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| Bus window view of Chiquita Banana Plantation, Costa Rica |
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| Modern buses like this is how many tourists get around inside Costa Rica. |
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| All the dozen or so lodges have boats making the 1.5 hours trip into park. |
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| Our group on one of the Laguna Lodge boats enroute to lodge. |
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| Robert Umaña, our guide, listening for a bird or other animal. |
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| Robert using sand drawings to tell us about the life cycles of the green sea turtles that lay their eggs on this beach and each baby that makes it goes to ocean and returns years later to lay their own eggs. |
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| One of the many river channels and canals we traveled looking for wildlife. |
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| Another lodge’s guide pointing out a bird, monkey or other animal. |
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| Unidentified butterflies/moths in our Laguna Lodge garden. Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
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| Large Heliconia growing wild along the river banks, same as in my garden. Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
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| Small Heliconia also growing wild in forest and here in the lodge garden, similar to my garden! |
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| Cashew Nut is usually a surprise to people when first seen growing! One nut per flower! |
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| Hooker’s Lips or Hot Lips is another surprising plant. |
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| I can’t find the name of this blue berried plant in the rainforest. |
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| Achiote (bixa orellana) is used for food coloring red and sometimes lips |
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| Robert holds an open pod of the above Achiote flower showing the seeds It is those red seeds that have the red coloring for food or lips. A couple of children let him put red dots on their skin to show how it works. |
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| Papaya tree with a very popular fruit This is same one with the Collared Aracari Toucans I photographed Tortuguero Village, Costa Rica |
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| Torch Ginger flower |
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| Neat vine I just had to photograph! 🙂 |
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| The hand indicates it is a Hoffman’s Two-toed Sloth Though color could work as either 2 or 3-toed. Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
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| There’s a pink-nosed juvenile above what is probably the mother sloth. Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
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| The typical sloth sighting, a ball of fur in the tree. Sleeping sloth! You are lucky to find one awake and moving! Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
See more sloths and other mammal photos in my Costa Rica Mammals PHOTO GALLERY
And only one or two more posts to finish sharing my nature photos from Tortuguero. Hopefully you can see why I love that park (among others I also love!).
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| Ebony Keelback snake, on banks of Tortuguero River, Costa Rica It is similar to a Mussurana, which is more common in South America than here. |
Many people think that they will see more snakes than anything in the rainforest, but that is not usually the case as they fear humans more than we fear them and many are well camouflaged. I’m including a second photo of the only snake we saw in Tortuguero to show the full length:
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| Ebony Keelback snake, Tortuguero, Costa rica |
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| Green Iguana was the most often seen reptile. This male is orange because he is mating. Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
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| Green Basilisk or “Jesus Christ Lizard” because he walks on water. Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
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| Spectacled Caiman, Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
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| Spectacled Caiman, Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica Note that this is a lighter color than the first photo. Color varies and light makes photos different. |
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| Black River Turtle, Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
Be not in haste, said the tortoise.There is nothing here but time.
If you live long enough, you will see.Of course, though, you will see them from your cage.
Live long enough? I asked. Are there mortal dangers here?
The tortoise chuckled.
The boy doesn’t always take very good care of his prisoners, Rex the lizard chimed in.
What do you mean? He doesn’t feed us enough?
Sometimes he doesn’t understand what we need to survive, Rex answered. Sometimes he plays too rough.
How can a creature able to bend the laws of nature be so cruel? I asked.”
― Patrick Jennings, We Can’t All Be Rattlesnakes
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| Mantled Howler Monkey, Laguna Lodge, Tortuguero, Costa Rica Photo made on cell phone through the guide’s spotting scope. |
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| Central American Spider Monkey (Juvenile) Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
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| Geoffroy’s Spider Monkey, Tortuguero, Costa Rica It is lumped in with the other spider monkey as just one species of the 4 here This is a mature adult while the Central American above is a juvenile They are like first cousins with mainly a color difference. |
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| White-faced Capuchin Monkey, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
Of the four monkeys that live in Costa Rica, three can be found in Tortuguero National Park and I managed to get photos of all three on this trip. The one not here is the Squirrel Monkey found only in and around Manuel Antonio National Park. See one of my photos of Squirrel Monkey at Manuel Antonio.
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| Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
From our Tortuguero Trip last week I have already shown photos of 3 Species of Toucans, a Sungrebe, a Red-lored Parrot, and a Snowy Egret. And here are about 15 more species that I got photos of plus of course seeing others. You can see why I love Tortuguero! And a few of these were first-time sightings for me which will be added to my Birds of Costa Rica Photo Gallery.
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| Belted Kingfisher, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Little Blue Heron, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Montezuma Oropendola, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Female Anhinga, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Male Anhinga, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Great Curassow Female, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Tortuguero, Costa Rica Interesting note: This nest was above the outdoor bar at Laguna Lodge. I watched the male bring twigs and female arrange them. Fun! |
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| Royal Tern Juvenile, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Osprey, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Long-tailed Grackle Female, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Northern Jacana, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Common Black Hawk, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Orange-breasted Falcon or Bat Falcon or Black-collared Hawk ???Tortuguero, Costa Rica If you can narrow the identification down, please contact me! Wings only is tough to ID! |
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| Social Flycatcher (most likely) or Great Kiskadee or White-ringed Flycatcher, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Red-lored Parrot, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
It looks like it will be next week before I get all my shots from Tortuguero processed, so here is one more! He is the only parrot we saw and I am pleased with this shot. But there are still several more shots of birds to share! (And 3 species of monkeys, several lizards, and one snake.) And I assume you know that all of these were shot in the wild! Tortuguero is a terrific place for nature lovers!
“We need the tonic of wildness… We can never have enough of nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
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| Catedral de Alajuela seen from Juan Santamaria Park |
Even though I have rental car, I really don’t like to drive in the big cities and wanted Reagan to experience how I get to town and walk around in the old, simple city of Alajuela – more crowded and dirty than Atenas and with more old buildings. So we rode bus to town where we walked and took taxis to and from the mall. He did not particularly like it until we got to the modern City Mall
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| Juan Santamaria Statue Alajuela, Costa Rica |
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| Main entrance to City Mall, Alajuela, Costa Rica |
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| Reagan in the City Mall Food Court Where he finally got to eat at McDonald’s! |
Follow Reagan’s Blog for his view of his visit here!
