These Pale-vented Pigeonsdid not let the rain stop them from feeding and nesting in the daily rains at Tortuguero. The mother is on her nest under the eve of the outdoor restaurant at Tortuga Lodge and the others in the trees looking for food!
Yesterday was the Howler Monkey with the other two types in the Caribbean lowlands today, the White-faced Capuchin Monkey and the Central American Spider Monkey.
Below is a two-photo gallery on each species plus a link to the trip gallery for each where I have several more photos, plus links to my Costa Rica galleries of each where I have even more photos from my 8 years of living in Costa Rica. Enjoy! 🙂
While at Tortuguero I saw all three of the monkeys that live in that rainforest, but, as usual, the Mantled Howler Monkeys were the most photogenic with White-faced Capuchin next, often showing off, and the Spider Monkeys the most difficult to photograph as they frantically run through the tree tops like out of control hyper children. I’ll show these other two in tomorrow’s post as I continue a break from the many birds.
“Weird Bird” some might say, especially with some of his unusual postures when drying feathers or otherwise standing around! 🙂 But always one I enjoy trying to photograph! For more photos beyond these 4, see my Bare-throated Tiger-Heron GALLERY. All were photographed from a moving boat at Tortuguero National Park, Limón, Costa Rica.
Striking colors and striking patience is how I see this common water bird, the Little Blue Heron. I can’t stop photographing him! 🙂 These 3 shots are typical of this bird and they were shot from a moving boat! But he didn’t move! 🙂
There are 3 species of toucans on each side of Costa Rica with the Keel-billed and Yellow-throated on both sides and a different Aracari (smaller toucan) on each side, Collared Aracari on the Caribbean (Atlantic) side and Fiery-billed Aracari on the Pacific slopes. And of course this past week I was in the Caribbean. Here’s two shots of each species with a link to my gallery for that species if you want to see more and different photos. One photo for the email notice and then the three galleries online . . .
I managed to get usable photos of 5 dragonflies while in the Tortuguero wetlands but cannot guarantee the identification of the four I’ve labeled. The fifth one never landed and thus my photos of him flying are next to impossible to identify, so I just labeled him “unidentified,” and one or more of the others could be also. 🙂
I’m up to photos of about 40 bird species plus at least 20 other animals and I don’t leave until noon tomorrow, so it will be a while before I report on all of those, thus here’s a few representative shots from the different boats I floated on through the Tortuguero rivers and canals . . .
Here’s 10 more shots, some of which could be considered art (I think) . . .
This was only my third time to see a Sungrebe. The first time was here at Tortuguero in 2016 when Reagan came and we traveled to Tortuguero Laguna Lodge. My second sighting was in 2017 at Caño Negro and now again at Tortuguero but in the dark shadows of plants along the water’s edge and very difficult to photograph. See my shots from earlier years (which are better) in my Sungrebe Gallery and here’s the most representative shot from yesterday, a female behind brush along the canal where they usually stay, out of the sun and away from people. The female has an orange cheek and the male a plain white cheek of which I have one photo below this one of a female for a total of 4 photos, not of high quality, but representative of this bird . . .
The main reason I gave to people back in Tennessee when I moved to Costa Rica was that “I could not afford to travel and live in retirement in the United States where everything is too expensive, especially healthcare.”
Nature Travel
And travel into nature was then already my favorite retirement activity. I’m the only one I knew then in Tennessee who had visited all 54 of the state parks there! 🙂 Yet my favorite place for nature had already become Central America and especially Costa Rica, though I did carefully check out Panama for retirement also. So after 4 trips to Costa Rica (+3 to Panama & 3 to Guatemala), I made the big decision and moved to Costa Rica! Never for a single moment have I regretted it! 🙂