Category: Places

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Maquenque 2023 BIRDS Gallery!

I have finally finished sorting and processing all my bird photos from the April 9-14 trip to Maquenque Ecolodge on San Carlos River at Boca Tapada. You can see the 62 species of birds I photographed this trip including 6 Lifers! (That’s 6 birds seen for the first time in my life!)  Go to this address or just click the gallery image below and that link will take you there:

https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2023-April-9-14-Maquenque-Ecolodge/BIRDS

Maquenque 2023 BIRDS Gallery — CLICK image to open.

Note that only the birds gallery and one other is done in what will eventually be a larger “Trip Gallery” with other sub-galleries not completed yet. As usual, it was another “photo-rich” trip!  🙂

Because I found 2 more “lifers” since the earlier lifers post, I will include photos of all 6 lifers below. None are spectacular but they represent 6 more in my Costa Rica Birds GALLERY of 365 total species of birds photographed here so far!

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Tanagers at Maquenque

Here’s either 4 or 5 species of Tanagers I photographed at Maquenque Ecolodge and the reason for the uncertainty is that one photo is of a baby or young juvenile and one can’t be certain of the species unless with its mom.  🙂 Many different baby Tanagers will look like this . . .

Here’s the baby first and I would guess either Blue-gray or Palm Tanager which adults outnumbered the other Tanagers. But face is similar to the Yellow-winged, so not certain!  🙂

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Agouti

A break in my sharing of the many birds at Maquenque to share two photos of two different Agoutis I photographed there. Officially they are the Central American Agouti (Dasyprocta punctata) or in Costa Rica either Guatusa or Agutí centroamericana. There are different subspecies in Mexico and in the northern half of South America but all in the Dasyprocta family which is a rodent related to Guinea Pigs.

Read about them on Wikipedia or see my photos from all over Costa Rica in my Central American Agouti GALLERY.

Central American Agouti, Maquenque Ecolodge and Reserve, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica
Central American Agouti, Maquenque Ecolodge and Reserve, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica

Notice the color difference of the above two. They can be various shades of brown to reddish-orange to grayish or yellow & gray to blackish. They are more difficult to photograph than Coatis because they are more shy of humans and stay in the grasses and shrubs of the forest.

¡Pura Vida!

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4 Parrot Species from Maquenque

It is possible to photograph more than 4 there, but this is not bad for one lodge and two are pretty good photos, if I do say so myself.  🙂  The other two aren’t high quality, but then birds aren’t required to pose and the Crimson-fronted did everything in that tree except pose!  🙂  And until there are more grown, fruiting Almond Trees, those Green Macaws are going to keep flying over!  🙂  But anyway, here’s my record of seeing 4 different kinds of parrots at Maquenque recently . . .

Orange-chinned Parakeet, Maquenque Ecolodge, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica

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Maquenque’s Two Tityras

I’ve seen the Masked Tityra in 8 places all over Costa Rica but not the Black-crowned Tityra, just 2 locations, Maquenque and here in Atenas.  🙂  Maquenque Ecolodge has both of them! (As we do in Atenas!) 🙂  Here’s one pix each and a link to my two Tityra galleries for more photos if you like.  🙂

Black-crowned Tityra male, Maquenque Ecolodge & Reserve, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica
Masked Tityra male, Maquenque Ecolodge & Reserve, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica – With an insect he just caught!

Note that both species nest in the hollow of a dead tree, usually in a former Woodpecker hole!  🙂

See more photos of both types of Tityra in my GALLERIES:

¡Pura Vida!

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Rio Tres Amigos Safari

My 4th time at Maquenque Ecolodge, but first time to go on this particular float trip (their web description link) though I’ve canoed their lake and been on the bigger river, San Carlos, in a larger boat. The only reason I’ve missed this one is that they require a minimum of 2 paying customers and I travel solo! 🙂 This was the first time there were other guests interested in this same float trip to make up the minimum with me. They were a lovely couple from Europe, he Italian and she Swiss! We had a great time together and I got a lot of photos which is right now the only part of my Maquenque Trip Gallery that is completed. So you can see more photos at Rio Tres Amigos Safari GALLERY.   🙂

And note that the only wildlife (The cow doesn’t count!) that I show in this post is one bird, but it’s a rare photo of a female Sunbittern sitting on her nest! In earlier blog posts I’ve shown you 3 animals from this safari:  Crested Caracara, Green Iguana and Mantled Howler Monkey, yet there are still many more in the above gallery including 12 species of birds!  🙂  And here are 6 shots to give you an idea of what just one morning at Maquenque can be like!  🙂  Still my favorite lodge!

A fresh fruit & water break along the Rio Tres Amigos, Costa Rica.

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Tennessee Visitors Yesterday

One of my many breaks from sorting and processing photos from my Maquenque visit last week was to make a doctor visit in San Jose yesterday, then have my driver to take me to a hotel to greet friends who were in the Nashville Photography Club with me “way back when.” Charlie and Ellen, who now live in Cookeville, TN and their traveling friend Cynthia. They came early for an extra day in San Jose before their two-week nature tour of Costa Rica begins. We had lunch at our famous 19th Century National Theater and walked through the Central Mercado, a city park and the Metropolitan Cathedral. Here’s 3 cell phone shots of their stop in San Jose.

Charles, Ellen and Cynthia in front of the National Theater of Costa Rica.
“The Flutist” Statue in front of the National Theater in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Pope John Paul II statue at Metropolitan Cathedral in San Jose, Costa Rica by celebrated Costa Rican sculptor Jorge Jiménez Deredia who has a piece at the Vatican.

It is always nice to have visitors from the states to stop by either my home in Atenas or to let me greet them at the airport or at a stop on their tour. Now I get back to sorting and processing so many photos from the Maquenque Lodge & Reserve where it is looking like a new record on the number of bird species I photographed there, possibly 68!  🙂  More from Maquenque tomorrow!

¡Pura Vida!

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“Sometimes-Green” Iguanas

🙂   I say that because they are not always green as anyone who visits the tropics has noticed. I especially enjoy the males in mating season when they turn bright orange (not this time, though you can see them in my gallery). This time they were green to brown or greenish brown with some blue-gray and one black. And yes, I know that there is one called a “Black Spiny-tailed Iguana” or the “Common Spiny-tailed Iguana” (Ctenosaura similis), but it’s features are different and it lives only along the Pacific Coast and thus would not be at Maquenque Lodge which is on the Caribbean Slope where only the “Green Iguana” (Iguana iguana) lives. And it is interesting to note that the babies of both species are bright green.  🙂

Green Iguana, Rio Tres Amigos, near Maquenque Ecolodge, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica.

Below are 4 more photos (in different colors) from this trip and then a link to my photo galleries of both species of Iguanas . . .

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White Peacock Butterfly

I photographed 9 or 10 different species of butterflies at Maquenque and hope to soon have the trip gallery up including all of them. Here’s just one, the White Peacock Butterfly.

White Peacock Butterfly, Maquenque Ecolodge, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica
White Peacock Butterfly, Maquenque Ecolodge, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica

See my White Peacock Gallery.

¡Pura Vida!