charliedoggett.net
The birds seem to be coming back to my garden little by little, though this noisy little chicken-sized bird never completely left! 🙂 I usually look for interesting behavior shots with them, but when I saw this one in one of my Yellow-bell Trees I thought this might be considered a “portrait” of sorts. Read about Gray-headed Chachalaca on eBird or to see some of the many photos I’ve made over the years, check out my Gray-headed Chachalaca GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
I will be one of the participating artists in this year’s “Just in Time for Christmas ART SHOW” in Atenas, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica.
Mark your calendar now! Just 1 month from today!
Read about the other Artists at JIT for Atenas!
See you December 9-11!
¡Nos vemos del 9 al 11 de diciembre!
¡Pura Vida!
Finally! A toucan where I can photograph him! 🙂 Even though it was raining all morning yesterday, the sky overcast white, and he was two houses over, uphill! 🙂 I was still excited because this year I haven’t had as many close to my house or really many birds of any kind it seems. This is where my 150-600mm lens was absolutely essential and still I just barely caught him resting in a dead tree and trying to eat a nut which he later dropped. Not like the photos made in my garden or on trips, but still fun to see and try to capture!
Yesterday morning I spent about an hour or so walking down an old favorite, “Shady Lane,” that I haven’t walked in quite awhile. It is the extension of 8th Avenue past the Roca Verde entrance in what is still a semi-rural area. Since I’m focusing on butterflies now, I waited until after 8am because they require plenty of sunshine and most of my butterfly photos are made between 8 & 2. 🙂
Below is a gallery of 16 different species of wildlife seen along this urban street and 4 of them aren’t butterflies! 🙂 Plus a slide show of some flowers and trees also seen on this tropical neighborhood safari!
Continue reading “My Wildlife Safari on Avenida 8”
The general address for my Butterflies & Moths of Costa Rica stays the same, but all the sub-galleries or individual butterfly galleries will unfortunately have new web addresses. This is because I want this gallery to be scientifically accurate to match my volunteer work with butterfliesandmoths.org. Thus each of nearly 200 individual butterfly galleries will be titled with their common name and sub-titled in smaller letters with their scientific name. Then they have been placed in folders or family galleries according to their taxonomy. Thus the first level of galleries you see on the first screen image below are the families such as Hesperiidae – SKIPPERS (35+) or the largest family in my collection is Nymphalidae – BRUSHFOOTS (79+). The individual butterfly galleries are presented inside these family folders in the taxonomic order found on butterfliesandmoths.org, making my gallery a good research tool for anyone doing research on butterflies and moths in Costa Rica! 🙂 The bad part is that all my old blog posts (before yesterday’s) that have a link to an individual butterfly gallery – that link will no longer work! So sorry! But that is the cost of scientific accuracy. Before I just had them arranged alphabetically by common name – not the best way! 🙂 To check out my Costa Rica Butterfly & Moth Photo collection, click the first page image below or go to this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/Butterflies-Moths
I have one of, if not the largest collections of Costa Rica Butterfly photos online that I know of at about 200 species. Before getting involved in the butterfliesandmoths website, my primary source was and still often is the excellent book A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffery Glassberg.
And I could say the same things about my CR Birds Gallery which has about 360 species and has always been arranged in taxonomic order by families based on the order found in Princeton Field Guide: Birds of Central America, my preferred bird guide now, other than eBird online.
¡Pura Vida!
The Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl or Mochuelo Común en español, is one of the smaller of the many owls found in Costa Rica and for the first time I saw one this morning in my yard uphill from me with four photos to follow (though I was shooting into the sun). I’ve seen this species 3 other places in Costa Rica and you can see those photos in my Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl GALLERY. And one of the more interesting sightings was outside Costa Rica of a family of this owl in Guatemala which they locally called “Guatemalan Pygmy-Owl” but I’m pretty sure it is the same species. 🙂
Two Lessons Motmots (eBird link) were in my Higueron, Ficus, or “Strangler Fig Tree” the other day, the first I’ve seen in my yard since one on June 6, so maybe that means they are starting to return. As you can see, these two were very difficult to photograph before they flew off, with this tree having more limbs and leaves to hide behind than my Cecropia! And I got only one shot showing the long tail with a pendant on the end. But I was still excited to have them here again! See my GALLERY of Lessons Motmots in Costa Rica I’ve photographed all over Costa Rica since moving here in 2014.
Below is another shot of this bird and a couple of shots of the other one . . .
Continue reading “Hiding Motmots”
Even in green Costa Rica we are seeing the results of habitat destruction, climate change and thus the decreases in wildlife.
This year has exhibited fewer birds in my gardens and neighborhood than any other in my 8 years here. Some blame it on the much heavier rain this year (climate change). I don’t know for sure, but yesterday I searched my garden diligently and found only three birds within camera distance and even one of those, just barely! We must act or lose the necessary wildlife in our world!
Continue reading “Disappearing Wildlife”
I have been using a cheap Canon Rebel and Tamron 150-600 lens (lowest price lens this long) literally every day for 4 or 5 years and they were simply worn out with dust inside the lens (not cleanable) and parts of the camera not working including auto-focus. So day before yesterday my driver took me to San Jose and to the only authorized Canon dealer in Costa Rica where I duplicated my equipment with a newer version of each.
Then yesterday, along with other needed chores, I tried out the new combination camera/lens in my garden. Here’s one shot followed by a gallery of 8. And yes! I’m very pleased with my upgrade to newer versions of the same two instruments. 🙂 They’re easy to use and good enough quality for this old-man hobbyist without spending a fortune. 🙂 Here’s samples from my first 200 shots on the new equipment . . .
This morning’s rain not only interfered with a beautiful sunrise but also dampened my birding expedition with a great guide this morning. I try not to give up too quickly on such efforts, but did cut our hike a little shorter after my camera fogged up on the inside. All 12 of the following birds were photographed in the rain even if not obvious! 🙂 And we saw more birds and other animals, even in the rain! 🙂 Just imagine what it would have been like with a clear morning!
