Author: Charlie

Retired American nature-lover, living in Costa Rica, photographing birds and other jewels of nature. This site simply reports on my joys of being RETIRED IN COSTA RICA!
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Red-headed Firetip

Out of about a dozen species of butterflies photographed here at Macaw Lodge, it looks like the only new one for me will be this Red-headed Firetip, Pyrrhopyge phidias. I have photos of the Royal Firetip, but neither seem to be seen often. And this one looks a little like the Guava Skipper, though in a different sub-family. They are all in the big Skipper family. See all my Skippers in that family gallery.  😊

I have enjoyed my little 3-night getaway at Macaw Lodge and I return home tomorrow. Even with a lot of rain, I managed to photograph much in this truly “off the beaten tracks” lodge in a partially old growth forest adjacent a national park. I got about 17 species of birds and a dozen species of butterflies along with landscapes and other nature things!  😊 The food is good and the people super-nice, both the rural locals and the guests that included a group from Europe this week. For anyone considering wilderness places in Costa Rica, I do recommend this lodge! It is my second visit with the other time in 2019.

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The “Perfect” Motmot Portraits

🙂 This Lesson’s Motmot, Momotus lessonii (formerly Blue-crowned) was healthy, with good color, and best of all, the tail was not broken like in most of my photos of Motmots, plus both medallions at the end of his tail were in perfect condition! Then to top that off, he posed on all sides, front and back, facing both left and right! These are my best ever Motmot photos and to think that I almost missed them because my lens was fogging up from the morning rain! 😊 But removing the protective lens solved that problem! And though it rained all night, we had sun all morning and it was a very good morning with lots of both birds and butterflies to photograph! My Thanksgiving Blessing! 🙂 And check out my Lesson’s Motmot GALLERY for more photos of this beautiful bird! And here’s three of many shots from this morning . . .

Lesson’s Motmot, Macaw Lodge, Carara National Park, Costa Rica.
Continue reading “The “Perfect” Motmot Portraits”
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Arrived with the Rain

Soon after I arrived at about 2:30, the rain started and hasn’t stopped. I shot photos of leaves and many things in the rain from the porch of my cabin, but prefer this shot of my cabin vista just before the rain began and hoping for a sunrise from this same direction in the morning – depending on what the rain does!  😊  Instead of printing trail maps they ask guests to photograph this posted map (below) and use your cell phone when a map is needed. That’s becoming more common in many of the lodges here since literally everyone has a cellphone.

View from my cabin porch just before rain started.
Macaw Lodge Trail Map

Macaw Lodge website

¡Pura Vida!

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New Book for a Special Place

Hotel Banana Azul is my #1 source of butterfly photos and thus they get another book just for butterflies found on their property and nearby reserves. If you are going to the Costa Rica Caribbean and love butterflies, then you will want to take a copy of this book with you, featuring 61 species of butterflies photographed there! One of a kind book! 🙂 And why I’m introducing this week? Because Blurb is offering a “Black Friday Sale” of 50% off photo books! And I’m about to do another book also, for the same reason! 🙂

See all the pages in the free preview at: https://www.blurb.com/b/11780529-hotel-banana-azul-butterflies

Or click this image of the book cover:

CLICK this cover image to see the free preview.

¡Pura Vida!

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The Colorful Brown

One of the few butterflies that are still hanging around is the Rounded Metalmark, one of my most seen tiny butterflies this years and unlike a lot of the brown Skippers, he/she is a “colorful brown” to me. I like blue and brown together with the orange and those big beady eyes! And he’s only a little larger than my thumbnail! 🙂

Rounded Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica

More in my Rounded Metalmark GALLERY.

¡Pura Vida!

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Orchard Oriole

Less common here than the Baltimore Oriole, this male is different from the Baltimore with his richer “chestnut” or dark orange (rust) color and a tiny curvature on his bill plus being a little smaller than the Baltimore Oriole. This was a difficult call for me because it is rarer here, though Merlin backs me up on calling it an Orchard, having run both of these photos through that A-I bird identification program on my cell phone. It is a lifer for me, Orchard Oriole, Icterus spurius, linked to the eBird description. And if you would like to compare with the Baltimore Oriole, see that link to my gallery on them where you will see that the male is a brighter yellow-orange and even part yellow. Both species summer in North America and winter in Central and northern South America starting in October. As you can see in the above gallery link, I’ve seen a lot more of the Baltimore here than the Orchard! My first today! Just these two shots from my Cecropia Tree this morning:

Orchard Oriole, Atenas, Costa Rica
Orchard Oriole, Atenas, Costa Rica

For more photos of this bird this morning, see my Orchard Oriole GALLERY, though my two favorite shots are here! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Persistent Flower!

Anthuriums have almost always done well in my garden and even better in a big pot on my terrace where they get sun about 80% of the day. They grow in one shady part of my garden with almost no sun, but not as well and with smaller & fewer flowers. But this week I observed this “stray” among my taller plants that get 60+% sunshine, mostly midday. I did not plant the anthurium there where the taller plants get all of the sun, but look what this flower did that somehow got planted among the tall ones! It sent the flower stem up through the tall plants to a height of 5 ft 3 inches, that’s 63 inches or 160 centimeters! It’s the first time I’ve seen an anthurium shoot up that high! It is obviously one strong and persistent flower! 🙂

Anthurium reaching over 5 feet up for sunshine.

See the ones in a pot with about 80% sun and another in almost total shade. They all seem to do well, but the above one shows that sunshine is important to any flower, even one that grows in the shade. 🙂

Continue reading “Persistent Flower!”