Category: Birds

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Goodnight from a Rainforest

Dark, damp, misting rain with no sunset as such but a trace of color as I eat my dinner at Playa Cativo overlooking the Gulf of Dulce on the Pacific coast of southern Costa Rica, while north of us Hurricane Bonnie is rushing across northern Costa Rica and Nicaragua and the handful of us here are thankful it didn’t veer south! 🙂

I saw and did a lot the first afternoon, but too tired to curate more photos now, so this rainforest report begins with a dark sky that will surely brighten as the week goes by. If not raining, I go on my birding hike at 5:30 in the morning and I got a head start with two pretty good photos today in the low light of a Great Curassow and a Scarlet-rumped Tanager.

And Of course I already like this place! 🙂 Later I’ll tell you about my beachside cabin and share photos from this nature-rich forest.

¡Pura Vida!

Playa Cativo Lodge Website

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Blue-gray Tanager

The Blue-gray Tanager (eBird link) is a common bird here that is found only in Central and South America. I love it when one comes to my garden as he did here back in May here in one of my Nance Trees. See some of the many photos I’ve made of this bird all over Costa Rica in my Blue-gray Tanager Gallery.

Blue-gray Tanager. My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Rufous-tailed in the Shadows

This most common hummingbird in Costa Rica and the only species I’ve seen in my yard for 2 or 3 years now and this one is infrequent or the only one. I’ve not seen two together this year. I’m not sure what is happening with the humming birds, but I’m not seeing as many now, even though the visited reserves seem to have more, it is less than in earlier years.

And this particular one in my garden is extremely shy, staying in the shadows which makes it difficult to photograph and flying away as soon as he/she seems to be aware of me. This one was alone in my Nance tree the other morning at breakfast and later the others or the same one in different locations. The only species of hummingbird in my garden now.

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Atenas, Costa Rica
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Social Flycatcher

This pretty little bird does not get a lot of attention and is often mistaken for an immature or small Kiskadee or Boat-billed Flycatcher. This particular Social Flycatcher (eBird link) landed on this rusty old ornamental fencing around a lake platform and made an interesting image to me. 🙂 And of course I have a Social Flycatcher Gallery with photos from all over Costa Rica.

Social Flycatcher, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

TRIP GALLERY: May 2022, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel

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Scarlet-rumped Tanager

This one on the Caribbean Slope used to be called Passerini’s Tanager with the Pacific Slope’s called Cherrie’s Tanager, but now they are all called Scarlet-rumped Tanager (eBird link), yet eBird and others still use “Passerini’s” and “Cherrie’s” in parentheses after the new together name, especially with the females which are distinctly different. And you will see below that I have two photos of females with one either a Cherrie’s or a darker morph of the Passerini’s. Confusing? Yes! 🙂 And of course the new species name only describes the male which is, by the way, identical on both slopes! 🙂

Thus IN MY BIRD GALLERIES, I still have two galleries but added the new name in front of each:

Male Scarlet-rumped Tanager (Passerini’s), Chachagua Rainforest, Alajuela, Costa Rica.
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Sleeping Kingbird

One of the things different on the Night Hike at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel was that we saw more sleeping birds than I’ve seen on any other night hike all over Costa Rica. Our guide said this one was a Tropical Kingbird (eBird link) which looks like a baby or a little smaller than usual to me, but this one could be an immature or they just scrunched up tight for warmth and sleeping. 🙂 And the whiter stomach could have been the camera flash, made with a cell phone camera plus people’s flashlights. So I’m sticking with the ID our guide gave us. 🙂

Sleeping Tropical Kingbird, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica.

And for comparison, here’s two more Tropical Kingbirds photographed in the daytime . . .

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Band-tailed Barbthroat

My favorite hummingbird seen or photographed on this trip was this Band-tailed Barbthroat which is not seen very often (only my second time). And I got only one useable photo before he flew off as do all hummingbirds. You can read about this uncommon species on eBird or see the one other I’ve photographed in my Band-tailed Barbthroat Gallery. The other one was at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge near Golfito (where I photographed almost twice as many species as here). This bird is found only in Central America and Northern South America.

This was indeed a fortunate find and on top of that, in decent light! 🙂 But only one good shot and he’s gone! 🙂 I had very little sunshine the whole week I was at Chachagua, just a few hours on Wednesday, so to get this beautiful bird in good light was a real blessing! My trip gallery is up now but unfortunately is filled with a lot of low-light photos. Sorry!

¡Pura Vida!

TRIP GALLERY: May 2022, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel

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Chachagua Trip Gallery

Though I still have another week’s worth of blog posts about my visit to Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, I have also completed the photo gallery on this trip for anyone who wants to see all the shots from this trip together in one place. 🙂 CLICK on the image of first page of gallery below which this time is all in just 3 folders: Birds, Other Wildlife and Hotel Grounds.

First Page of this “Trip Gallery” – CLICK to visit the gallery.

If that image click doesn’t work, try this new SmugMug Gallery Address URL: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2022-May-16-21-Chachagua-Rainforest-Hotel-San-Ramon-Alajuela

¡Pura Vida!

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Black-striped Sparrow

This sparrow is said to be fairly common though I’ve only seen it in 3 other places as shown in my Black-striped Sparrow Gallery. You can read about this one of many sparrows in Costa Rica on the eBird website. Here’s 4 photos I made at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel . . .

Black-striped Sparrow, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, San Ramon Canton, Costa Rica.
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Muscovy Ducklings

Muscovy Duck & Ducklings, Chachagua Rainforest, Alajuela, Costa Rica.

On one of the small lakes or ponds at Chachagua Rainforest lived a family of Muscovy Ducks (eBird link) which are native to Central & South America plus Florida & the West Indies. For the second time I’ve been able to capture these resident ducks with babies. Everyone loves little ducklings! 🙂 See some more slightly older Muscovy Ducklings I photographed at Macaw Lodge near Carara National Park in my Muscovy Duck Gallery. Now here are 3 more photos from Chachagua Rainforest . . .

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