Though one of my regular visitors, I continue to be amazed at the simple beauty of this butterfly . . .
Brilliant White Peacock Butterfly
Nature as Contemporary Art
Delicate flower buds, a dead leaf and a huge tree on the hill above my house – just using my imagination and playing with nature in the camera . . .
Fingernail-sized Butterfly
This tiny butterfly in my garden the other day that I am identifying as a Rawson’s Metalmark. These very tiny little brown butterflies are difficult to identify! 🙂 Here’s 4 shots of this one from different angles . . .
Garden Pix
Walking through the garden on two mornings (March 11 & 12) and I chose these shots to share in a little slide show. Rainy Season usually sorta starts the middle of April and really starts in May, but by March 12 we have already had 3 little but nice rains! So I’m glad as is my garden! 🙂
Each and every bloom is unique and beautiful to me. Enjoy walking through my garden with the slide show below and here is the only one I can’t identify, from across the driveway in neighbor’s yard . . .
Last 4 Birds from Tortuguero
These fit with the larger ones already shared and though there are more that I saw and even tried to photograph, these are all I will try to share of the birds. Some other wildlife next! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
All this trip in: Tortuguero 2023 Trip Gallery
The Other 2 White Birds
Three days ago, March 2, I published a blog post on the Snowy Egret, an all-white bird, and here are the other 2 all-white birds at Tortuguero: the Great Egret and the Cattle Egret.
You can tell the Snowy Egret and Great Egret apart by the opposite colors of their beaks and feet: Snowy has black beak and yellow feet, while Great has yellow beak and black feet. 🙂 The Cattle Egret is much smaller with shorter neck and beak and often with pale salmon coloring on head and chest. After this introductory photo, there is a 3-pix gallery for each of these two new all-white birds . . .
2 Colorful Marsh Birds . . .
. . . and one with babies or juveniles – The Purple Gallinule and the Northern Jacana. One photo for the email announcement and two of each bird to follow.
Tortuguero 2023 GALLERY
I have finally cleaned up my many photos and organized them into a “trip gallery” for this year’s trip to Tortuguero (my 4th) to a new lodge that I will evaluate in another blog post later. To see the gallery, click the linked image of the first page below or use this linked web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2023-February-12-16-Tortuga-Lodge-Tortuguero-NP
¡Pura Vida!
Amazon Kingfisher – Speed-fisher!
It’s a joy to watch these amazing birds dive lightening fast into the water from a tree branch to catch a small fish. Usually successfully! This Amazon Kingfisher is the biggest of these 4 Kingfishers that can be seen in Tortuguero waters (with links to my gallery of each):
Note that there are two other species of Kingfishers in Costa Rica, the Belted Kingfisher I’ve seen in other areas and the Green and Rufous Kingfisher which I am yet to see but the book says is on this Caribbean side of the country. Here’s photos from this trip of 1 male and 1 female Amazon Kingfisher which if you are still in the email notice you can see larger and better on the blog website, by clicking the blog title above.
¡Pura Vida!
And for more info and a location map of where found in only tropical Central and South America, see the eBird page.
BONUS READ
“Love thy neighbor (no exceptions)” article in the Friends Journal on simply following the example of Jesus. 🙂
Bird with an Attitude
The Great-tailed Grackle (eBird link) is a lanky blackbird with a ridiculously long tail and what seems to me a rather haughty attitude! 🙂
They are seen from the western U.S. throughout all of Central American and I have seen in almost every area of Costa Rica. Though a land bird, I seem to see more near water or marshy areas like Tortuguero. Here’s just 4 of my photos from Tortuguero and I’m particularly proud of this portrait of a female (always brown while males are black with blue/purple sheen). And I think both shots of males below demonstrate the attitude I spoke of above. 🙂
