. . . is finished and ready for visits! Just click the gallery image or go to this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2025-12-23-27-Punta-Leona
Punta Leona Trip Gallery . . .
Welcome Migrant! The Yellow Warbler
Is back in Costa Rica from “up north” and no longer called just “Yellow Warbler” as in the past but has a new official name of Northern Yellow Warbler – Setophaga aestiva (linked to my gallery) and what is used by eBird and iNaturalist. Some older books still say just Yellow Warbler and the Princeton Field Guide says American Yellow Warbler. I’m not sure which names are harder to keep up with, Birds or Butterflies! 🙂 They seem to both be changing frequently. This particular bird showed up on December 1 in my Cecropia Tree. Here’s two shots of him/her . . .
Living in the Green
I live on a green hill that is surrounded by more green hills beyond the little Atenas Valley. And the housing development that I live in is called “Residencial Roca Verde” which in English is “Residential Green Rock.” And the second photo below is of some of the green rocks just inside our entrance gate that gave the place its name. 🙂 But mostly mossy green during rainy season and losing their color by the end of dry season or becoming brown rocks. 🙂 All possibly symbolic of “Living Green!”
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” – Mahatma Gandhi
That is what one man said about “living green.” Hopefully the world will learn to trade its greed for the green! I’m thankful that I live in a “green-thinking” country, even though Costa Rica has not “arrived” yet, it is headed in the right direction with such things as 99.9% of our electricity renewable (hydro, volcanic, solar & wind) plus 25-35% of our forests are protected as reserves or parks.
“Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.”
— Stewart Udall
¡Pura Vida!
Pollution on the Way to a Jungle
I love flying on the little planes across Costa Rica which I get to do occasionally and on my way to Tortuguero this time I observed a heavily polluted river and saw where it merged with an otherwise clear and clean river which at the merge became polluted too! And all the junk from either farming or manufacturing is dumped into the already filthy ocean. Our world is in deep trouble ecologically, even in a country that supposedly thinks green like Costa Rica!
The feature photo is of an undisturbed forest compared below with how farming is replacing forests. Then a shot of a “clean section” of Tortuguero Nacional Park that doesn’t show one of the lodges which may be a small pollution, but I’m afraid even that diminishes the wildness of what was once all wild.
Esquinas 2025 GALLERY Completed!
Or if you prefer, use this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2025-July-1-6-Esquinas-Rainforest-Lodge
I consider these “Trip Galleries” the best of all my photo galleries where I put only the best photos from that experience. Then I link some of these photos to subject galleries such as a bird species gallery, etc. The trip galleries can also be of help if you plan a trip to one of these wonderful places I visit here in Costa Rica! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Tayra
The tropical mammal called Tayra (Eira barbara) (linked to Wikipedia) is called in Costa Rica Spanish a Tolomuco or Tayra and is found throughout Central America and the northern 2/3 of South America. A couple of years ago Tico Times had an article titled Meet the Tayra which includes a camera trap video of one. And of course I have a Tayra Gallery of my photos from two different visits to Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, the only place I’ve seen one in the wild. Here’s three shots from this year’s Esquinas trip . . .
La Gamba Tropenstation
This morning after breakfast I walked the maybe half mile down the road to La Gamba Rainforest Research Station sponsored mainly by the University of Vienna, Austria, hoping to see more butterflies! But only got one there plus one on the road near Esquinas Lodge which I will share later as part of Esquinas. 🙂
At the research station, I simply walked the garden trails, looking for nature to photograph and got quite a few photos in less than an hour. Here is a sampling of the photos in a gallery below the email photo with not everything identified yet. I have to go to the dining room for internet connection, but prepare these posts and the photos on my cabin porch during the afternoon rain, though it didn’t rain this afternoon, but will tonight! 🙂
Rainforest Trip Begins Today
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Garden Dragonfly
This is a Blue-eyed Setwing, Dythemis nigra (linked to my Gallery) which is not a new species for me and these photo IDs have been confirmed by iNaturalist. I have both dragonflies and damselflies visiting my garden somewhat regularly, though they tend to stay closer to the water of a stream across the cow pasture from me. Two shots from different angles . . .
¡Pura Vida!
See my GALLERIES: Dragonflies & Damselflies Costa Rica
Anything for a Parrot Pix!
Or it seems that I will do anything for one! 🙂 That is why I like going to the nature lodges where you can get closer to such colorful birds. Well, here are my step by step procedures for one of those many that come near my house (plus waiting for a blue sky!) 🙂 . . .
Continue reading “Anything for a Parrot Pix!”