Category: Trees

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Inside a Coastal Rainforest

I included “coastal” because it is a little different from an inland rainforest like I was in in May at Chachagua Rainforest Lodge – both with lots of rain and streams & ponds but the ocean front has more severe weather and a global warming rising ocean that is washing away the land and the trees one row at a time as shown in one of these photos. Further into the forest is dark and thicker trees and potentially more dangerous wildlife. I did not go too far! 🙂

I am still amazed every time I see a big tree with big roots.

Nine more photos follow . . .

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Cativo’s Other Wildlife

My nature experiences in a Playa Cativo Lodge this past week did include more than the birds & butterflies that I love to photograph! Here’s a few that I was able to “catch” in the camera and of course the biggies like Jaguar and Puma are there but seldom seen by us humans, even on night hikes! 🙂

DISCLAIMER/POSTPONEMENT: I did this post last night and couldn’t finish processing my photo-folders of Crabs and of Reptiles that I intended to include here, so now those two categories will come later in a separate post. 🙂

Mantled Howler Monkey, Playa Cativo Lodge, Golfo Dulce & Piedras Blancas NP

And more . . .

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Morning Clouds

I can’t seem to quit photographing the clouds on the hills opposite my terrace! 🙂 See many other better vistas from my terrace in my gallery titled: From My Roca Verde Terrace! The vistas from my terrace are just one of the many blessings I have from my decision to color my sunset years “Retired in Costa Rica.” The two shown here were made on different days, June 2 & 15, one zoomed in on the distant clouds with my Tamron zoom lens and the second one with my cell phone camera. 🙂

Go to the top of my GALLERY and browse through many topics including especially my TRIPS galleries (my favorites) to see many more reasons I enjoy Costa Rica beyond the vistas!

Morning Clouds from My Terrace, Atenas, Costa Rica, June 2, 2022.
The hills of Atenas seen from my terrace, June 15, 2022.

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”

~Rabindranath Tagore

¡Pura Vida!

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Iguana in the Guarumo

The other morning just after breakfast I noticed this immature Black or Spiny-tailed Iguana climbing up my Guarumo or Cecropia Tree for the flowers which the toucans also like to eat. Notice no stripes, no spines on his tail (as on full-grow adults) and only barely starting spines on his back which is typical of the adolescent or young adult Black Iguanas. If he were still a baby, he would be green like the Green Iguanas! But at this age I’m sure of my ID! 🙂 We do have both of those iguanas here and this one is the largest of all our lizards.

Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, Atenas, Costa Rica

The Black or Spiny-tailed Iguana, Ctenosaura similis (Wikipedia article) are found throughout Central America & Mexico and in some Columbian islands in both the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. They have been introduced in Florida, but not native there. They are the largest of the two types of iguanas we have here. See my Black Spiny-tailed Iguana GALLERY for more photos. Its been a while since I’ve had one in my yard though they are possible anywhere, even in downtown Atenas! 🙂

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Garden Upgrade Photos

Day before yesterday my gardeners came with several upgrades for my garden which, like lots of my projects, started with just one flower and then, well, I kind of kept expanding it! 🙂 It started with this flower I saw at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel and liked so much, I wanted one! I sent this photo below to my gardener. He told me he could get one and then when he was here and we talked in person I “remembered a few other things” I would like for them to do when they bring the new flower. 🙂

My extras ended up being the biggest job (and expense), but I’m so glad that I got all of this done! This is where I live and I’ve slowed down a little on traveling, meaning I want my home to be a tropical paradise – my continuous vacation place! 🙂

Pagoda Flower, Clerodendron paniculatum, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica that I wanted in my garden.
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“Upside-down Yogi” (Sloth)

This Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Wikipedia link) was in this Guarumo or Cecropia Tree long enough for multiple efforts to photograph it, though in the shadows or no good light, at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel grounds. A peaceful creature! 🙂 In a peaceful place! 🙂

Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica

“The three-toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. A good-natured smile is forever on its lips…I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at a sloth in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of scientific probing.”

― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

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Chachagua Waterfalls

The feature photo is their main or largest waterfall with several other small ones like the one at the swim hole I showed in my May 16 Arrival at Chachagua Post. And repeated here:

Some swimmers get photos on those rocks by the little falls.

Their Main Waterfall . . .

Chachagua Waterfall, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica

And tourists getting their photos by this falls . . .

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Sleeping Kingbird

One of the things different on the Night Hike at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel was that we saw more sleeping birds than I’ve seen on any other night hike all over Costa Rica. Our guide said this one was a Tropical Kingbird (eBird link) which looks like a baby or a little smaller than usual to me, but this one could be an immature or they just scrunched up tight for warmth and sleeping. 🙂 And the whiter stomach could have been the camera flash, made with a cell phone camera plus people’s flashlights. So I’m sticking with the ID our guide gave us. 🙂

Sleeping Tropical Kingbird, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica.

And for comparison, here’s two more Tropical Kingbirds photographed in the daytime . . .

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