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The White-winged Dove (eBird) is one of my faithful regularly seen birds in my garden. Here is in a Yellow Bell Tree behind my house. I also have quite a few photos in my White-winged Dove GALLERY, including what I think was my first bird to photograph here the hour I arrived for a birding tour in 2009. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
And this will be the last of my Arenal posts for a while, realizing I’ve done more than 3 weeks worth! And this final post will be considered the weirdest one by some or what I used to call “Leaves and Nature Things” and now refer to as “Designed by Nature” or “Nature as Art” which is also my photography brand. I debated about naming each photo and then decided to let your imagination flow! 🙂 I will give physical identities to most items when I get them in my gallery – but for now, watch the slide show as a fairy tale! But first an image for the email! 🙂
I just can’t quit talking about all the neat things you can see and photograph at Arenal Observatory Lodge! And another one are trees, all of their trees, but maybe the most unique are their Rainbow Eucalyptus Trees that were a part of their early development reforestation program which you can read about in an article on their website: The Rainbow Trees of Arenal, Costa Rica by Shannon Farley, my friend and fellow Atenas resident! 🙂 You will be amazed as you read the article and probably want to visit this favorite lodge of mine too! Where I could spend months hiking their 7+ miles of well-maintained hiking trails and never be bored! 🙂
Well, just 2 photos this time, then I encourage you to read my longer post of 2 years ago on all the trees of Arenal that I love!
And read my blog post on Arenal Trees I wrote two years ago titled: Enamored by Trees!
¡Pura Vida!
Lake Arenal was the first first man-made lake built in Costa Rica to create electricity with a dam, famous for having covered the town of Arenal and its cemetery with water. The town’s residents moved to a “Nuevo Arenal” which is now called Castillo, where the Butterfly Conservancy is located. It is also a popular local fishing lake and is surrounded by tourist attractions, Arenal Volcano National Park (La Fortuna) on the east, Monteverde on the west and Tenorio National Park nearby along with Caño Negro and many lodges/hotels & hot springs. And yes, some expat retirees have built homes on the lake! 🙂
My earlier May trip to the Observatory Lodge was better for lake shots because the sun sets over the lake that time of year! No really good shots this time, but sort of what a lake looks like in cloudy and rainy weather. 🙂
Here’s 5 shots from this trip, two of which are multi-shot panoramas . . .
My last 4 species of birds from Arenal Observatory are in 5 photos because the Red-legged Honeycreeper male & female are so different, with only their legs matching! 🙂
With 4 birds in today’s post and 4 more tomorrow I will have shared all that I got useable photos of on the Christmas trip. And no, I got no “lifers” or first-time seen birds on this trip, but that is expected when you have photos of more than 359 species of birds in Costa Rica! It’s getting harder to find a new species! 🙂
Trying to group birds by size is not real accurate, but now it leaves me with 4 “smaller” birds for tomorrow and 4 others for the next day! 🙂 Then I will get on to other wildlife and the many butterflies photographed at Arenal Observatory!
Yes, you can sometimes see a hawk at Arenal Observatory, but I did not this time nor the two larger toucans, Keel-billed and Yellow-throated, which I have every other visit. But these 5 are still impressive birds and there’s six photos because the male and female of the Great Curassow are so different. I debated about putting the Collared Aracari here, since he’s the smaller toucan, but he seemed too big for the “medium birds” post that’s next. 🙂 And despite their bad reputations, both vultures are beautiful (when flying) and so important to the ecology of our lands!
As usual, one photo for the emailed notice with the others in the online post . . .
Possibly my favorite bird seen at Arenal Observatory Lodge with the only other place seen so far being at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge at Piedras Blancas National Park near Golfito. The rich colors make this bird very attractive though he/she tends to stay behind the limbs and leaves of trees with berries, thus difficult to photograph! 🙂
Three more shots below including one eating a berry, plus you can see my other shots of this bird in my Bay-headed Tanager GALLERY! I love my growing collection of Costa Rica birds! 🙂