Category: Trees

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Squirrel Eats Green Fig

He’s the most common squirrel in Costa Rica, a Variegated Squirrel, and I managed to get these two shots of him looking for green figs on my Strangler Fig tree Sunday morning and he did eat that one he’s approaching in the second photo. The first photo would be my favorite if the leaf behind him wasn’t “sticking out of his head” like a Unicorn, but to remove it in Photoshop would mean removing some of his whiskers and I didn’t think that would look right either, so “this is the way it really was!” 🙂

Variegated Squirrel, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

In next photo he approaches the tiny green fig that he ultimately eats.

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Boat-billed Flycatcher

This is one of several common brown & yellow birds with Black & White trim and this one most often is confused with the Great Kiskadee as about the same size. Social Flycatcher is colored the same but always smaller (and chubbier) and after awhile you get an eye for size and even the personality of birds which in this Boat-billed is different from the cockier Great Kiskadee. Plus I got a shot from behind and the white ring around this one’s head has all black in the center while the Kiskadee has yellow plus a spot of yellow on the black next to his beak. AND this Boat-billed has a bigger or fatter beak (boat-shaped?). But at first glance all of these look almost the same! I further verified my ID by running 3 of these photos through Merlin, the magical bird-ID app for your phone from eBird. 🙂

Read about Boat-billed Flycatcher on eBird or for more of my earlier photos see my Boat-billed Flycatcher GALLERY.

Boat-billed Flycatcher, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

3 more shots . . .

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Morning Vista . . .

. . . is one I never tire of and though the same, it is slightly different every morning with changing light, sky, clouds and foliage. I am so thankful to live retired in a tranquil little farming town in what might be the most nature-centered and ecology-minded little country in the world! We use 99% renewable electricity and are slowly but steadily moving towards electric cars and buses and have more than 25% of the country’s land set aside in reserves or national parks and we still plant trees! Pura vida!

View from my terrace every morning at breakfast + birds & butterflies! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

View GALLERY: From My Roca Verde Terrace

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Summer Tanager Female

I’m starting to see more birds in my garden trees now with yesterday and today including a Keel-billed Toucan, Squirrel Cuckoo, Gray-headed Chachalaca, White-winged Dove, Red-billed Pigeon, Clay-colored Thrush, Great Kiskadee. Rufous-naped Wren, and today a Summer Tanager Female which was the only decent photo I got. Here’s three shots of her at different angles . . .

Summer Tanager Female, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Gray-headed Chachalaca Portrait

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.

Gray-headed Chachalaca, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Hillside Vistas

It is looking like someone may soon buy this property and live in the big house on top of our hill as my new landlord, so I walked up to the now vacant big house the other day for some “Hillside Vistas” of what they can see from there that I can’t from lower down on our hill. Nothing spectacular and the mountains opposite us that I usually photograph were covered in clouds, so here’s some closer views that I can’t see from my house and I like what looks like hillside farm land near us that I hope will not be covered with houses anytime soon! 🙂 Que sera, sera . . .

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Rainy Day Toucan

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!

“The Nutcracker!”
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Playground “Foundation” in Park Renovation

One day they were digging a hole where the playground equipment will go and then another adding big rocks. I thought to myself that the rocks were to help with water drainage underneath dirt they will put on top of them. Then another surprise! They put gravel over the rocks which will help even more with the water drainage, but children playing on gravel? Well, it seems to be a very fine gravel which will not hurt the child who falls on it and of course grass could never grow on an active playground! So it is looking good and hopefully my next update will be photos of the playground equipment. I’m expecting something contemporary and hopefully it will not be concrete like everything else built so far! 🙂 Here’s three progressive photos for this report . . .

A hole filled with rocks for drainage in Playground Area of new Atenas Central Park.
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6 Damsel-Dragonflies

That last Friday morning butterfly hike also yielded 6 different species of Damselflies & Dragonflies and I spent hours trying to positively identify them without success! So I just decided to present them without identifications which I really hate doing, but I got only two “probable” IDs! Frustrating! And more difficult than identifying butterflies and moths for me! 🙂

Here’s one for the emailed version and all 6 in a gallery to follow . . .

And all were seen and photographed on Calle Nueva, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica last Friday, 28 October.

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My Wildlife Safari on Avenida 8

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. 🙂

A juvenile Ctensaurus or Black Iguana, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.

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!

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