. . . and Other Landscapes.
Below are just a sampling of the many landscape photos I made:
Continue reading “Views from the Pier . . .”Views from the Pier . . .
Reptiles & Crabs
A strange combination! The last of my wildlife photos from Playa Cativo Lodge with Landscapes, Leaves and Flowers coming next! 🙂
And several more photos . . .
Continue reading “Reptiles & Crabs”Cativo’s Other Wildlife
My nature experiences in a Playa Cativo Lodge this past week did include more than the birds & butterflies that I love to photograph! Here’s a few that I was able to “catch” in the camera and of course the biggies like Jaguar and Puma are there but seldom seen by us humans, even on night hikes! 🙂
DISCLAIMER/POSTPONEMENT: I did this post last night and couldn’t finish processing my photo-folders of Crabs and of Reptiles that I intended to include here, so now those two categories will come later in a separate post. 🙂
And more . . .
Continue reading “Cativo’s Other Wildlife”Cativo Butterflies
Butterflies often liven a garden or forest as much as birds and that was pretty much true visually at Playa Cativo Lodge this week and of course also as usual, they were difficult to photograph! There were probably more than twice this many flitting about, impossible to photograph, but here’s 14 I managed to “capture,” even if not all very good photos. 🙂 And I’m including 2 cool moths from my cabin but could not capture the one Dragonfly I saw. I’m not as fast with the camera as I used be! 🙂
Here’s one to go in the emailed version of the post and the rest will follow in the continued post online . . .
Departing the Rainforest
First — awakening to the singing birds and howler monkeys as I looked up at my cabin’s vaulted wood ceiling . . .
. . . then a final beachside walk before a hearty breakfast and . . .
Continue reading “Departing the Rainforest”BIRDS of Playa Cativo
There are a lot of both land and water birds at this rainforest beach lodge, and even though it didn’t give my highest count of birds, it is good! My favorite was the Red-capped Manakin which has been very difficult to photograph in other places and was easy here! 🙂
Though no “lifers” (first-time seen birds), it should no longer be expected for someone who has already photographed over 358 species of birds in Costa Rica. 🙂 Below are photos of 25 different birds of 23 species. Two of these species have male and female so different they look like different birds, thus a photo of each! 🙂 I saw more birds than this but have no useable photos of the others.
After my previous trip (Chachagua Rainforest Hotel) I did a separate post on each bird and decided not to do that this time. Enjoy the one photo of each species now and later I will have multiple shots of each in my trip gallery.
Continue reading “BIRDS of Playa Cativo”Happy Birthday Mr. Charleie
Yes – My first name was misspelled, but when done meticulously with flower petals, you won’t hear me complain! 🙂
And . . .
Continue reading “Happy Birthday Mr. Charleie”Jungle waterfall
My birthday morning was sunny with lots of birds singing and the Howler Monkeys closer than they were the previous morning! 🙂 The monkeys serve as the roosters to wake you at 5 am when you’re in the rainforest. After a great breakfast I walked the half-kilometer all uphill to the waterfall closest to the lodge. It is left natural as it would be if no humans were around, thus vegetation hides part of the upper falls and a tree fell in the lower falls and they will let nature take its course, as the tree will eventually rot and be washed away, but now the only human “improvements” are the trail to get there and that could use some more improvement! 🙂 (I will include photos of the trail in my trip gallery later.)
Note that in the above photo you can partly see the upper falls while in the next two from the bottom, it is mostly hidden by vegetation.
Continue reading “Jungle waterfall”Bottle-nosed Dolphin
Every morning has been free of rain in the rainforest so far with the usual afternoon and evening rainy season rains that are great for sleeping at night! 🙂
This morning I had switched my planned morning hike in the mountains after learning how steep the trail is to a boat trip up Esquinas River and the Mangrove Forest for birds and maybe other wildlife. The highlight ended up being a group of about 5 Bottlenose Dolphins which are a little different from the Spotted Dolphins I’ve seen at Drake Bay and Uvita. They are “friendly” and followed our boat part of the way back to the lodge. 🙂
And five more shots . . .
Continue reading “Bottle-nosed Dolphin”Red-capped Manakins
I’ve seen this bird in only 2 other places (Maquenque Ecolodge & Corcovado National Park) and they were skittish and difficult to photograph, while here they were all around my cabin and in just 2 days I’ve had many opportunities to photograph several of them, like a big Manakin family or village! 🙂 I did not see any of them do their courtship dance, this time, the Michael Jackson moon walk shuffle across a limb, like I saw in Corcovado NP, but there were plenty in the trees to photograph.
Read about the Red-capped Manakin at that eBird link or see more of my photos of them in my Red-capped Manakin Gallery. It’s another cool bird found only in Central America! 🙂 Here’s a slide show of 6 of my shots . . .
Continue reading “Red-capped Manakins”