I flew out of San Jose Airport at noon in the rain and through clouds most of the 25 minute flight to Limón. The taxi drive to Banana Azul was off an on rain and it continued solid until about 4 when I made these cloudy shots of my room and it continued to fade until there is not rain at about 5:30. Three shots today: first leaving San Jose, then my room deck & office where I will prepare all blog posts this week and the view from my deck toward the ocean under clouds. Hopefully nature shots tomorrow!
Rainy Day in San JoseMy upstairs room’s deck & my tropical office.Cloudy view from my deck toward the beach.
¡Pura Vida!
Tonight I will watch the Walz-Vance Debate on either CBS internet streaming or on a TV here on CNN International.
At least I think that taking a small plane to any destination in Costa Rica is a type of adventure and I love making cellphone photos from my window seat. Here’s a few shots from my recent flight to Limón, a 30 minute flight compared to a 5 hour drive. I fly to the more distant places requiring more than a 3 hour drive, like Limón, Liberia, Puerto Jiménez, Golfito and Uvita. Sansa is now the only in-country commercial airlines since Canadian-owned Nature Air went bankrupt. There are more than one charter services and a few private pilots like my driver Walter who, if you hire him to fly, rents a plane. So it is more expensive than Sansa on which you can fly to anywhere in Costa Rica from the San Jose airport for about a hundred dollars each way, some less and some more.
One shot for the email version, then a little gallery where you click an image to see it larger.
And for new readers, the explanation of “Lifer:” It is a bird that someone sees for the first time in his life. You can see on my “life list” that I have observed 552 species from many countries in the Americas and Africa, with 373 of those in Costa Rica. And that does not count this bird because I haven’t reported it on eBird yet! He was the only bird I got a decent shot of at the Cahuita National Park, though I got photos of 14 species of butterflies there! 🙂
It is just an inconspicuous little flycatcher, found only in lowland rainforests of Central America and the northern half of South America. I am pleased with these two shots of both front and side views! It is a Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher, Terenotriccus erythrurus(linked to the eBird description).
Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher, Cahuita National Park, Limón, Costa Rica.Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher, Cahuita National Park, Limón, Costa Rica.
You will note that I saw and photographed many more birds in Gandoca-Manzanillo (which is always the case) and those birds were linked to in an earlier blog post on Gandoca-Manzanillo which can be seen in the first sub-gallery created for this trip gallery: Refugio Gandoca-Manzanillo. It is a wildlife refuge with fewer people visiting than the national park and has always been a better place for birds than Cahuita for me. I photographed 9 species there, 7 species at the hotel and just this one at Cahuita, BUT IT IS ALIFER! 🙂
