Category: Costa Rica

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New Anole & Rain!

Giant Banded Anole, new in my garden, Atenas, Costa Rica
And I think he is different from the Green Tree Anole I posted earlier.
Maybe not. But I think larger and the stripes different.
I first saw this one on the tree stump I was preparing for my ceramic bird art.
I was waiting for the wood filler to dry so I could paint it & mount the bird.
It is now mounted as shown in yesterday’s post.
Rainy Season is back with rain every afternoon and today’s is especially good, started at 1:00 and still raining at 6:00!
The garden loves it!  🙂


I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain; What a wonderful feeling, I’m happy again.
~Arthur Freed
More lizards in my Costa Rica Reptiles PHOTO GALLERY
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“Open Bird” Garden Art by Anthony Jeroski

“Open Bird” Garden Art by Anthony Jeroski, Garden of Charlie Doggett, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica, front door view.
Anthony just emailed another suggested name of “Holy Bird” for the holes in it, but holy has many other meanings for me.

Vertical View of Garden Art from front door.
Arrival View or First Impression from the Driveway
In some ways I like this view best – more subtle.

The fired clay sculpture was made of Costa Rican clay by my former next door neighbor Anthony and was fired at the University of Costa Rica the week before he left for his new art experiences in Spain. I wanted it to be like one of the flowers growing out of my garden. At first I looked for driftwood to mount it on but couldn’t find what I had in mind. Then I found this tree stump just tall enough to bring it up with the taller flowers. I think it is just right! Here it is on the stump before installed in the garden:

Once installed in the garden, it sort of looks like the bird is growing up out of the ground.
I got the stump at a rustic furniture shop, Muebles Rusticos
They mostly make rustic furniture out of items like this, including
the table I got there for my terrazzo between the two rocking chairs (next photo)
A place to sit drinks when sitting in the rocking chairs! Costa Rica loves it woods!
Most furniture and house ceilings are wood. And the rustics like this table are popular.
The car is last weekend’s rent car in my driveway in front of the garden.
I am so blessed to have found this house and to live so well for so much less than the retirement center in Nashville! Someone said they heard a rumor that I was moving back. What!? Do you think I’m crazy? I’m having more fun, living better, healthier and cheaper here than anywhere else in my life. Costa Rica is my home now! And I hope this same house for a long time! 

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Last of Tarcoles Animal Photos

I got a few more photos, but not really good enough to show (and maybe some of these neither!)

Tarcoles River before flowing into the Pacific Ocean, an hour+ drive from Atenas.
Adjacent to Carara National Park, the last transitional rainforest in the Americas.
Tarcoles, Costa Rica
Yellow-crowned Euphonia, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Amazon Kingfisher, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
Boat-billed Heron, a better photo than shown first day.
Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Royal Tern, Tarcoles River Mouth, Costa Rica
Black-crowned Night Heron, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Snowy Egret, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
(With trash all around him!)

White-tailed Hawk, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Brown Basilisk (Striped Basilisk), Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
Mangrove Crab, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Juvenile American Crocodile, Tarcoles, Costa Rica

See also my Costa Rica Birds PHOTO GALLERY

Costa Rica Reptiles  PHOTO GALLERY
THE FUTURE OF TARCOLES RIVER?

“That’s what people do when they find a special place that wild and full of life, they trample it to death.” 
― Carl Hiaasen, Flush

I’m hoping that won’t happen to Tarcoles River, but during Dry Season it is full of tourists coming to see the crocodiles and what is worse, the government is building two hydroelectric dams upstream on the Tarcoles River. Plus it has already been labeled “the most polluted river in Costa Rica” as many Central Valley towns dump their sewage and industrial waste into it. Wildness is slowly disappearing everywhere, even in one of the “green” countries! And the lack of rain thus far in this year’s rainy season has been shocking to me!

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10 More Birds from Tarcoles River (& More to Come!)

Roseate Spoonbill, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Mangrove Hummingbird, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
(Proud of this! A rare shot! Got another of his back, all green.)
Wilson’s Plover, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

White Ibis, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Great Egret, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
(Our morning ballet?)

Whimbrel strolling with big brother Spoonbill, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
(It’s kind of like me hanging out with Ticos!)   🙂
Juvenal Little Blue Heron , Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Juvenal Yellow-crowned Night Heron,Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
Olivaceous Cormorants, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
Some of these will eventually be added to my Costa Rica Birds PHOTO GALLERY (It’s growing!)
Carols of gladness ring from every tree.
~Frances Anne Kemble



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First 9 Birds from Tarcoles River

I still haven’t processed all the bird photos from the 2-hour, pre-breakfast float on Tarcoles River last Saturday morning. Maybe I’ll finish them tomorrow, a week after the trip to a favorite place!

Boat-billed Heron, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
Cerulean Warbler, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Mealy Parrot, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
Great Egret, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Green Heron,  Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
(I’ve many photos of them, but none like this front view)

Ringed Kingfisher, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
White Ibis hanging out with Black Vultures, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

Black Vulture, Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
Wikipedia on Tarcoles River
It has been declared our most polluted river in Costa Rica, so birding may diminish here. But for now it is the closest place to my house I know of for this kind of birding and bird photography. 
No matter how high a bird flies, it has to come down for water.

MORE BIRDS TOMORROW!
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More School Relationships

They really get into decorating for these Spelling Bees! And they served me food and drink too!

I’ve been too busy to process 650 bird photos from the boat trip on Rio Tarcoles, thus that report will be delayed another day or more. So, a report on two more schools I’m relating to:

One of the Student Coordinators of the
Spelling Bee at Colegio Tecnico Professional

Wednesday I was asked at the last minute to help with the English Spelling Bee of a second High School, Colegio Tecnico Profesional de Atenas, more of a job & skills training school than Liceo, last week’s high school. It was wonderful and again the kids so friendly and helpful and hard working. I was “The Pronouncer” of words for this one. It hurt me every time a youth misspelled a word, as if I did not pronounce it clear enough, but we had to get down to one winner just like before. The winner was an extrovert 14 year old boy, one of the younger students, who was born in Dallas, Texas and moved here 7 years ago at age 7. He talks/acts like a real Tico, but did have an unfair advantage in the English Spelling Bee since his parents still speak English at home. But he won! He will go to the regional and maybe the national English Spelling Bee. I learned that the program was started here several years ago by a Peace Corps worker. And you wondered what they did?

Then today, I went with with Corinna, the wife of David Castillo and co-director of Su Espacio, to visit with the principal of Escuela Los Angeles (Los Angeles is a barrio of Atenas), received a tour of the school (as I got yesterday at high school) and she showed me their construction needs for and outdoor theater (to be their auditorium) and playground construction needs. They are going to have a Garage Sale, Venta Garaje, on October 3 that Su Espacio is co-sponsoring and I have been asked to help with marketing and promotion, especially to get expats to donate good clothing, etc. for the Garage Sale. Plus next week I will attend their arts festival!

I’m getting more involved with Ticos and local activities as opposed to just with expats like some. This has been my plan from the beginning and it feels good to participate in the local community. I love Atenas and the wonderful residents! Everybody helps me with my Spanish! And this evening I started a second Spanish Class, which emphasizes Costa Rica Spanish, which is unique in several ways. And I need all the help I can get to speak Spanish!   🙂   This is so much fun!

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. ~ Aesop


Love your neighbor as yourself.   ~ Jesus, Matthew 22:39
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Carara National Park Plants

Pixie Cup Fungi, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Ceiba Tree, Carra National Park, Costa Rica
Also called Kapok or Silk Cotton Tree
In all tropical forests I’ve seen, Africa, South America
The back side of the above Ceiba has a “cave”

 

Rain forests have an incredible variety of trees
and plants. My guide Victor leads the way down
and old road used as trail now.
One of the several varieties of Cecropia Trees,
similar to my Guarumo but not the same. Cousins!
This whole family of trees has multiple medicinal uses.
Rare plant that only grows in this particular
transitional forest and only in the shade.
Has medicinal uses.
And another fungus!   🙂

“The clearest way to the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”

— John Muir

 

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Carara National Park Mammals

Central American Agouti, a large rodent, Carara National Park, Costa Rica.
Spider Monkey, Carara National Park, Costa Rica (baby on her back)

Spider Monkey, Carara National Park, Costa Rica.

White-nosed Coati, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
White-nosed Coati, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Costa Rican White Bat
Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Cell phone through guide’s spotting scope

We also passed the bridge where the week before my guide Victor saw a Puma resting. And we saw some howler monkeys but no photos. Most mammals here are nocturnal. Insects were more visible in the day but also more difficult to photograph. 

The tropical rain forests of the world harbor the majority of the planet’s species, yet this wealth of species is being quickly spent. While the exact numbers of species involved and the rate of forest clearing are still under debate, the trend is unmistakable—the richest terrestrial biome is being altered at a scale unparalleled in geologic history. 
— Larry D. Harris
Also see my PHOTO GALLERY of Costa Rica Mammals

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Carara National Park Insects

I started going through over 600 photos made in the park, and though disappointed in not many birds, I discovered I had too many photos for one post. So here’s 4 insects! Mammals tomorrow!

Owl Butterfly, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Helicopter Damselfly, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Helicopter Damselfly in tree showing color better.
Carara National Park, Costa Rica

Red-tailed Dragonfly, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Check out my better photo of one at Corcovado National Park in 09.
Termite Nest, Carara National Park, Costa Rica

Of course we saw lots of ants, including the leaf-cutter ants and many other flying insects, but these are my only usable photos. Maybe mammals tomorrow and then a day for plants with one really cool fungus! Rain-forests are so so much fun to visit, even when I don’t get many bird photos!

Newly discovered wasp named after Costa Rica President! Cool huh!?

And remember, I now have PHOTO GALLERIES for my



Endangered forests are being slaughtered for toilet paper.~Daphne Zuniga

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Scarlet Macaws, Lapas, Guacamayo Rojo

Scarlet Macaw flying over the mouth of the Tarcoles River at Pacific Ocean.
All Photos by Charlie Doggett, Tarcoles, Costa Rica

Scarlet Macaws were the main reason I spent a couple of nights at Carara National Park, where one of the two breeding colonies of Scarlet Macaws live, the other being at Corcovado NP and the surrounding Osa Peninsula which I visited in 2009 and got a few distant photos there. I also photographed a couple of the macaws on my 2010 and first Tarcoles River Crocodile & Birds cruise. But there were more macaws this time as June and July is the breeding season. My guide for two days here was Victor Mora Shaves of VicToursCostaRica. He is not a serious birder, but knows most of them and many of their songs or calls. And he did know we could get closer to macaws in Tarcoles Village than in the national park, thus we went there first thing Friday morning where all but one of these photos were made. We returned to Tarcoles Saturday morning for a mangrove boat tour with just me and him for a lot of other birds but no Macaws except flying way overhead. A separate post on that is coming with other bird photos. I’ll also do a post of our hike in the park for tomorrow, though it was a little disappointing compared to other parks I have visited (for the quantity of birds). Well here are some of the decent shots of Scarlet Macaws, not a single great one here, but okay and typical of shots birders get. You just can’t get close like in the zoo. But no zoo shots here!

Names used in Costa Rica are  Guacamayo Rojo  o Lapa  Note that I stayed in Hotel Villa Lapas which in English would be The House of Macaws. This artwork of Lapas is between the rest rooms off the lobby area helping define their location and name: 


The blue is Guacamayo Azul and the red Guacamayo Rojo and both are Lapas.
Hotel Villa Lapas is the closest to Parque Nacional Carara.
Problem with painting is that there are not blue & yellow macaws here!
They’re in South America and more rare than scarlet. Blue or Hyacinth
Macaws are even more rare, but did live in Central America once.

Scarlet Macaw, a typical shot in the trees.  Tarcoles, Costa Rica.
The one on right is upside down, also common.
Scarlet Macaw “loving couple” – they mate for life! Tarcoles, Costa Rica.
“Double-Dating” with one upside down!  🙂  Tarcoles, Costa Rica
Scarlet Macaws in different light – Tarcoles, Costa Rica

Scarlet Macaws above the Tarcoles River Mouth, Tarcoles, Costa Rica
Colorful birds! And beautiful flying!

Scarlet Macaws inside Carara National Park, Costa Rica.
Photo made across pond with cell phone through spotting scope.
Better photo ops with the fishermen in Tarcoles!

Rainforest Alliance article “About Scarlet Macaws.”  in “Kids Corner” 

Color is a power which directly influences the soul.
~Wassily Kandinsky