Bird Portraits 2

Maquenque Ecolodge is such a great place to get close to birds that the portraits approach seemed logical to me! 🙂 Here’s 5 more and I will try to hold it down to just one more “Portraits Post.” 🙂

I can’t say enough good things about Maquenque Ecolodge & Reserve (link to their website). in many ways it is my favorite in Costa Rica and they made several improvements over my last visit – using their “Covid down time” to make many physical improvements plus they hired a new super chef with a menu that now competes with any lodge in Costa Rica! AND I still get to stay in a treehouse! 🙂

Here’s 5 more bird portraits that I liked . . .

Female Great-tailed Grackle at Maquenque Ecolodge & Reserve, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica.
And oh yes, she’s fluffing her feathers to dry them after a rain shower! 🙂
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Bird Portraits

Here’s the first five portraits with more coming, though all fifty-something birds I’ve photographed will not be good enough for what I’m calling a “portrait” or “a close-up” of just one bird. Plus other types of photos are coming from Maquenque over the next few days or week, even though I return home tomorrow.

Gray Hawk at Maquenque Ecolodge & Reserve, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica.
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Farm Visit Today

I was going to avoid all tours but decided the two I did today would not be that popular and not so many people and that was true! My early morning pre-breakfast bird hike was just me and a masked young couple from Europe, he from France and she from Germany plus our local guide Jose. (more on it later) Then at 9 Jose also led the farm tour with just me and a nice lady from Germany and her daughter 11 or 12ish. They were of course masked and her Dad was not interested in the tour. 🙂

A weird-looking Katydid on the farm!

Below is a slide show from the farm tour today with pix not in chronological order . . .

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Juvenile Birds

It seems like maybe there have been more than a usual number of immature or juvenile birds this week, so I’m featuring 5 today. 🙂

Tomorrow morning, I go on a guided bird hike and expect to get a lot more above the 35 species I’ve photographed on my own so far. 🙂 Plus, I’m taking a tour of the farm where 85% of the restaurant food is raised and that will probably be tomorrow night’s post! ?

Here’s my 5 juvenile birds . . .

Clay-colored Thrush juvenile bathing in a rain puddle.
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Egret Fishing

I photographed so many birds today, but decided the fishing action shots were the ones to show. Note that the lake is very low during this dry season, even though it rained off and on all day today. ? Here’s the five steps a Great Egret took:

Patiently stands motionless for many minutes waiting for a fish to swim by . . .
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Maquenque Arrival

The three hour plus trip was four hours with the last 40 km on a pot-holed dirt road which I knew, but when you like a place, you forget about the bad things! 🙂

My Treehouse Cabin is in the trees on that hill at right.
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This Week’s “Wildness”

“Wildness . . . has also been defined as a quality produced in nature, as that which emerges from a forest, and as a level of achievement in nature.”

~definitions.net

I leave tomorrow morning for my third visit to a favorite rainforest lodge, Maquenque Ecolodge & Reserve in Boca Tapada, which is in my province of Alajuela but in the far north near the Nicaragua border, a 3 hour drive for my driver Walter. 🙂 Read on for why this is a favorite lodge and check out the links to my two other visits there . . .

One branch of a very large lake plus they are on a big river.
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Waterfalls Book is Ready!

My Latest Book – 45 Waterfalls on 44 pages, 60 photos, premium matte paper!

For a Free Preview, all pages, both covers . . .

CLICK cover image above or go to: https://www.blurb.com/b/11042260-waterfalls

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Llanos de Cortés Waterfall

My waterfalls trip finally happened yesterday and here is the first of three we visited plus some other interesting sites that I will be sharing about in the coming days. Yesterday was a wonderful day in many ways and typical of my frequent adventures as a retiree in Costa Rica.

The Llanos de Cortés Waterfall (link to their commercial Facebook Page) which of course is Catarata Llanos de Cortés in Spanish! 🙂 And yes, it is spelled correctly for them and the adjacent community. The other spelling with a “z” instead of the “s” is simply a different family name. 🙂 I’m familiar with having a “different” family name. I’m Doggett not Daggett! 🙂

Llanos de Cortés Waterfall, Bagaces, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
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