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. . . Peacock Butterflies that is, at Gandoca-Manzanillo Refuge: the feature photo above is of the White Peacock (my gallery link) and below is the common Banded Peacock (my gallery link) as the only two butterflies I was able to photograph during this year’s week in Caribe Sur, with a few others seen flying but never landing at both Manzanillo and Banana Azul.
¡Pura Vida!
This small toucan is found from Mexico south to Columbia and Venezuela. In Costa Rica it is found mostly on the Caribbean Slope with the only ones on the Pacific side being in the Northwest or the Nicoya Peninsula. While his first cousin, the Fiery-billed Aracari is found along the Central and Southern Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. That includes Atenas where I’ve had Fiery-billed in my garden. It looks like this one except for the red bill. See my other photos of this one in my gallery: Collared Aracari (linked).
¡Pura Vida!
Wow! Not easy and not quick! I always have a lot of photos to process from Maquenque Lodge and here are the ones that I chose to keep in the appropriate sub-galleries. Click the image of gallery below to go there or use this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2026-07-2-7-Maquenque-Lodge-Boca-Tapada
¡Pura Vida!
Maybe the Satyr species I see most here, the Hermes Satyr (my gallery link) was of course seen at Maquenque . . .
¡Pura Vida!
This time at Maquenque I saw only one hawk and it is one of the more common in Costa Rica, the Roadside Hawk (my gallery link).
¡Pura Vida!
These are my first turtles to be labeled Nicaraguan, but that is what iNaturalist’s AI said for every one of these photos (less the nose shot) and we’ll see if the experts agree after I post them there. It is very similar to the Central American Slider and thus could be either. But Maquenque is almost on the Nicaragua border, plus this species is supposedly all over Costa Rica.
That familiar idiom was seen literally during the several rains of my visit to Maquenque Lodge in early July, shown here in photos of a Muscovy Duck in the rain (link to my gallery). But I guess I could also use the phrase as the idiom it is known for when I read about the idiotic president and Republican politicians of the United States while living a more relaxed life in the nature and beauty of a tropical paradise country with no army, no wars, no enemies and no national hatred or fears . Pura vida! Trump affects me like water off a duck’s back! 🙂 (Though I do sometimes mourn for what is happening to my country of birth and shake my head in disbelief.)
¡Pura Vida!
I finally processed all the bird photos from my 2026 Maquenque Trip linked at:
BIRDS (43 species alphabetically) with one “Lifer” (1st time seen), the Yellow-olive Flatbill.
And yes, on previous trips I had 61 and 62 species, but I’m an old man now plus it rained every day this trip, so considering that, 43 was not a bad number. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
This striking bird is seen occasionally in my garden, but Maquenque Ecolodge is still my #1 place to see and photograph the Groove-billed Ani (my gallery link) and in more interesting situations including a photo of a family of 8 Groove-billed Anis lined up together on a fence! 🙂
And yes, there is a Smooth-billed Ani (my gallery link) that books say is seen only along the South Pacific Coast where the Groove-billed is not usually seen but I have a shot from the South Caribbean from where others have posted photos on iNaturalist, plus iNat shows some reported in the Northern Central Valley hills. They are still more rare than the Groove-billed which is literally seen all over Costa Rica up to 1,500 feet altitude. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Maquenque ranks up there with Tortuguero on seeing and photographing the Green Ibis, though this time I was not able to get a close as before plus the cloudy/rainy weather made them look darker or nearly black, but they are always dark as you can see in my gallery: Green Ibis (linked). Just 2 shots here with more in the gallery. And though they all have a green tint, it is difficult to get that green to show up in a photo.
¡Pura Vida!
Where there’s water there’s Green Herons and I have a lot of photos from all over Costa Rica of this interesting bird in my gallery: Green Heron. And as in this wet look photo below, they can have many different looks, particularly when fishing from a limb , , ,
¡Pura Vida!