Category: Birds

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La Gamba Tropenstation

This morning after breakfast I walked the maybe half mile down the road to La Gamba Rainforest Research Station sponsored mainly by the University of Vienna, Austria, hoping to see more butterflies! But only got one there plus one on the road near Esquinas Lodge which I will share later as part of Esquinas. 🙂

At the research station, I simply walked the garden trails, looking for nature to photograph and got quite a few photos in less than an hour. Here is a sampling of the photos in a gallery below the email photo with not everything identified yet. I have to go to the dining room for internet connection, but prepare these posts and the photos on my cabin porch during the afternoon rain, though it didn’t rain this afternoon, but will tonight! 🙂

Brown Basilisk, La Gamba Rainforest Research Station
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Toucan Rendezvous

For maybe an hour this morning, two Yellow-throated Toucans called out to each other from two different trees behind my cabin. Finally, they got together in one tree, though my last pix indicates that one is shy, hiding behind an air plant with her back to the other. Always fun to observe nature in action! 🙂 This was one of 11 bird species I photographed today, here at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge. A nice day! And though cloudy most of the day, no rain. Below this photo for the email is a photo of the two together or almost together! 🙂

Yellow-throated Toucan, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Piedras Blancas National Park, Costa Rica
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Rufous-tailed Hummingbird . . .

. . . is the most common hummingbird in gardens from southern Mexico to northwestern South America, says one website, meaning they are throughout Central America and I see at almost every lodge I visit. Plus, hands down he’s the most common bird in my garden! 🙂 In June I was photographing them a lot and chose my 12 favorite shots from June for a gallery in the online version of this post (below this one photo for the email version). The software for my chosen blog template doesn’t support galleries in the emailed version. Plus, if you’d like to see more photos of this active and colorful bird, I’ve added these 12 shots to the 130 already in my GALLERY: Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Amazilia tzacatl (linked to the gallery). There you can see my favorite shots of one feeding on a Bird of Paradise Flower at Arenal Observatory Lodge and several shots over the years of one feeding on my Torch Ginger flowers, as the most colorful meal here! 🙂 While the most common flower everywhere for them is the “Porterweed” in these photos. 🙂

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Canivet’s Emeralds are still here!

In the past I’ve had a problem with the Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds chasing off any other hummingbirds, but so far the Canivet’s Emerald, Cynanthus canivetii (my gallery link) have made themselves at home and I see them on my Porter Weeds almost as much as the Rufous-tailed. But the Blue-vented seem to have gone somewhere else again. Maybe I will refill the feeders more often! 🙂 Here’s three shots of the female in addition to the feature photo above. The male doesn’t have the white eyebrow and chest and thus I probably call some of them Rufous-tail or Blue-vented, which are all three similar males.

Canivet’s Emerald female, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Motmots Teach “Jr” to Hunt

Sunday before last in the early morning before walking to El Fogon for breakfast, I was on my terrace with a cup of tea and my camera when the neighborhood motmots came to my garden with their offspring. It appears that they were teaching him/her (male and female look identical to humans) how to catch a Cicada (or find a dead one). 🙂 Check out the gallery below of 6 shots chronologically of the lesson in my Higuerón and Nance Trees and on the ground below . . .

The Family Together on the ground with “Junior” holding the Cicada.
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Hummingbird Shadow

When trying to photograph that tiny little butterfly on the left of that rock in my garden I discovered later that I instead got a silhoutte shadow of a hummingbird flying above the butterfly. 🙂 Not great, but an interesting surprise when going through the photos. 🙂

Hummingbird Shadow on rock near a tiny butterfly in my garden, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.

Just a little serendipity! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” – Mahatma Gandhi 

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Final Birds in May & About May Photos

And now I will try to focus on nature in June, right here in my garden! 🙂 I started May still processing photos from April and I finished May with blog posts scheduled through this one today, June 10. Yes, I’ve been staying ahead about a week and a half or 10 days on writing the blog posts while coordinating the useable photos for not only the blog, but I post the useable ones in . . .

  • My photo gallery: Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA+
  • I now post all my nature photos for future research on iNaturalist (linked to my posts with a map of where photographed in CR.
  • I am still putting butterfly photos also on butterfliesandmoths.org (linked to the Costa Rica Region where I’m the primary contributor).
  • And I still post bird photos on eBird of course! You may have to add my name to see my postings there: charliedoggett.

And though it may seem like I shared a lot of butterfly photos in May, there were a lot more photographed! I got 45 species of butterflies in my garden in May! At least two species were new ones for me. And I’m having trouble keeping up with them all! 🙂 It is like I don’t need to travel to get photos, but I look forward to some different animals in my July rainforest trip when I celebrate my 85th birthday.

Now, here’s those last two birds in May . . .

Tropical Kingbird, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Canivet’s Emerald

is now one of my three regular hummingbirds along with the Rufous-tailed and the Blue-vented that surf my Porterweed flowers all day along with an occasional other flower and my feeders when filled (not often). Their second favorite flower seems to be the Torch Ginger or Bastón de Emperador. Both of these shots are of a female (white chest and white eyebrow) while the male has no white and thus I could be confusing him with the blue-vented which are very much alike.

Canivet’s Emerald, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Turkey Vulture

Vultures are so common all over the world and so important to the health of the planet! And I just can’t resist trying to photograph one every once in a while! 🙂 This common one here is a Turkey Vulture, Cathartes aura (my gallery link) is the same one you see in the United States. I think they are beautiful when flying, though their underside is always in the shadows! 🙂

Turkey Vulture, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Turkey Vulture, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

You might be interested in my other galleries on different vultures both here and other places I’ve lived/traveled . . .

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Calle Nueva Birds

Had I been going there for birds like I used to, it would have been earlier, like 5:30 or 6 am! But even during this 8-10 am best time for butterflies, I saw a lot more than 3 birds, but this is all I photographed on Calle Nueva that morning, plus the Yellow-faced Grassquit (May 15 Post) in the cow pasture as I was getting back home. 🙂 Here’s the three other birds I got photos of on that nearby dirt road . . .

Inca Dove, Calle Nueva, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

See my Inca Dove Gallery.

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