A Rainbow of Tanagers
Bay-headed Tanager
Possibly my favorite bird seen at Arenal Observatory Lodge with the only other place seen so far being at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge at Piedras Blancas National Park near Golfito. The rich colors make this bird very attractive though he/she tends to stay behind the limbs and leaves of trees with berries, thus difficult to photograph! 🙂
Three more shots below including one eating a berry, plus you can see my other shots of this bird in my Bay-headed Tanager GALLERY! I love my growing collection of Costa Rica birds! 🙂
A Walk in the Rainforest & My Evaluation
This was my fourth time to visit Arenal Observatory Lodge (link to lodge website) and the second time as my annual “Christmas Getaway!” The first two days we had a lot of rain & wind unlike the other Christmas visit and I thought it was not going to be a good place for Christmas this year, but then Christmas Day was a bright blue-sky, sunshiny day and we had a mixture of weather my remaining 4 nights there, and though I initially thought I didn’t see as much wildlife, I actually did pretty good with 27 species of birds and more butterflies and “other wildlife” than before! So – No big toucans or monkeys! I had a lot of other wildlife and some of my best frog photos plus more butterflies! 🙂
Also, I had less energy than on the previous trips here (cancer recovery is slow) and I scheduled no early-morning guided bird walk like usual, so to have 27 birds on my own is okay! 🙂 And I will be sharing those bird and butterfly photos in future days on this blog when I finally get them organized.
So . . . YES! I continue to rate Arenal Observatory Lodge as one of the best places in Costa Rica for birds and for my nature fix AND also for the lodge services with an excellent room and gourmet food, surrounded by one of the largest rainforests in the country! And yes, it is not cheap, but worth what you pay in my opinion. Superb guides, the best of other services, plus the best maintained wilderness trails that are featured below in this post, a birding tower, a big waterfall, and more birds, butterflies and trails than almost anywhere else! So yes – I will return to Arenal Observatory Lodge! But next time I’m going in May again, for the beautiful sunsets over the lake every night, and maybe monkeys then! 🙂 I think the sun moves further south this time of year, putting the sunset behind the mountains, but in May, it’s right over the lake! 🙂
Below is a Gallery of some rainforest trails at Arenal Observatory, then links to the photo galleries of my other 3 previous visits with a comparison of birds and other wildlife photographed. 🙂
My 2022 in Photos
From the top of a volcano to the mangroves at the ocean’s edge and even in the tiny garden behind my casita, I’ve daily photographed nature for 8 years here and called that photography “Nature as Art!” and shared it in this blog. 🙂
I like this Collins Online Dictionary definition:
Nature is all the animals, plants, and other things in the world that are not made by people, and all the events and processes that are not caused by people.
Thus in nature I worship God and find my peace & inspiration from Him, the creator of it all!
Each year I find it difficult to select only 12 photos from the year and I first tried to come up with 12 “categories” of nature to make sure I selected a variety, but that became as cumbersome as trying to have a “photo-a-month.” So I decided to just stick with “12 favorites,” even if more than 12 are favorites! 🙂
So, however labeled, here’s 12 photos I made in 2022!
Happy New Year and Pura vida! 🙂
To the nearly 500 email subscribers: I hope you read on for the other 11 favorite photos . . .
Masked Tree Frog
The brown on either side of the eye appears to go through the eye and is thus “the mask.” Like many frog species, he comes in different colors making ID less obvious as you can see in my Masked Tree Frog GALLERY or read about the Smilisca phaeota on Wikipedia. We found him in the fountain pool outside the Reception Lobby of Arenal Observatory Lodge.
¡Pura Vida!
And . . .
Historic Biodiversity Agreement in Montreal! Tico Times article
Leptodactylus savagei
That’s the species name with there being 5 different species of Leptodactylus genus frogs in Costa Rica, all five appearing on the Pacific Slope and 3 on the Caribbean or Atlantic Slope. World-wide there are 75 species of Leptodactylus! This Leptodactylus savagei appears on both slopes of Costa Rica and was earlier called “Savage’s Thin-toed Frog,” but now goes by two common names: “Central American Bullfrog” and “Smoky Jungle Frog.” This genus Leptodactylus is the largest frog in Costa Rica (and probably all of Central America.) This particular species appears from Honduras to Colombia.
I just got a new Amphibian Field Guide here at this lodge which will help me to better identify and explain the sightings and photos I post on this site. There are 3 other frogs pictured in my Central American Bullfrog GALLERY and I’m reasonably certain that they are all in the genus Leptodactylus, but I need to study them more to specify the exact species. I don’t think they are all “savagei.”
This was just one more of the creatures spotted and photographed on my private Night Walk last night, seen at the lodge’s “Frog Pond” just like the Red-eyed Tree Frogs I posted early this morning. I will be posting other creatures from that night walk here in time. 🙂
Red-eyed Tree Frog
My main reason for going on “Night Hikes” is to get more photos of this beautiful symbol of Costa Rica that almost looks “unreal” with his bright colors and “other worldly” look. But he is very real and best photographed with a cellphone as these two were, in the light of a flashlight. Just one more totally cool thing about living retired in Costa Rica! 🙂
I got a lot of other photos of other frogs, snakes, spiders, other insects, but these were my two favorite, so all for now with more to be shared another time.
¡Pura Vida!
Threatened Species Seen This Morning
Brilliant Forest Frog (iNaturalist link) or Warszewitsch’s frog, Rana warszewitschii, is a species of frog in the Ranidae family found in Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, rivers, intermittent rivers, plantations, rural gardens, urban areas, and heavily degraded former forests. It is threatened by habitat loss. ~iNaturalist
I found it this morning in the “Frog Pond” of Arenal Observatory Lodge where I usually find Red-eyed Tree Frogs on night walks here. (I’m getting a private night walk later this week for photos.) The guys at the front desk had no idea of the ID and at first I could not find it on the web, but they helped me with this ID using one of the fold-out ID charts they sell and I followed up with the above link to an iNaturalist website. 🙂
When I did a Google Search for “Brilliant Forest Frog” one of my 2019 blog posts came up on this species I saw at Macaw Lodge which has different hind legs but “Brilliant Forest Frog” is what that lodge staff told me it was. The beige top and wide black stripe down the side are the same. Maybe they are cousins? 🙂
See that other frog with this ID in my Brilliant Forest Frog GALLERY. They may or may not be the same species. 🙂
Or better yet, see my bigger Amphibians Costa Rica GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
And MERRY CHRISTMAS or ¡Feliz Navidad!
Rusty-spotted Satyr
I’ve photographed 7 species of butterflies so far and 10 species of birds with rain coming down most of my time here (it is a rainforest!). 🙂 I’m sharing this one tonight because it is my only “lifer” or first time seen wildlife here so far this trip. For those who know the lodge, it was seen on the “River Trail. “
¡Pura Vida!
Rainy Morning Determination
This little Rufous-tailed Hummingbird was determined to continue eating nectar from the nearby Porterweed Flowers when he rested for a moment on this Red Ginger Flower. As I’m posting at about 11 am the rain has finally stopped and the sun coming out, so my post-poned morning hiked will be about now! 🙂 – P.S. – Right after posting this I start to go out and the rain starts again – Awww . . . shucks! More rain photography!
Yes – the photo was made in the rain!
See more in my Rufous-tailed Hummingbird GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!