Category: Trees

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Carara National Park

The featured photo above is a Masked Tree Frog and just two more photos below from my visit with Gary & Kenna Eaton to the transitional forest Parque Nacional Carara (linked to official website in English.) I have many more photos in my gallery: Nov 22 Carara National Park. 🙂

Northern Black-throated Trogon, Carara National Park, Costa Rica.
Gary & Kenna sludging through mud and giant trees, Carara National Park, Costa Rica.

Carara is just an hour from my house and one of my better close birding places along with the nearby Tarcoles River. They were originally scheduled to go there with Walter on their way to Punta Leona, but heavy rain closed the park that day. Some of the trails were still muddy, but our excellent guide, Franklin, provided high rubber boots for us, so we didn’t return with muddy shoes! 🙂 I usually see many more birds there than on this trip, but the unusually heavy rain this November has affected many such activities as birding! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Juvenile Black Spiny-tailed Iguana

It is tempting to call this a Green Iguana, but those do not live in my garden and these do! 🙂 The babies and juveniles of both species are very much alike, so location determines this ID. I see them in my garden a lot! And their parents & big brothers & sisters walk around on my roof and climb the trees! 🙂

Juvenile Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

See more of my many photos of this species in my GALLERY: Black Spiny-tailed Iguana. And oh yeah, the scientific name is: Ctenosaura similis.

¡Pura Vida!

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Lesson’s Motmot

Another purely Central American bird is the Lesson’s Motmot, Momotus lessonii (my gallery link) is found from Southern Mexico down through Panama. There are different species of Motmots in South America and we also have another one called the Turquoise-browed Motmot (my gallery link to it). They are mostly seen in the shadows of a tree and thus difficult for good photos. Here’s a shot of the one in my next-door neighbor’s Cecropia Tree last Wednesday morning and there are many more in the above-linked gallery. Read more about them on eBird.

Lesson’s Motmot, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Birds of a feather? Flock together?

Well, in this case, two totally different “feathers” are flocking together or at least sharing the same tree in a neighbor’s yard on a hill above me. First time I have seen the Keel-billed Toucan and the Gray-headed Chachalaca sharing a perch tree. (Names are linked to my galleries of each species.)

My landlord “K” texted me to say he looked down (his house is above mine on the same hill) to tell me that there were two toucans in my Cecropia Tree. I went out with my camera and as I looked up the last one of the two flew off. But fortunately both flew up a different hill into someone else’s tree which they shared with a Gray-headed Chachalaca. 🙂

And thanks to my telephoto lens I managed to get this shot of friendly neighbors of different species about a hundred yards away! 🙂 Maybe it’s an object lesson for us humans! 🙂

Two Keel-billed Toucans and a Gray-headed Chachalaca, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Giant Butterfly Moth

I’ve seen this large daytime moth several times in my garden & house and the only other place was at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge near Golfito on the Pacific Coast. The other day I saw two, one on my Cecropia Tree and another injured one hiding among plants in my garden. When not wanting to be seen, they are this plain beigey brown color with off-white spots and bars. But when they fly or lift their forward wings, the hindwings are a bright orange and white. You can see this from earlier sightings in my GALLERY: Giant Butterfly Moth, Castniomera atymnius (linked to the gallery). Just two shots here from this November sighting.

Giant Butterfly Moth, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Giant Butterfly Moth on Cecropia Tree trunk, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Gray-headed Chachalaca

Regular noisy visitors all around my house that I haven’t been trying to photograph much recently. Interesting chicken-sized “chatterboxes.” 🙂 The Gray-headed Chachalaca, Ortalis cinereiceps (linked to my gallery). Here he is in my slowly dying Cecropia Tree that I will replace in another year or so.

Gray-headed Chachalaca, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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White-winged Dove

One of my “regulars” here is the White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica (my gallery link). They are found from the southern half of the United States on south as far as Columbia in South America.

And by the way, the morning I wrote this post (Wed), I had a young Kee-billed Toucan in my Cecropia Tree, the first I’ve seen for awhile, but I did not have my camera with me and as I pulled out my cell phone, he flew away. But hopefully I will start getting toucan photos again! 🙂

White-winged Dove, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Lineated Woodpecker

I always like this one better than the more common here Hoffman’s or Black-cheeked Woodpeckers. And maybe that is because this one reminds me more of Woody Woodpecker. 🙂 And Woody is special in many ways, one being that he was born the same year as me, 1940. 🙂 But enough of that! The Lineated Woodpecker, Dryocopus lineatus (linked to my gallery), is a tropical forest bird found in both the lowlands and foothills (where I live) of Central & South America. In my gallery you can see that I’ve photographed him on both slopes of Costa Rica in many locations. Read about him on eBird.

Lineated Woodpecker, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!