There are so many beautiful, tropical flowers everywhere I go in Costa Rica that I just can’t not photograph some of them, but please know that this is just a few I managed to grab shots of. There are so many more here! Pablo, the owner and director of the lodge is a horticulturalist, a lover of plants and he just keeps adding more plants, more gardens, more trees (like the new orchard of almond trees to attract macaws. The place is beautiful! And I am still trying to grab photos of the grounds which is hard to depict in a few photos!
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.
The first photo below is of the back of the frog made on my cell phone and the other, a side view, with my Canon. To avoid scaring him away, both had to be shot from a distance in little forest light,f thus had to be cropped a lot, so not very good shots, but you can see what he basically looks like and online you will see some varieties of colors, etc.
I love dragonflies with some of my past favorite nature photos being dragonflies, like the Blue Dasher Dragonfly I photographed at Montgomery Bell State Park in Tennessee that was my most popular photo in 4 years of Arts & Crafts Fairs. 🙂 Who would have thunk? 🙂
See all of my Costa Rica Dragonflies in my CR dragonfly gallery! And I have a long way to go since there are about 270 species of dragonflies in Costa Rica! 🙂 The one above is right here at Macaw Lodge and I’m unable to identify it right now.
“I love to see the sunshine on the wings of the Dragonflies… there is magic in it.”
― Ama H.Vanniarachchy
These 19 photos are in addition to the bird photos I posted my first day here and of course there will be more! 🙂
There are lots of birds everywhere here, but finding them close enough to make a photo is sometimes a challenge. My guide this morning helped some since he knows the area and where some birds are often found. That will help me with the rest of my days here as I continue to find and photograph birds on my own plus other wildlife and nature. Enjoy!
Birds Today at Macaw Lodge
Sunbittern rushing up cliff by waterfall
Baby Something (maybe clay-colored thrush)
Muscovy Duck Mama
Black-bellied Whistling Duck
Muscovy Duck Babies
Golden-naped Woodpecker
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Gray-capped Flycatcher
Golden-naped Woodpecker
Black-headed Trogon
Variable Seedeater
Lesson’s Motmot
Melodious Blackbird
Gray-cowled Wood-Rail
Bare-throated Tiger-Heron
Cherrie’s Tanager or Scarlet Rumped Tanager Cherrie’s
White-tipped Dove
Streaked Flycatcher
Clay-colored Thrush
And I hope you saw my earlier post of the sunrise on my early morning birding hike today! Beautiful!
“Some people are very competitive in their birding. Maybe they’ll die happy, having seen a thousand species before they die, but I’ll die happy knowing I’ve spent all that quiet time being present.”
― Lynn Thomson, Birding with Yeats: A Mother’s Memoir
This morning I did my birding hike at Macaw Lodge and kind of liked this photo of the sunrise along our trail. Thought I would share it in addition to the birds I photographed which will be in another blog post.
“There’s a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they’re absolutely free. Don’t miss so many of them.”
― Jo Walton
I really got a lot of good photos on this last trip and finally have them culled and organized into a gallery for the trip. See this newest photo gallery at:
I’m not doing a photo book on this trip yet but plan on a book of the area after two more trips there, giving a broader picture of the Jaco-Carara Mid-Pacific Costa Rica. I have trips to that area in both June and July, so a book in August maybe? And it will include my earlier trips to Carara, Tarcoles and Jaco – so maybe a larger-format book. Change is good.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
I did not get as many photos as in some places, but “other wildlife” was not my goal. There were lots of squirrels and iguanas which I mainly ignored. And of course the birds and butterflies were in separate posts! Click an image to enlarge or start a manual slideshow:
White-faced Capuchin Monkey
White-faced Capuchin Monkey
Long-nosed Bat or White-lined Bat
Spiny-tailed Iguana
Spiny-tailed Iguana
“A forest’s beauty lies with its inhabitants.”
― Anthony T. Hincks
See my Other WildlifeGalleries for many more Costa Rica animals
The hotel secured an outside guide to take me to nearby Carara National Park birding at 7:30 AM which should have been at 5:30 but they do that to fit their 7 AM Breakfast. If I had it to do over I would have asked for a “box breakfast” and a 5:30 departure! We would have seen more birds. This is my third guided walk in the park and equal to or better than my second one on the number of birds. We saw more than 20 species easily though I only have here the halfway decent photos of 13 species.
About half of these photos were made on a fruiting tree in the rainforest called huevos de caballo or “horse’s balls” which look in these photos like a pair of little hamburgers or egg mcmuffins. 🙂 These two fruits were cracked open from the heat or dryness and lots of different birds were picking the little red seeds out of the center of the fruit. You will see the seeds in some photos.
Explanation of the two Trogon photo IDs: The one labeled Black-headed is based on the wings which are showing in that image. The one labeled Black-throated is based mainly on the type of stripes on the tail, which though not showing as well, could cause me to label the other one black-throated too. These are the only two trogons with yellow breasts that also have light blue eye-rings and are very similar. But the black-headed male is the only one with green on shoulder, thus that label. ID of birds is not always easy. These two IDs were made with the aide of my guide in the park.
The Ovenbird (featured photo)is one lifer on this hike and it is similar to the Northern Waterthrush from my first hotel birding hike which is another “lifer” or first time seen bird. Also on this trip I saw for the first time the Gray-chested Dove, another “lifer.”
Click an image to enlarge or start a manual slide show:
White-faced Capuchin Monkey – Just hanging around! Pura Vida! Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Agouti Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Variegated Squirrel Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Northern Ghost Bat Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Some Kind of Fungus! Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Unless I do a post on plants, that is all from the Campesinos/Carara trip. But every trip seems to have about a week’s worth of posts! Always a lot to share! I love it here!
UPDATE ON RESIDENCY RED TAPE As the attorney told me, I went to the local Atenas Social Security office to be “inscribed.” I took Jason (one of my language helpers) with me as an interpreter and he was absolutely needed! In short, the first desk sent us to another desk which was the appointments desk. Of course we needed to make an appointment (but you do it only in person-not by phone!). I am on standby for July 8 with a firm appointment on July 15.
I have a two-page form in Spanish to be filled out in Spanish. David is going to make it a class project next week in Spanish Class! 🙂 There are a bunch of other things I need to bring like proof of at least $1,000 income, the resolution I got, an electric bill, and a copy of my housing rental agreement. I can hire ” a professional” to help me walk through this, but it is more fun to work with friends and get closer to local Ticos! (And cheaper!) Ten to one odds that there will be some document not exactly right for the July appointment and I will have to go back again, but that is part of the adventure of government bureaucracies!
