Category: Photography

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Central American Spider Monkeys

From my Arenal trip I’ve had photo posts on Regular Mantel Howler Monkeys and an Orange Mutant Howler Monkey with today’s being photos of the only Spider Monkey we have here, Central American Spider Monkey, with our boat and the sunlight positions not helping me get good photos. 🙂 Tomorrow’s post will be on the White-faced Capuchin Monkey before I get back to birds! 🙂

  • Central American Spider Monkey
  • Central American Spider Monkey
  • Silhouettes were most of our views
  • Mother & Child – Central American Spider Monkey
  • Central American Spider Monkey
  • Central American Spider Monkey

See more in my Gallery: Central American Spider Monkeys or learn more about them on Wikipedia.

“Between every two pines there is a doorway to a new world.”

~John Muir

¡Pura Vida!

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Riverside Pig

On the Caño Negro river trip Saturday we passed this sow or mother pig with one or more babies between her and the tree and her unique Cattle Egret guard! 🙂

And yes, there was probably a farm somewhere nearby and she just wanted “to get away from it all!” – Down by the riverside! 🙂

Mama Pig with Cattle Egret Guard! 🙂

“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”

~Winston Churchill

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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La Fortuna Waterfall with Friends

I use Walter’s Transportation for all my surface trips with Walter driving sometimes and other times one of his drivers, Cristian, takes me. Because Walter had shoulder surgery Cristian took me last Monday and brought me back today (Sunday). He asked my permission to bring his wife and daughter with him on the return trip and I was delighted to have them! A child makes going to a waterfall even more fun! 🙂 And I know . . . I’m actually a child too! 🙂

The Feature Photo is my driver Cristian and his family at the middle overlook. The gallery below has different views of the falls and the stream below the plunge pool which is safer for families with children to swim, while teens & young adults go into the plunge pool. Both too cold for me! 🙂 But many of the young seem to enjoy it, including Cristian’s daughter who is wading in last photo below. CLICK image to enlarge or start a manual slideshow:

  • La Fortuna Waterfall
  • My Driver & Family
  • “Tough Guys” Swimming Under the Falls
  • A Lot of Tourists There – Mostly Tico!
  • La Fortuna Waterfall
  • Families Swim in Stream Below Plunge Pool
  • The Water is Crystal Clear! You Can See Fish Swimming! 🙂
!Pura Vida!

This makes Waterfall Number 43 that I have photographed so far in Costa Rica and I will be adding it to my “Arenal Volcano Area Waterfalls” sub-gallery of my Waterfalls CR Gallery.

I have serval more “significant” falls I want to add to my collection before I publish a Costa Rica Waterfalls book, but maybe in the next year or two! 🙂

“Playing together in nature is as much about us as it is about the child. Children get to celebrate and be themselves, while we are reminded of our inner child – the essence of who we are.”

~Nicolette Sowder

¡Pura Vida!

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Monkeying Around Christmas Eve

December 24 was a beautiful, sunshiny day! And my 6 year anniversary of living Retired in Costa Rica! I arrived on Christmas Eve 2014 and haven’t stopped exploring this tropical paradise a single day and I’m still blogging about it! Except for the first two Christmases getting “settled in” as a Costa Rica Resident, I have traveled every Christmas week since, to a National Park or other nature preserve.

The 23rd (day before yesterday) was when I scheduled Néstor, my birding guide here, and it was totally cloudy and raining all day. With nothing planned the 24th, it was a bright blue sky, sunny day! So I went hiking on my own, figuring maybe I could see some of the same birds in better light for better photos. Nada! Nothing! Almost no birds! Maybe they were in the tree tops “sunning?” 🙂 But . . .

On the other hand, on the first three rainy days I saw no monkeys and yesterday on the trail looking for birds I saw this troop or family of Mantled Howler Monkeys (my gallery link). They were way high in the Cecropia trees eating leaves, but I managed to get a few distant shots of these common monkeys here:

“We’ve just barely stopped being monkeys.”

~Duncan Trussell

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Christmas Day’s main event was a visit to the nearby Butterfly Conservatory this morning, but it may be a few days before I get to those photos! 🙂 A Merry Weekend to you! And tomorrow, Saturday, I go to Caño Negro Reserve for birding – always a good place for birds.

Arenal Observatory Lodge, Arenal Volcano National Park

¡Pura Vida!

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Yesterday’s Birds

When on these National Park trips I always get behind in sharing my photos because I am so busy in these wonderful nature places and have so many photos to process it is difficult to keep up. But here’s photos of 18 of the 24 species photographed with the other 6 photos not worth sharing! 🙂 Actually the Long-billed Gnatwren photo is not worth sharing, but since it is one of 4 “Lifers” yesterday, I feel compelled to “prove” I saw it! 🙂

And I know that yesterday I said that the Bicolored Antbird was my only “Lifer” (first time seen bird) but I still had not gone through all the 700+ photos and discovered that I actually had 4 lifers on this hike (plus I had another Lifer Monday not a part of this count: the Emerald Tanager) plus a “first in Costa Rica,” meaning I have photos of it from some other country. Yesterday’s 4 Lifers are:

  1. Bicolored Antbird
  2. Spotted Antbird
  3. Long-billed Gnatwren
  4. Carmiol’s Tanager

My sighting/photo of the immature Cinnamon Becard was my “first time in Costa Rica,” though I made photos of an adult Cinnamon Becard on one of my Panama trips.

Remember that it was cloudy and raining all day yesterday, making photography very difficult, (interestingly it was sunny all day today and I saw fewer birds!) but here’s one photo of each species except the Rufous-winged Tanager where I include one of both the male and the female since they are so different. CLICK image to enlarge:

  • Bicolored Antbird
  • Spotted Antbird
  • Red-legged Honeycreeper
  • Black-stripped Sparrow
  • Great Curassow Male
  • Palm Tanager
  • Crested Guan
  • Yellow-throated Toucan
  • Carmiol’s Tanager
  • Summer Tanager
  • Crimson-collared Tanager
  • Cinnamon Becard Immature
  • Scarlet-rumped Tanager
  • Black Phoebe
  • Pale-billed Woodpecker
  • Long-billed Gnatwren
  • Bay-headed Tanager Male
  • Rufous-winged Tanager Female
  • Rufous-winged Tanager Male
And notice that there is an overlap of only 4 birds with my first day list. 🙂

And there is always my Costa Rica Birds Gallery!

“What I saw was just one eye
In the dawn as I was going:
A bird can carry all the sky
In that little button glowing.

Never in my life I went
So deep into the firmament.”

― Harold Monro

¡Pura Vida!

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1st 24 Hours of Birds

My birding hikes are not until tomorrow, so these 20 species I got on my own and wanted to get them out before what I hope will be some new or different birds with Guide Nestor whom I’ve had on both of my previous trips here. He is good! They always ask if you have any target birds for the hike and I will tell him the same thing I did last year, “Yes, the Umbrella Bird and the Yellow-eared Toucanet.” These are both fairly rare birds and difficult to find in the thick forest and I want to add them to my collection. 🙂 But I won’t get my hopes up!

I just hope we don’t have rain tomorrow morning like we have had most of today. Here we are on the Caribbean Slope which tends to have more rain than the Pacific slope where I live. But it is still the beginning of the dry season here with less rain than they’ve had the last 6 months. We will bird from 6-8 AM, have breakfast, then the rest of the morning. So I’m hopeful with a half day with a birding guide I will get lots of birds!

Now a slide show of the last 24 hours of birds on my own with two shots of Scarlet-rumped Tanager because the male and female are totally different and two of the Brown Jay with one flying and the other perched; 22 shots of 20 species including my “lifer” I introduced yesterday:

  • Turkey Vulture
  • Great Curassow Male
  • Green Honeycreeper Female
  • Palm Tanager
  • Golden Hooded Tanager
  • Montezuma Oropendola
  • Clay-colored Thrush – Yigüirro
  • Red-billed Pigeon
  • Crested Guan
  • Silver-throated Tanager
  • Bananaquit
  • Baltimore Oriole Female
  • Blue-gray Tanager
  • Yellow-throated Euphonia, Female
  • Brown Jay
  • Brown Jay
  • Collared Aracari
  • Buff-throated Saltator
  • Tropical Kiingbird
  • Emerald Tanager
  • Scarlet-rumped Tanager Male
  • Scarlet-rumped Tanager Female

See my Costa Rica Birds Gallery.

“The bird who dares to fall is the bird who learns to fly.”

¡Pura Vida!

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Webcam from My Room

Well . . . almost – actually just ABOVE my room is the Arenal Observatory Webcam going 24/7, rotating between Lake Arenal in sunset shot above and on the volcano as in the photo below. Both these photos are views from the deck of my room, similar to the Webcam views. My first year to come here I lucked into this room and have requested it now for the third time.

Check out my 2018 Arenal Observatory Visit gallery and then I returned in 2019 for different things seen and photographed, especially more birds in 2019.

Volcano View from My Room, Arenal Observatory Lodge, Costa Rica

I’m writing this before I leave home to be released mid-day on my arrival day to start my blogging early from Arenal! 🙂 Everything should be green from months of rainy season that officially ended with November and it is now Summer (Dry Season) in Costa Rica! Though the weather forecast and above Webcam indicate there are still rain clouds at Arenal, which is okay! 🙂 The forest will still offer all the same wildness as a dry day! 🙂

I can hardly wait to explore the forests of Arenal again!

¡Pura Vida!

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House in the Forest

I just found this feature image from the May 9 “Big Day” of bird counting for eBird when I walked, counted and photographed birds in Roca Verde and adjacent Calle Nueva. The only non-bird photo was this above of a “House in the Forest” which I think I shot because it was so appealing to me, beckoning me into the forest.

Then just as I started to use it in this post as a wishful place, PRESTO! I realized that I already have it! It is the same kind of thing I have created with my little rental house, planting trees and flowers all around it where there were none already until I now have a slightly more modern version of the above house in the woods. Mine is seen below:

  • From Driveway Above House
  • From Driveway or Neighbor’s House
  • From Lower Driveway
  • From Entrance Gate
  • From Street by Gate
  • From Street
  • My Terrace in the Forest
  • My Cecropia or Guarumo Tree by Terrace
  • Flowers
  • Entrance Garden

I love my “house in the forest” and the “jungle” I’ve created around it. This was “wide open” or mostly barren when I came 5.5 years ago, so I’m proud of my “reforestation!” 🙂 Plant a tree! It will make you happy!

A few weeks ago I spoke to this “living in a forest” with my blog post Forest Window and back in January I did a post titled My Windows – My World where I actually showed you the view I have from every room in my house! 🙂 You see, I love forests and living in them! 🙂

But I also live periodically all over Costa Rica now and those many forests can be seen through my eyes in a Flora & Forest Gallery and of course other galleries with the birds & other animals in these forests! And oh yes, today is the day I leave for one of my favorite forests in Costa Rica, Arenal Volcano National Park and the wonderful in-park wilderness lodge Arenal Observatory Lodge (link to lodge website). So maybe an arrival-day blog post report tonight! 🙂 Enjoy your own trees and plant some more! 🙂

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

– John Muir

¡Pura Vida!

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Forest Details

At the end of Avenida 8 on the “Country Lane” part of the land is forest even though private property. As everywhere here in Costa Rica, if you look deep into the forest you see more details and colors like the orange Heliconia in the foreground of this photo and towards the back left the Red Ginger flowers. Yes, these flowers do grow wild in the forests as well as being cultivated in home gardens. Tropical Costa Rica! And even the variety of leaves and shades of green bring me joy as I continue to love forests more and more!

“In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike.”     

~Paulo Coelho

See also my Flora & Forest Galleries.

¡Pura Vida!

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“My Radial Circle Walk”

One of my walking places I’ve shared a lot is Avenida 8 that turns into a dirt road that I sometimes call a “Country Lane” or “Country Road.” And if I go to the end of that dirt road down a hill I’m at a connector highway called “Radial 27” that runs only from central Atenas to our nearby toll road to the capital or the beach, Ruta 27. In town it is also Avenida 0 that runs in front of the central church, central park, central mercado and ends at Central Cementerio. 🙂

If I keep walking, like I did Monday, I enter the highway at the Farmers’ Market Pavilion and then, to get more exercise, I walk up the highway hill into Central Atenas where I turn left on Calle 4 and go four blocks to Avenida 8 and left down it 6 more blocks to my house in Roca Verde. I call that “My Radial Circle Walk” with more hills and more exercise! And though I don’t do it often, I need it now to get in shape for hiking at Arenal next week! 🙂

The Feature Photo of Radial 27 above is where I stopped and pulled out my cell phone to photograph the sign that lets visitors know they are entering Atenas – sponsored by Claro, one of the cable TV companies here. Just as I pointed my phone camera at the sign the moto (a motorcycle is called here) entered my frame and he must have known it because if you zoom in on him you see he is giving me the Peace Sign (V) just as I snapped. And “no,” it wasn’t the ugly finger sign or I would not have told you! 🙂 Most people are not ugly here! But they all like the peace sign! 🙂

“I love walking because it clears your mind, enriches the soul, takes away stress and opens up your eyes to a whole new world .”

– Claudette Dudley 

My ATENAS Photo Gallery.

¡Pura Vida!