I have several insect books but none come close to including all the thousands of species here in Costa Rica and this one seen in my garden the other day is now number 40-something in my Unidentified Insects Gallery! 🙂
As always with any photo labeled “unidentified,” I welcome the help of any reader or visitor to my galleries. Just use the “Contact” button on the menu of this blog website or on my Gallery website also. It is frustrating to me to have photos without the proper identification.
Two were photographed at Villa Lapas and one in the Carara Park, but both are a part of the same transitional rainforest in the lowlands of Rio Tarcoles, along the Pacific Coast, just an hour’s drive from where I live in Atenas.
Though I have another week+ of blog post photos already scheduled, I have now also got my “Trip Gallery” completed for the two-night visit to Villa Lapas Hotel (hotel link) in Tarcoles and it was a productive trip! 🙂 You can see all the photos from that visit last week by clicking the first page of the gallery below or go to this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-March-11-13-Villa-Lapas-Tarcoles-Carara-NP
CLICK IMAGE above to go to the gallery.
And the FYI about why I re-visited this older local hotel in Tarcoles now (2015 was my other time) is that next year (2025, Q4) Villa Lapas (hotel link) will become a Marriott “Signature” hotel, whatever that means, and of course the prices will increase significantly as they modernize the very old rooms and restaurant. So it will be interesting to see what happens! 🙂 It is adjacent to Carara National Park and across the highway from Tarcoles Village with the Rio Tarcoles Boat Tours, so a lot to do there for the nature lover like me, including on their own significant chunk of forest on the hotel grounds. I recommend it if you can put up with older facilities, often needing maintenance. Lots of nature there! See the gallery! 🙂
But ALSO NOTE: even though I’m glad I revisited Villa Lapas, my favorite hotel in the area is still Macaw Lodge on top of the mountain above Villa Lapas and Carara Park for much more nature on the lodge grounds! I encourage you to try Macaw Lodge (lodge link) even though the drive up the mountain, partly on a gravel road, is much more difficult. It is worth it!
Everywhere I go in Costa Rica I see Clay-colored Thrush and Great Kiskadee, Pitangus sulphuratus (eBird link). And therefore I was not surprised to see many of the Great Kiskadee at Hotel Villa Lapas in Tarcoles. And this time I got a good shot of a Kiskadee Nest with a Kiskadee coming in and out of it, though sadly it had been built on an electrical power pole. Here’s four shots and you can see more in my Great Kiskadee Gallery.
This Orange-billed Sparrow, Arremon aurantiirostris (linked to eBird) is another mostly Central America bird with a few in the southern edges of Mexico and northwestern South America. His bright beak makes it obvious when you spot one! This one was in the gardens of Villa Lapas Hotel at Tarcoles. And though the book says it is fairly common on both slopes here, I’ve only seen in 2 other locations so far, as shown in my Orange-billed Sparrow Gallery. Here’s two shots of this one . . .
Another not often seen birds from Villa Lapas earlier this week is the Wedge-billed Woodcreeper, Glyphorynchus spirurus (linked to eBird) which I’ve only seen one other time which was at Rancho Naturalista many years ago. They are another bird found throughout Central America and Northern South America. Here’s three photos from a tree by the bridge to my room.
If you don’t know, “Lapas” is Spanish for plural “Macaws,” and in Costa Rica the Scarlet Macaws (Lapas Rojas) are found only on the Pacific Slope. (The critically endangered Green Macaw is only on the Caribbean slope of Costa Rica.) This particular parrot, Scarlet Macaw, Ara macao, (eBird link) is greater in number and found throughout Central America and Northern South America, and though at one time listed as endangered, they have now recovered with the help of nesting boxes to replace the big old trees with holes they nested in that humans cut down for lumber and cow pastures. But the other Macaw, Green Macaw (Lapa Verde) is found only in Central America in low numbers and is listed as Critically Endangered for the same human reasons!
If you stay long enough at Villa Lapas Hotel and keep walking through the gardens and grounds you will see Scarlet Macaws there, either flying over, stopping in an Almond Tree for their favorite food, or just stopping in other trees to rest and socialize as these I photographed on the “Early Bird Hike” before breakfast my first morning there. Here are 4 of the dozens of shots I made, and as is usual with photographing birds in trees, I struggled with the shadows, “de-shadowing” as much as I could. 🙂 You can see more of my photos of this species in my Scarlet Macaw Gallery. Here’s 4 shots from Tuesday morning at Villa Lapas, Tarcoles, Puntarenas, Costa Rica . . .
The two most numerous wildlife at Villa Lapas this first afternoon in my camera were iguanas and dragonflies and I decided to share photos of 2 of the many dragonflies on the water lily pond in front of their colonial chapel in the jungle village across from my room. I left my dragonflies book at home, so no IDs on these yet! 🙂
Unidentified Dragonfly, Villa Lapas, Tarcoles, Puntarenas, Costa RicaUnidentified Dragonfly, Villa Lapas, Tarcoles, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
In the morning I do their “Early Bird Walk” before breakfast and their“Sky Way Tour” after breakfast. Then tomorrow night I do their“Night Walk” and hope for a good frog photo! So I should know tomorrow if I like the “new” Villa Lapas (changed a lot in 9 years). The afternoons are too hot & humid here (closer to coast) to do much of anything! Finally, Wednesday morning I’ve decided I will do their “Jungle River Wagon Tour” to get the whole picture of this changing resort and then I will go home after that and give you my final evaluation later. 🙂
An old regular is back! And in the next two months there will begin to be an increase in the number of butterflies with May-October the peak months for me or at least in my Atenas garden, roughly the same time as the rainy season. This Cloudless Sulphur, Phoebis sennae, is fairly common throughout the southern half of the USA down throughout Central America and the Caribbean Islands. One photo from my garden the other day:
And be sure to tune in tomorrow! I plan to tell you about my 3-day, 2-night adventure planned for Monday less than an hour from Atenas. One can have adventures close to home! 🙂
