charliedoggett.net
My profession is to always find God in nature.
– Henry David Thoreau
And you can take that literally since the Limón Landing Strip in on the Caribbean Beach just south of the provincial capital of Limón with a 25 to 30 minute drive to my Hotel Banana Azul in Puerto Viejo where the owner comes down and welcomes me again! 🙂 Here’s 6 arrival afternoon general shots. Though I’ve started photographing birds & butterflies, I’m saving those for later posts.
Today begins what has become almost an annual tradition of spending a week in the Southern Caribbean of Costa Rica, during September when this rainy rainforest has the least amount of rain. After trying a few other hotels, I’ve settled on Banana Azul as my favorite and it is right on the beach (one of the few!) in a favorite room with balcony overlooking the beach and hotel gardens. It is one of my most relaxing weeks of the year! This Puerto Viejo area is south, near the Panama Border and quite different from my other Caribe fave which is north of the port of Limón and in a great wetlands wildlife national park called Tortuguero.
I have just two morning bird hikes scheduled, one in the Cahuita National Park and the other in Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge. Otherwise I just “hangout” at the hotel and beach, walking both the beach and a forested beach road where last year I found a bonanza of butterflies! 🙂
Read on for some of my past creative endeavors from the South Caribbean of Costa Rica . . .
Continue reading “Flying to the Caribe Today!”
The other morning I had about four species of birds feeding on the flowers of my Cecropia or Guarumo Tree and one of them was a new species for me! A White-winged Becard, Pachyramphus polychopterus (linked to eBird). He is smaller than the Rose-throated Becard I’ve seen several of here and like that one is less colorful as a male. In this species the female is a golden orange or tan and more colorful than this male photographed here. Here’s three shots including one of him eating a caterpillar:
Another new species for me! Zilpa Longtail, Chioides zilpa, found from the Southwestern U.S. throughout Central America and in Ecuador. It is kind of amazing that in this hotter and drier year of fewer birds and butterflies for me, I am still getting about as many new species of butterflies as in a more “normal” year! Of course they are mostly new species of Skippers with definitely not as many of the more colorful butterflies, but hey! A butterfly is a butterfly! 🙂 And I am happy to be finding these new brown ones in my garden this year. And just maybe, when I go the the Caribbean side of Costa Rica in the middle of September, I’ll be blessed with a lot of new varieties of butterflies over there in a totally different climate than the Central Valley where I live. But realistically the whole globe is being affected by the extreme weather this year, so, we will see. 🙂 Here’s three photos of this one . . .
From El Silencio, I shared the Trogon & Chlorospingus first and then the Hummingbirds and now here’s the “leftovers!” 🙂 Actually they aren’t all bad photos, but not as interesting as the other earlier-shared 4 birds. Six here, making a total of only 10 birds this trip compared to 23 the previous visit to El Silencio. The number of birds are way down everywhere this year! And no one has a good explanation.
Continue reading “And the Other Birds”
In my brief time at El Silencio Lodge this trip (last month) I managed to photograph two of their several mountain hummingbirds either in the rain or in-between rains: The Lesser Violetear, Colibri Cyanotus (linked to eBird) and the Purple-throated Mountain-Gem, Lampornis [castaneoventris] calolaemus (also linked to eBird). And you can see some of my other shots of both of these species in my galleries:
Now find below three shots of each species. Note that the male & female of the Violetear are identical thus not identified while the male & female of the Purple-throated are different and I did get shots of both in the latter! Plus I have here one shot of each species flying/hovering/eating! 🙂
Continue reading “2 Dazzling Hummingbirds!”
Middle America Bush-Tanager, Chlorospingus flavopectus, which is sporting a new name found only in my new 2023 Princeton Field Guide, Birds of Costa Rica (and online). And that is why I try to always have the latest bird guide because there are always changes in the names. eBird is currently using both names and even “Middle America Chlorospingus” as another option. This particular one is found only in Central America with a slightly different one in South America which I suspect is why the name change. I photographed this one from my porch chair at my cabin in El Silencio Lodge & Reserve last month. I’ve already featured the Collared Trogon and now this one from El Silencio and may do just one more bird post on all the others I photographed to keep from stringing the El Silencio posts out too far. 🙂 Or maybe one on Hummingbirds and one on all the others! 🙂 Here’s 3 of my porch shots of this nice little bird by whatever name! 🙂
Though I tend to see more Variegated Squirrels in Costa Rica, this species is my second “most-seen” of the 4 Squirrels of Costa Rica. And I’ve photographed all 4 species as seen in my CR Mammals Gallery (scroll down to S’s for Squirrels) or you may prefer to go directly to my Red-tailed Squirrel Gallery where I have photos from 6 different locations in Costa Rica counting this new one. And interestingly, I’ve seen them on both slopes (Pacific & Atlantic) and in both lowlands and mountains, so they seem to be almost as universal here as the Variegated Squirrel. 🙂 Here’s two shots of a Red-tailed I found at El Silencio Lodge, Bajos del Toro . . .
See more photos of these and a lot of other wildlife in my 2023 El Silencio Lodge TRIP GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
I had only one full day (along with two partial days) at El Silencio Lodge last month and on that full day it rained until after 2 pm, so it was nearly 3 pm before I headed out on what the lodge sometimes calls “Mystery Trail” for my 2 km hike mostly uphill to the three beautiful waterfalls that I shared photos of yesterday, then 2 km back to cabin before dinner.
But as is often the case, the journey is as beautiful or life-changing as the destination! And this was no exception! Every hiking trail is a “Mystical Footpath” to me and when I have more time than I did that day, I find exciting insects and lizards along every trail and in some places birds, monkeys, sloths and other wildlife! But this report is more on the trail and many streams along the way found in a photo gallery below this one pix. In the gallery you can click an image to see it larger and full-width or by clicking the first image you can go through all 12 as a manual slide show that you click through my story in pictures! Enjoy views from my Cloud Forest Hike of last month . . .
The three falls on the lodge property rival some of the big commercial falls in and around the little town of Bajos del Toro where there are 31 waterfalls you can visit! But these lodge falls are assuming that you are willing to walk 2km, mostly uphill to get to them and then they are fairly close together once you get to the first, which is Melody Falls. Then hiking back to your cabin is another 2 km, though mostly downhill and a lot easier and faster! 🙂 I was hiking solo, thus I did not wade into the stream for a better view of Melody Falls. Unfortunately I have history of slipping and falling on wet rocks! 🙂 So all of these photos were made from the dry trail or flat land by the three falls. Tomorrow I will share a few pix of the streams and other views along the trail to and from the falls which I think is almost as beautiful or interesting. But here’s one pix of each waterfall with it’s sign to identify it. And it works better if you go to the website to see them, so after the first one in emailed version, a link to the other photos in the blog post online . . .
