On the Whale-Watching Boat Tour we spent some time at “Whale Rock Island” watching two kinds of very unique birds, the Brown Booby and the Magnificent Frigatebird which I will post about next year, next week. 🙂 Read about the Brown Booby on eBirdor see my Brown Booby Photo Gallery. I’ve seen them only one other time. Here’s three favorite photos from this trip . . .
The Cristal Ballena Hotel is listed as one of Costa Rica’s “Birding Hot Spots” and my 20 bird species photos help to demonstrate that in the gallery below this Brown Booby photo.
I woke up to rain this morning which continued until after breakfast when it cleared off and was mostly a hot, sunny day as you can expect some of the time on the coast. 🙂 The below photo is what the ocean view looked like just AFTER breakfast. All afternoon I hoped for a clear skies sunset but around 4pm the clouds and rain starting moving in. Below this ocean image is a gallery with a couple of birds (12 species today!), one butterfly and one tree from a wonderful walk in the rainforest this morning plus my effort at a sunset photo again this evening in the rain. 🙂
Tomorrow morning early I fly Sansa south to the Palmar Sur Airport south of Uvita and then back north by car to Uvita where I’m doing a repeat visit to the Hotel Cristal Ballena (Hotel site link) on a hill overlooking Uvita’s Whale-watching bay on the Pacific Coast (feature photo & one below). I will not be quite as active as I was on my last trip there: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita (link to my trip gallery). The photos from then will show you what a wonderful place it is to just hang out at the hotel and hike in their private rainforest not to mention all the nearby sights! December-February is the time for Humpback Whales from South America to be there, so I might get to see & photo one! 🙂
I have an Ocean View Room!
And here’s just two of the wildlife I photographed from my room terrace last time . . .
This is the last bird I will show from that nice morning walk up my hill with camera in hand! It is the fairly common Tropical Kingbird (eBird description link) and of course I have a lot more photos in my Tropical Kingbird Gallery from 18 different locations in Costa Rica! 🙂
Tropical Kingbird, Atenas, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica
The “resident big bird” in Roca Verde neighborhood with a lot of them is the Gray-headed Chachalaca (eBird description link) and you can see some of my many photos from here and other locations in Costa Rica in my Gray-headed Chachalaca Gallery.
Earlier I shared my shots of the Blue Grosbeak female from this same walk up the hill, now a couple of shots of a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak (eBird description link) which doesn’t have the “rose breast” that the male has, and I saw no males of either of these grosbeaks today. You can see my other photos of both male and female in my Rose-breasted Grosbeak Gallery seen earlier here near my house plus at Monteverde and at Xandari Resort Alajuela and as with most birds, the male is more colorful. 🙂
This White-winged Dove (eBird description) is the most common in my neighborhood closely followed by the Inca Dove. Its a beautiful bird and you can see more of my photos of him in my White-winged Dove Gallery from all over Costa Rica!
The last time I photographed a Ruddy Ground-Dove (eBird description link) was in 2014 before I moved here, while on the “Live in Costa Rica Tour” in Dominical. You can see that photo and these 4 from today’s walk in my Ruddy Ground-Dove Gallery.