BIRDS at Tortuguero

This is not all the birds seen but the ones with a halfway decent photo, 28 photos here of 24 species – 2 shots of the Boat-billed Heron since one is mother with chick and other the nest-guarding father, two of the White-crowned Parrot because the images are so different, two of Mealy Parrot front & back, and separate male & female shots of the Grackle. My only “lifer” or first-time-seen bird was the Agami Heron and he was at night meaning not a real good photo. Now that my Costa Rica Birds Gallery is up to 301 species, it is getting harder to find a new species I haven’t already photographed, but thus far every trip in 4 years has had at least one!  🙂  We saw several American Pygmy Kingfishers sleeping on the night tour, but none of my photos are good.

Since my first trip to Tortuguero in 2010 on the Caravan Tour I have liked the rainforest/Amazon atmosphere of living on the water and what I’ve always thought was a lot of birds. Nine years later I have discovered several places with more birds and better food in the lodge, but I still like Tortuguero and will return again someday.  I’ll do a lodge post later and compare the two lodges I’ve stayed in here.

I’m sharing the photos in a gallery format rather than the auto-slide show because you can see the image larger when you click on it or at same time start a manual slideshow. Also hover your mouse pointer over an image to see the bird’s name. Photos are being shown in random order.

BIRDS at Tortuguero

In order to see birds it is necessary to become part of the silence.

~Robert Lynd

 

See my 2019 Tortuguero Turtle Beach Lodge Visit Gallery for more on this exciting rainforest trip!

Or the Turtle Beach Lodge hotel website

Or my photo book on 3 visits to TORTUGUERO, The Amazon of Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Flying From Tortuguero

Knowing from past experiences that the return trip by boat and bus to San Jose is more tiring and less of an adventure, I chose to try flying back this time and not that early 6am flight!  🙂   But rather I took the 12:40 afternoon flight – and here is

The Story in Pictures

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The Tortuguero Airport Parking Lot . . . A boat landing. My lodge “driver” dropped me off here and I walked over to the landing strip.

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The Tortuguero Airport Terminal. 🙂

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Just another bunch of tourists, European & Canadian.
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I love taking off alongside a beach! (Like in Limon)
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Up over the village of Tortuguero . . .
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. . . and over some of the rivers & canals I traveled this week.
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And the beautiful Costa Rican Farms.
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Our one stop before San Jose was at La Fortuna with Arenal Volcano towering above.

 

Sometimes I think I live a charmed life getting to see such beautiful sights! (Even though my suitcase did not make it on our overloaded flight and is suppose to be delivered by taxi sometime this evening.) I love being “Retired in Costa Rica” and I’m still processing the bird and other wildlife photos from this Tortuguero trip – but coming soon!

 

See my 2019 Tortuguero Turtle Beach Lodge Visit Gallery for more on this exciting rainforest trip!

Or the Turtle Beach Lodge hotel website

Or my photo book on 3 visits to TORTUGUERO, The Amazon of Costa Rica

River Roads

Getting to and from anywhere in Tortuguero is only by boat with outsiders able to use the Tortuguero Landing Strip to fly here by small plane. All week I have been traveling around this rainforest park by boat including my private birding trip in a canoe this afternoon with Ricardo doing the paddling and me making photos!  🙂   One photo below is from that canoe trip. It is a different world, a water world! Tomorrow the lodge takes me by boat to the Tortuguero Landing Strip for my flight out which is a relief since the gravel roads between Guapiles and the boat dock are in bad condition right now. It is only the second time I’ve gone to an airport by boat with the other being at Drake Bay.

River Scene Shots

 

Wilderness is a necessity there must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls.

~John Muir

 

See my 2019 Tortuguero Turtle Beach Lodge Visit Gallery for more on this exciting rainforest trip!

Or the Turtle Beach Lodge hotel website

Or my photo book on 3 visits to TORTUGUERO, The Amazon of Costa Rica

 

¡Pura Vida!

Tiny, Funky, Tourist Town

The first boat ride is through the jungle to the lodge in the river and canals of Tortuguero National Park.  “Tortuguero, One of Costa Rica’s most popular ecotourism destinations . . .   a study of Rainforest, freshwater and marine biology. The park and small town of Tortuguero are accessible by boat or small aircraft. When people think of Rainforest, the first thing that automatically comes to their minds is Tortuguero.”  For just the facts, see the Wikipedia Article on Tortuguero Park, there is no “official” website for the park. The previous park link & quote is from one of many tour companies here.

And since most have to pay for entrance to the National Park (my resident old man status gets me in free) the lodge boats stop at the park headquarters first which is at the little village of poor people that all lodges seem to be required to take tourists to and our guide got it over with along with park tickets before we ever got to the lodge. We were given an hour to wander and though with nothing there I needed (food & souvenirs) I used the time to make photos. Yes, I came here for the jungle, birds and other wildlife and that is what I have been doing since leaving this village, but I will still be longer processing and presenting my wildlife photos. This was easier to put together on another busy day with two boat trips and one rainforest hike.

Funky Village

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Village Murals

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3 Village Birds

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Of course there are more birds in this village in the jungle, but these are the only 3 I got photos of!    🙂

 

See my 2019 Tortuguero Turtle Beach Lodge Visit Gallery for more on this exciting rainforest trip!

Or the Turtle Beach Lodge hotel website

Or my photo book on 3 visits to TORTUGUERO, The Amazon of Costa Rica

 

¡Pura Vida!

Butterflies & Flower Enroute

I have so many photos, it is late, and I am tired. So I’m just sharing the butterfly and flower photos made at our breakfast stop in Guapiles this morning. The lodge and the whole National Park is wonderful, but I can’t start showing it tonight. Here’s some color on the way to the jungle!  🙂

Butterflies & Flowers in Guapiles

See my 2019 Tortuguero Turtle Beach Lodge Visit Gallery for more on this exciting rainforest trip!

Or the Turtle Beach Lodge hotel website

Or my photo book on 3 visits to TORTUGUERO, The Amazon of Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Cariari – Colorful Travel Stop

When the lodge in Tortuguero tells me their van they will pick me up at any hotel in San Jose at around 5am and I live at an hour+ away, getting up at 3am to get there is not appealing, thus when I go to Tortuguero (my 3rd time now) I usually use my Hilton Honor points from an American Express Card to spend the night at Hampton Inn Airport. Well, Hampton Inn was full this time for the night I needed and thus the next closest Hilton Hotel was DoubleTree Cariari, at the Cariari Country Club, also called an airport hotel (5 miles). But it used to be an independent, locally owned unique Costa Rican Hotel Cariari. And I’m glad I couldn’t get in the “cookie cutter” Hampton Inn which is an identical building/room as all Hampton Inns in the U.S. Nothing unique or Costa Rican about it except the coffee and staff!   🙂   And the Cariari is the favorite hotel of my new friends from Durango, Colorado.

My favorite transportation from Atenas, Walter’s Taxis & Tours, brought me here midday and I’m enjoying the exploration of a new hotel to me. Here are a few my cell phone photos made here:

ART

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GARDEN

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HOTEL

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Tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM I leave for Tortuguero National Park on the North Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica.

 

¡Pura Vida!

Cell Phone Garden

The other morning before breakfast I just walked through my garden using my cell phone to snap a few happy sights. This slide show of 14 shots shows just one reason I like Costa Rica so much – year-around!     🙂

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I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.       ~Georgia O’Keeffe

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

 

And oh yeah! My flower galleries:  Flora & Forest

Maquenque The Book is Published

Maquenque Book
Click image to Preview free online.

Or go to the book in my Bookstore at:

http://www.blurb.com/b/9282399-maquenque-ecolodge

A New Favorite Lodge

I hesitate to rank or say there is only one favorite birding lodge, but this is in the top 3 or 4 best easily based on both the number of birds I photographed (53+) and the new birds I photographed for the first time or “lifers” of which there were these 7:

This is also one of the best or easiest places in Costa Rica (the whole world?) to get close photos of the King Vulture. My previous photos were made through a spotting scope, so I was thrilled to have Sergio pick me up at the lodge and take me to his blind on a nearby bluff where the King Vultures hangout and from his blind that he calls a “hide” I was about 20 to 30 feet from King Vultures.

Plus the lodge guides are excellent birding guides and found birds I would never have found on my own plus on the night hike I got a photo of the rare Red-webbed Tree Frog which is on the cover of my book. The DIY trails are excellent also for birding where I got several birds on my own.

The food is very good with excellent wait staff and by planning ahead nearly a year I got one of the 4 Tree Houses as my Treehouse Room for the week – an unbelievably unique experience which yielded all the Howler Monkey photos in my gallery (by climbing up 55 steps to my room). Or see my entire “Trip Gallery” 2019 Maquenque Ecolodge.

And check out the lodge website: Maquenque Ecolodge   a true experience in nature! I highly recommend it for all nature lovers and especially for birders! Just be aware that it is not near anything familiar, a 4-hour drive from my house in Atenas to a river on the Nicaragua border.

¡Pura Vida!

Rainforest Flowers

“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.” 
― Georgia O’Keeffe

These flowers were photographed both in the wild and in the gardens of the Maquenque Lodge Rainforest randomly presented:

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Yes, there’s an abundance of orchids both wild & in the gardens. Slideshow has up close.

 

NEWSFLASH:  Pope Francis: Costa Rica has ‘the world’s best coffee’  – stated to the new president of Costa Rica at World Youth Conference in Panama this week. And some of the best is grown right here in Atenas! 🙂

More of this rainforest in my TRIP GALLERY:   2019 Maquenque Eco Lodge

Or check out my Flora & Forest photo galleries

And check out the lodge website: Maquenque Ecolodge

¡Pura Vida!

Rainforest Leaf Art

Every leaf is a work of art and I love trying to capture some of it! There are so many things to see and focus on in the rainforest and sometimes a simple leaf is the best eye candy! Enjoy the slideshow!

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More of this rainforest in my TRIP GALLERY:   2019 Maquenque Eco Lodge

Or check out my Flora & Forest photo galleries

And see the lodge website:  Maquenque Ecolodge

¡Pura Vida!