown, they walk around, lay quiet on the stone paths or grass, climb up the trees...


They eat celery and lettuce that some people bring for them, a couple fight over the same piece making sounds and trying to bite each other...


After 'lunch' some of them go up again and stay on the branches above people's heads, we stood up in the sun, then saw a few iguanas on the top peeing!, quite funny to see people jumping around trying to avoid the 'attack'...


I hope you liked this post, we had a lot of fun watching these guys and some others that I'll upload and talk about in the following days :)

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

They are so cute and beautiful! Great post!

Mary said...

Hi Mel! Welcome Back!

I laughed throughout this post. Your descriptions of iguanas peeing cracked me up!

With you, I would have had so much fun with the celery/lettuce eating creatures. They are remarkably cute in a strange way...

I can't wait to hear more about your trip. I'll be back ;o)

Olli Haukkovaara said...

Hi Mel,

And welcome back! What a trip you had, those iguanas are so cool. I've never thought that they could be so urban animals. I'd really love to see them some day alive... Were they all same species, the one in the bottom looks so green?

Regards, Olli

Sherry at the Zoo said...

Oh my gosh....this brings back so many memories! We had a 5 foot iguana named Phoebe. We used to tie a bicycle flag to her so she wouldn't get lost and then let her run free around the yard. I love iguanas! What a fun post!

Tricia Ryder said...

Some great pictures of lovely subjects there Mel. Lucky you :)

RuthieJ said...

Gosh Mel, those iguanas are so huge! It must be amazing to see them just hanging out downtown! I've never seen anything like it. Thanks for sharing.

Mel said...

Hello guys!

Hi Helena! It was an amazing experience, they were SO BIG! The small ones are cute, the bigger ones look prehistoric :S

Mary!!! If I knew I could feed them I would have taken a few snacks for them! Guess I should always carry some veggies and fruits with me just in case!

Hi Olli! I never thought I would find sooo many in such place! We counted over 4o in on just one small tree!
At first I thought they were different, but they are all 'Iguana iguana', the bright ones are juveniles :)

¡Hola Sherry!
I can imagine the fun of having an iguana as a pet, over here is forbidden by law :(

Tricia, yes, they are fun to watch ;)

Ruthie, as I said before, it was a first for me!

Unknown said...

Those iguanas are neat!

I tagged you for a Six Word Memoir Meme that is going around the birder blogosphere!

http://birdfreak.com/six-word-bird-conservation-meme/

Good birding to you!

Sherry said...

Wow, those are great photos! I never knew the iguanas could get so big!

Mel said...

Birdfreak, they are neat as you say, sooo many in one small plaza, it's amazing and somehow disturbing too, haha

Sherry, my first time near iguanas THAT size!! They were huge and as you, I had no clue they could get so big!