Category: National Parks & Wildlife Reserves

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Lunch with Spider Monkeys

As I finished my quesadilla lunch today, I stepped out of the dining room to a tropical Guaba Tree where a couple of Spider Monkeys were eating both fruit & leaves for their lunch! 🙂 Here’s just one photo. You can see more photos of this wiry guy in my Central American Spider Monkey Gallery. And oh yes, only “new world monkeys” (Central & South America) have prehensile tails and can hang in a tree like this fellow with all hands and feet free! Nada in Africa and Asia! 🙂

Central American Spider Monkey, Maquenque Eco Lodge, Costa Rica

Part of the fun of living Retired in Costa Rica!

¡Pura Vida!

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Woodpecker House-building

I captured some images today of this Black-cheeked Woodpecker building a new house where soon some new little woodpeckers will be raised at Maquenque Eco Lodge.  🙂

Black-cheeked Woodpecker house building, Maquenque Eco Lodge, Costa Rica
Black-cheeked Woodpecker, Maquenque Eco Lodge, Costa Rica

And I’m getting lots of other bird photos plus other wildlife here in the rainforest which I will eventually share here or in my gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

Maquenque Eco Lodge website

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Birthday at Maquenque

Maquenque Eco Lodge is in Boca Tapada and a long drive of about 3.5 hours here and my driver brought me here with his wife an daughter and treated me to lunch with birthday cake and ice cream. They are already treating me royally in the dining room as I am using the WiFi here before I eat. And though I photographed more birds this afternoon, I’m using two dragonflies for tonight’s post.

One of the Amberwings, Maqueque Eco Lodge, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica.
I think this one is a Square Tail, Maqueque Eco Lodge, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

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Lirio Caminante, Trimezia gracilis

Thanks to one of the volunteers on iNaturalist, I now have a species name for that “cute smiling” flower I photographed at Arenal last month. The scientific name is Trimezia gracilis and the most used common name is Liro Caminante, with a less-used common name of Falsa Orquidea. You can see a map of where they are found around the world and read more information about them on PlantNet.org. Here’s that one photo again and I’m proud to be first to share it on iNaturalist! 🙂

Lirio Caminante, Trimezia gracilis, at Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails, Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

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Athis inca moth – A Rare Find!

One of my unidentified photos from Arenal just got identified by an authority with butterfliesandmoths.org and it is another one of those rare finds and mine is the first one ever submitted to butterfliesandmoths. 🙂 Wikipedia says “Athis inca is a moth of the Castniidae family. It is found from Mexico to Costa Rica.” You can see this photo of mine posted on butterfliesandmoths or in my gallery. And to learn more, the website that seemed to have the most information was GBIF (linked). And Project Noah (linked) has several nice photos, including different subspecies. I’m proud of my find and so glad that J. Wiley Rains of BAMONA identified it for me! Costa Rica is just full of “rare finds!” 🙂 And it is wonderful to be “Retired in Costa Rica,” the name of my blog! 🙂

Athis inca Moth, Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails, Costa Rica

On this same trip I also found another semi-rare moth which you can see in my gallery, the Feigeria herilia, an equally interesting and different moth! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Arenal 2024 Photo Gallery

Finally, I have processed all the photos and organized them into another fun gallery representative of Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails inside the Arenal Volcano National Park of Costa Rica. And the blog will be back to my little creatures and fun nature from my little garden. You can click the first page of the gallery below or if preferred, this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-May-6-11-Arenal-Observatory-Lodge-Trails

CLICK this image of the first page of gallery to go there.

And to visit there, see the Arenal Observatory Lodge WEBSITE.

¡Pura Vida!

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28 Bird Species at Arenal

Both birds and butterflies are the two groups of photos from a forest trip that take me a long time to process the literal thousands of photos and this time I did the butterflies earlier and finally I have finished the birds with 28 species photographed and only 1 is unidentified. Click the first page of the bird gallery below to see it or you can go to this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-May-6-11-Arenal-Observatory-Lodge-Trails/BIRDS

CLICK this image of the first page of the gallery to go there.

Plus I have added the better photos from this trip gallery to my Costa Rica Birds by Species galleries, so they are found in both places. 🙂 And now I will more quickly finish the entire “Trip Gallery!” 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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The “Other” Hummingbird at Arenal

Like in my garden and some other places visited in Costa Rica, Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails seemed dominated by the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird and when I finally get my Arenal ’24 Birds Gallery finished, you will see a lot of Rufous-tailed Hummingbird photos as without-a-doubt my most seen hummingbird, though I place this Violet-headed Hummingbird (eBird link) as number 2 seen by me while at Arenal and as the only other hummingbird I got useable photos of on this trip, though I’m pretty sure I saw a Cinnamon Hummingbird but without a useable photo of him/her. So here’s one shot of the Violet-headed Hummingbird plus the featured photo at top and in my Big Costa Rica Birds Gallery, my Violet-headed Hummingbird Gallery has more photos from this trip plus shots from 3 other locations earlier in Costa Rica! So check it out for another beautiful Hummingbird here! The Violet-headed Hummingbird is found only in Central America and the northern fringes of South America, exactly like the seemingly more dominant Rufous-tailed Hummingbird.

Violet-headed Hummingbird, Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails, Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

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Lake Arenal Day Views

with overcast skies, clouds or rain every day (rainy season now), but it is still a nice “extra” visita in addition to the volcano adjacent the lodge. And as you can tell on the Google Map I’ve included below, the portion you see from the lodge or the Arenal Volcano National Park on the map in lower right-hand corner of the lake is only about 1/20th of the total 20-mile long lake that fills the valleys where the river used to flow. It is the largest lake in Costa Rica and a major source of electricity. Several small towns had to be relocated when the dam was built. Read the lodge’s description linked. It is one of the most popular places for Costa Ricans to go bass fishing and some tourist! 🙂 3 photos & a map . . .

Lake Arenal seen from Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails, Costa Rica.
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