. . . and one with babies or juveniles – The Purple Gallinule and the Northern Jacana. One photo for the email announcement and two of each bird to follow.
2 Colorful Marsh Birds . . .
Snowy Egret
Waiting for a fish to catch from the pier at Tortuga Lodge & Gardens, Tortuguero National Park, Limón, Costa Rica. The Snowy Egret is found around the world everywhere there is water and warm weather. 🙂
Read more about Snowy Egrets on eBird.
More photos in my Snowy Egret GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
And the Tortuguero 2023 Trip Gallery is ready!
Tortuguero 2023 GALLERY
I have finally cleaned up my many photos and organized them into a “trip gallery” for this year’s trip to Tortuguero (my 4th) to a new lodge that I will evaluate in another blog post later. To see the gallery, click the linked image of the first page below or use this linked web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2023-February-12-16-Tortuga-Lodge-Tortuguero-NP
¡Pura Vida!
Amazon Kingfisher – Speed-fisher!
It’s a joy to watch these amazing birds dive lightening fast into the water from a tree branch to catch a small fish. Usually successfully! This Amazon Kingfisher is the biggest of these 4 Kingfishers that can be seen in Tortuguero waters (with links to my gallery of each):
Note that there are two other species of Kingfishers in Costa Rica, the Belted Kingfisher I’ve seen in other areas and the Green and Rufous Kingfisher which I am yet to see but the book says is on this Caribbean side of the country. Here’s photos from this trip of 1 male and 1 female Amazon Kingfisher which if you are still in the email notice you can see larger and better on the blog website, by clicking the blog title above.
¡Pura Vida!
And for more info and a location map of where found in only tropical Central and South America, see the eBird page.
BONUS READ
“Love thy neighbor (no exceptions)” article in the Friends Journal on simply following the example of Jesus. 🙂
Bird with an Attitude
The Great-tailed Grackle (eBird link) is a lanky blackbird with a ridiculously long tail and what seems to me a rather haughty attitude! 🙂
They are seen from the western U.S. throughout all of Central American and I have seen in almost every area of Costa Rica. Though a land bird, I seem to see more near water or marshy areas like Tortuguero. Here’s just 4 of my photos from Tortuguero and I’m particularly proud of this portrait of a female (always brown while males are black with blue/purple sheen). And I think both shots of males below demonstrate the attitude I spoke of above. 🙂
Tortuguero Butterflies
The only place I saw and photographed butterflies this trip was in the lodge gardens, totally on their Porter Weed flowers. I managed to capture 9 different species I think, but have only identified the 6 that are included in this post. See them in their own gallery below this anchor shot . . .
Lost Photos: Collared Aracari
I shoot my animal shots with a fast shutter speed in the Canon automatic “Sports-Action Mode” to freeze the action of always moving birds and butterflies! That is the fast click,click,click you hear sometimes from a camera, and it means I get lots of photos (thousands) that I have to go through to delete bad ones and sort according to subject, thus very time consuming! And with so many file folders on my computer I sometimes misplace images as I did with these Collared Aracari eating red berries in a tree behind my cabin one day. They are much better shots than the ones I used on that earlier 3 Toucan Species post, so I just have to give them their own post! 🙂 Occasionally you do luck into good sunlight from the right direction to make an okay image as with these (unlike the Aracaris in the other post):
And for more of this bird, my CR Collared Aracari GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
Part of the Tree?
There’s one bird in the tropics that disguises himself as a bump, knot, limb or branch of a tree to avoid predators. And here’s a couple of shots in different light of a Common Potoo that was seen on one of our trips into the rainforest at Tortuguero.
To see other of my photos of this bird, some with the faces showing, go to CR Common Potoo GALLERY. I think they are related to the Nighthawks, Nightjars and Whip-poor-wills (at least they look similar and are grouped together in the bird books). 🙂 Read more on eBird. They are found only in Central and South America.
¡Pura Vida!
Nesting & Eating in Rain
These Pale-vented Pigeons did not let the rain stop them from feeding and nesting in the daily rains at Tortuguero. The mother is on her nest under the eve of the outdoor restaurant at Tortuga Lodge and the others in the trees looking for food!
And 2 more photos, including the nest . . .
Capuchin & Spider Monkeys
Yesterday was the Howler Monkey with the other two types in the Caribbean lowlands today, the White-faced Capuchin Monkey and the Central American Spider Monkey.
Below is a two-photo gallery on each species plus a link to the trip gallery for each where I have several more photos, plus links to my Costa Rica galleries of each where I have even more photos from my 8 years of living in Costa Rica. Enjoy! 🙂