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| Black Guan Male Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, Costa Rica |
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| Black Guan Female Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, Costa Rica |
Read about the Black Guan at Cornell’s Neotropical Birds website. Another nice bird photographed!
Black Guan
San Luis Waterfall
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| San Luis Waterfall, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, Costa Rica |
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| San Luis Waterfall, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, Costa Rica The “Long View” |
This was a “by-product” of our Saturday morning birding hike in the cloud forest reserve. Not big, but beautiful as all waterfalls are to me. It was simply on one of our trails with birds around it.
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| For your own safety, no swimming allowed! Besides, this is a rainforest preserve for the wildlife. It is their water! 🙂 |
I have a lot more wildlife photos to share, just still going through them all and selecting a few.
Today was Spanish class and maid day, so been busy in addition to the photos! 🙂
“As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing.” ~John MuirAnd someday I’ll do a photo gallery of Tennessee Waterfalls I’ve photographed. Some grand ones there!
Rufous-naped Wren, God’s Creation!
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| Rufous-naped Wren in Yellow Bell Tree off my Terrace |
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| Rufous-naped Wren |
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| Rufous-naped Wren with his feathers ruffled – possibly a juvenile |
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| Rufous-naped Wren posing by one of the few lingering flowers |
You probably don’t remember that last July 2015 I reported here about one of these inside my house.
My Costa Rica Birds PHOTO GALLERY or All My Costa Rica Galleries
RAIN IN THE DRY SEASON?
A surprise light shower or sprinkle on this Sunday afternoon, March 6, 2016. It is dry season in the central valley with no rain since October, and this one lasted maybe 10 minutes, getting everything wet, but not soaking my flowers and trees – a reminder that it will start raining again for real in May. And tomorrow night I will continue my every two day watering routine.
If you follow all my adventures you may remember that we had rain stop us from seeing Poas Volcano two weeks ago, but it is at a high altitude, “The Cloud Forest,” that has rain year around as does the coastal lowland rainforest such as Tortuguero where we had a little bit of rain on each of our two nights/3 days there. But the rest of Costa Rica is in the Dry Season until May. Read about the WEATHER in Costa Rica.
Genesis 1:20-23The Message (MSG)
20-23 God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!
Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”
God created the huge whales,
all the swarm of life in the waters,
And every kind and species of flying birds.
God saw that it was good.
God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
Birds, reproduce on Earth!”
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Five.
Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”
God created the huge whales,
all the swarm of life in the waters,
And every kind and species of flying birds.
God saw that it was good.
God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
Birds, reproduce on Earth!”
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Five.
Emphasis is mine. ~C.D.
Zooming In On Blossoms
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| Plumbago |
I think most of my photos have been of the total garden or yard and not each blossom. So here are some close-ups of a sort, zoomed in on with my Canon Rebel and 75-300 zoom lens. Enjoy!
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| Flame Vine or Triquitraque |
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| My large Heliconia There are so many varieties that I hesitate to identify the species |
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| This large Heliconia has seeds in it that birds eat or they grow to new plants |
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| There are 6 varieties of this small yellow Heliconia growing in wild and cultivated. I have two . . . |
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| This is my other small yellow Heliconia |
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| Then this small red Heliconia that is finally blooming again. None open yet. |
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| The almost constantly blooming Red Ginger here with a fully open bloom and . . . |
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| A Red Ginger bud just opening and growing sideways I cut all of mine back and so they are just now starting to fill with blooms again. |
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| One of the many colors of Lantanas I have as a border. They are coming back strong after I cut them to the ground 2 months ago. |
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| Porter Weed for Hummingbirds I have pink and purple. |
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| A special Costa Rican variety of Petunia that blooms heavy each morning and then all blooms drop off in the afternoon to none, nada! Every day! It is kind of like the Morning Glories my landlord has growing on his fence. They too bloom every morning only. |
The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly. ~William Wordsworth
Polydamas Swallowtail – This Year’s First Butterfly!
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| Polydamas Swallowtail Butterfly My Garden in Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Well, the butterflies are starting to come! And this is the first other than the Banded Peacock which was the only one to stay all summer (Your northern winters are our windy summers.). You may remember that I posted photos of this Polydamas Swallowtail Last June – not the most colorful but a butterfly!
I also hope to increase my photo gallery Costa Rica Butterflies this year where I now have 36+ species with a variety of Skippers, which I have already seen some of this year. As I remember last year, June and July were the peak months, but my garden didn’t get going good until into June, so a head start this year! 🙂 And truthfully, it has been too windy for butterflies since mid-December, but the wind will slow down and stop by April. Plus I’m going to the Monteverde Butterfly Garden next week which may give me some new ones, I hope! Though so far most of these butterfly gardens tend to have about the same butterflies.
“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince (One of my favorite little books!)
Slowing Down in Atenas + March Birding Trips
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| I’m beginning to take palms for granite! These are by the church at central park. Like steeples they point to God! Uplifting! |
I’m slowing down after a busy schedule during Reagan’s visit here though still having to learn how to truly rest! 🙂 I’m back to just one Spanish Class again since Zaray got a high school teaching position and can no longer teach our Tuesday night class at the church. And my conversational tutor Jason has moved to Liberia to live with his sister for awhile. So I’m on my own with Spanish and have a little more time to catch up on some work here at home.
But two great trips planned for March! 🙂
- 10-13 March I go to Monteverde with Birding Club + an extra day for Butterfly Garden. See one Bird Checklist for Monteverde
- 22-30 March I will be in Nicaragua (itinerary) for a 7-day birding tour + 2-days in Historic Granada. This is partly to renew my Visa with a little more excitement than just going to the border as in the past! Plus I suddenly realized that I will be there during Easter Week, so maybe some celebration color will be witnessed, though I’m mainly in the forests. 🙂 Birds Checklist for Montibelli Reserve and Birds Checklist for El Jaguar Reserve
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Click to see the YouTube Video from Cornell Lab of Ornithology showing the joys of birding.
Birding is an incredible hobby! Here Cornell says “Thank You” to all who helped with the 2015 Christmas Bird Count around the world. Watch the birds where you live! They will give you an incredible sense of joy and peace. And it is even more fun for me to capture many of them in photographs! My growing gallery of Costa Rica Birds now has photos of 161 species and growing monthly plus I’m getting some better images to replace or supplement older ones. Plus I’m about to add a pretty good collection from Nicaragua and already have one from Panama. Fun!
“I think the most important quality in a birdwatcher is a willingness to stand quietly and see what comes. Our everyday lives obscure a truth about existence – that at the heart of everything there lies a stillness and a light.”
― Lynn Thomson, Birding with Yeats: A Memoir
― Lynn Thomson, Birding with Yeats: A Memoir
Tortuguero Miscellaneous Photos
Okay. I’ll try to make this the last post from Tortuguero, then back to Atenas posts tomorrow! 🙂
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| Bus window view of Chiquita Banana Plantation, Costa Rica |
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| Modern buses like this is how many tourists get around inside Costa Rica. |
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| All the dozen or so lodges have boats making the 1.5 hours trip into park. |
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| Our group on one of the Laguna Lodge boats enroute to lodge. |
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| Robert Umaña, our guide, listening for a bird or other animal. |
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| Robert using sand drawings to tell us about the life cycles of the green sea turtles that lay their eggs on this beach and each baby that makes it goes to ocean and returns years later to lay their own eggs. |
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| One of the many river channels and canals we traveled looking for wildlife. |
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| Another lodge’s guide pointing out a bird, monkey or other animal. |
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| Unidentified butterflies/moths in our Laguna Lodge garden. Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
Pura Vida!
This trip significantly improved some of my photo collections in the PBase Galleries:
Later I will be adding a trip gallery in the travel section of my galleries, but not enough time yet!
Tortuguero Fruits & Flowers
Just a few of the hundreds of fruits and flowers found in this rainforest:
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| Large Heliconia growing wild along the river banks, same as in my garden. Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica |
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| Small Heliconia also growing wild in forest and here in the lodge garden, similar to my garden! |
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| Cashew Nut is usually a surprise to people when first seen growing! One nut per flower! |
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| Hooker’s Lips or Hot Lips is another surprising plant. |
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| I can’t find the name of this blue berried plant in the rainforest. |
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| Achiote (bixa orellana) is used for food coloring red and sometimes lips |
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| Robert holds an open pod of the above Achiote flower showing the seeds It is those red seeds that have the red coloring for food or lips. A couple of children let him put red dots on their skin to show how it works. |
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| Papaya tree with a very popular fruit This is same one with the Collared Aracari Toucans I photographed Tortuguero Village, Costa Rica |
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| Torch Ginger flower |
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| Neat vine I just had to photograph! 🙂 |
The Other Birds – Tortuguero
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| Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
From our Tortuguero Trip last week I have already shown photos of 3 Species of Toucans, a Sungrebe, a Red-lored Parrot, and a Snowy Egret. And here are about 15 more species that I got photos of plus of course seeing others. You can see why I love Tortuguero! And a few of these were first-time sightings for me which will be added to my Birds of Costa Rica Photo Gallery.
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| Belted Kingfisher, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Little Blue Heron, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Montezuma Oropendola, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Female Anhinga, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Male Anhinga, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Great Curassow Female, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Tortuguero, Costa Rica Interesting note: This nest was above the outdoor bar at Laguna Lodge. I watched the male bring twigs and female arrange them. Fun! |
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| Royal Tern Juvenile, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Osprey, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Long-tailed Grackle Female, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Northern Jacana, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Common Black Hawk, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
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| Orange-breasted Falcon or Bat Falcon or Black-collared Hawk ???Tortuguero, Costa Rica If you can narrow the identification down, please contact me! Wings only is tough to ID! |
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| Social Flycatcher (most likely) or Great Kiskadee or White-ringed Flycatcher, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
Red-lored Parrot
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| Red-lored Parrot, Tortuguero, Costa Rica |
It looks like it will be next week before I get all my shots from Tortuguero processed, so here is one more! He is the only parrot we saw and I am pleased with this shot. But there are still several more shots of birds to share! (And 3 species of monkeys, several lizards, and one snake.) And I assume you know that all of these were shot in the wild! Tortuguero is a terrific place for nature lovers!
“We need the tonic of wildness… We can never have enough of nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods