Category: Travel

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Berries for lunch?

Many of the rainforest birds find berries to be a major type of food for their sustenance, like this female Orange-collared Manakin (eBird Link) which is indigenous to the Pacific Slopes of Costa Rica and Panama. Only the male has the orange collar and I had not seen him here when I wrote this post yesterday. But you can see my other photos in my Orange-collared Manakin GALLERY which includes one male I found at Carara NP in his manakin “Lek” where he dances to attract a female. I love to try and capture a photo of a bird with a berry in his/her mouth like this! 🙂

Orange-collared Manakin female, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Piedras Blancas National Park, Costa Rica

FYI: This is the morning (July 6) that I leave Esquinas Rainforest Lodge (their site link) and head back home to my simple garden and fewer wildlife in Atenas, though I will continue sharing photos from this rainforest for the next week or two. 🙂 No other guest wanted to do the mangrove boat tour, which requires at least two participants, so I did not get to do that this time. But there will be more mangroves to visit! 🙂 And this was a very relaxing week with a lot of birds and butterflies plus a visit to the La Gamba Rainforest Research Station which I will share about later.

¡Pura Vida!

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Crested Guan

The Crested Guan (eBird link) is a fairly common large tropical bird in Central and northern South America, that flies more than the Curassow, that I shared earlier, who mostly stays on the ground and seems to be less able to fly while this guan soars high in the sky. See more of my shots of this bird in my Crested Guan GALLERY. It is fun to be in tropical forests like this and see so many colorful and interesting birds and other animals and plants! Here he joined me for breakfast, eating his palm berry. 🙂

Crested Guan eating a palm berry for breakfast, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Piedras Blancas National Park, Costa Rica.
Crested Guan, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Piedras Blancas National Park, Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

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The Tayra

The Tayra, Eira barbara (linked to  Wikipedia) is a tropical mammal in the weasel family native to Central and South America. He was also featured recently in the Tico Times article Meet the Tayra (with camera trap videos). You can see more of my photos in my Tayra GALLERY. In Spanish he is called many different names, depending on the part of Costa Rica you are in. Two of the more common Spanish names are: Tolomuco and Perico Ligero.

Here he is stealing a banana from the fruit feeder of the Esquinas Rainforest Lodge and is my first one to photograph “in the wild.” I have seen one before only in captivity as shown in my gallery. It is said that some indigenous people kept them as pets to help eliminate rodents. They are omnivorous. Read more in the two linked articles above.

Tayra, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Parque Nacional Piedras Blancas, Costa Rica
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Great Curassow

The Great Curassow, Crax Rubra (eBird link) was the first bird to greet me here at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge. It is a large “turkey-like” game bird found throughout Central America that was hunted to near extinction and today is seen only in reserves and national parks where they are protected. Here’s four of my photos from here, two each of the male and female.

There was surprisingly no rain my arrival afternoon yesterday (Saturday) but I did not get to a blog post because they have internet connection only in the restaurant and reception areas, not in the cabins. This afternoon (Sunday) it started raining about 12:30 and looks like an off & on rain will continue, but this morning was clear for my birding hike. 🙂

Great Curassow Male, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Costa Rica
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“The Wind in the Trees”

“Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been said better by the wind in the trees.”

~Thomas Merton

With that, I renew an old adventure that will certainly become an even grander new adventure . . .

Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Piedras Blancas NP, Golfito

It was in October of 2018, the peak of the rainy season, that I first visited Esquinas Rainforest Lodge at La Gamba Research Station, Piedras Blancas National Park, north of Golfito, Puntarenas. It rained pretty hard every afternoon with the mornings and short spaces between rain full of wonderful birds to photograph! And the planned boat trip to Rio Coto Mangroves turned impossible with high winds and heavy rain on Golfo Dulce, but the ingenious boat captain took me back into the smaller Gulf of Golfito (shielded from heavy wind by trees) for some of my better bird shots in between downpours – an unplanned but excellent substitute for an always good mangrove tour! Making Lemonade from Lemons! 🙂 And how could you not in this incredible rainforest? See more photos from my first trip there & a video link below . . .

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Wall Art Available in Atenas

I will always prefer that you order wall art directly from my online Photo Gallery which is hosted by SmugMug.com who uses professional printers to print each of these, whether on paper, canvas or my new preference of “Float-mounted Metal Print.” I ordered each of these from my gallery.

There are 11 new ones ordered especially for the new local gallery that did not get established, plus about that many more I already had. You can see them online in two places:

  • Wall Art Images in a sub-gallery in my big Photo Gallery on SmugMug.
  • Or on this website at: Art Gallery at My House, but you have to scroll down past the floral accent pillows which I listed first with wall art second. Everything available is presented there on one page, while in the galleries there is a separate sub-gallery for each category.

The feature photo is one of the bigger images, a sunset from Cancun with Costa Rica on that horizon! 🙂 And below is one of the four Red-eyed Tree Frog photos available.

Red-eyed Tree Frog at Arenal Observatory Lodge, 20×16 inches, Metal, $100 USD or ¢55,000 CRC.

¡Pura Vida!

Coffee & Art, June 24, 9-12 am

Come and Go as you please! – ¡Ven y Vete como quieras!

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Maquenque Trip Gallery Created

Finally I have all my photos for the 5 nights in April 2023 at Maquenque Eco Lodge and Reserve including the sub-galleries I’ve already shared. This was another great photo trip to one of my favorite places in Costa Rica with photos of 62 bird species (6 lifers!), 10 butterflies and more than 30 species of other animals! Plus my usual “Nature as Art” photos of everything from flowers to weird leaves and beautiful landscapes. Just this one trip gallery will show you why I am so excited about being “Retired in Costa Rica!” the name of my blog and website. Enjoy the photos! Just click this image:

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

Or use this address:    https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2023-April-9-14-Maquenque-Ecolodge

¡Pura Vida!

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10 Butterfly Species at Maquenque

Although birds are the biggest category of wildlife for me at Maquenque Ecolodge, there are a lot of other wildlife and on this April trip I photographed 10 species of butterflies with one being a Lifer or first time seen (the Glassy-winged Skipper). Below is 1 photo of each of the 10 species for those who don’t go to separate galleries. Or here’s links to the online gallery with all my butterfly photos from this trip.  https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2023-April-9-14-Maquenque-Ecolodge/OTHER-ANIMALS/BUTTERFLIES

CLICK above image to see all my butterfly photos GALLERY from Maquenque.

Or below see just one photo of each of the 10 species . . .

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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!

Continue reading “Maquenque 2023 BIRDS Gallery!”