Category: Wildlife

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2021 in Photos

This year was unlike any other in my life, not only because of the Covid 19 Virus Pandemic, vaccines, mask-wearing, hand-washing, and social distancing everywhere, but even more so as my year of major cancer surgery and radiation treatments. Yet through it all I managed to keep nature central to my life most of the time and even make a few photo trips.

I will not try to do a photo-a-month but rather 12 favorite photos depicting major life events, trips, and different types of nature starting with the 2 wonderful trips before the cancer surgery in March. The links in the photo captions are to my photo trip galleries for those events. I even have a gallery for radiation therapy (not one for surgery) and include surgery in my cancer journal and the combined photo book on my cancer adventure. 🙂 And the featured image at top is a Tiger Heliconian Butterfly on a “Hot Lips” Flower on my just completed Christmas trip to Uvita. 🙂

Resplendent Quetzal from January trip to San Gerardo de Dota & Hotel Savegre (gallery link).
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Brown Booby – A Unique Bird

On the Whale-Watching Boat Tour we spent some time at “Whale Rock Island” watching two kinds of very unique birds, the Brown Booby and the Magnificent Frigatebird which I will post about next year, next week. 🙂 Read about the Brown Booby on eBird or see my Brown Booby Photo Gallery. I’ve seen them only one other time. Here’s three favorite photos from this trip . . .

Brown Booby nesting on a rock wall, Whale Rock Island, Uvita, Costa Rica.
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Cachicama or Carton Wasp Nest

This one is almost identical to one seen recently in my gardens with the ID coming from whatsthatbug.com which I hope is scientifically based. 🙂 It was photographed on the hotel property which is considered a rainforest. See what the other one looked like in my Carton Wasp Nest Gallery.

Cachicama or Carton Wasp Nest, Uvita, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Rhinoceros Beetle

Injured or with a broken horn was on my terrace Christmas Eve in Uvita until the maid got rid of him. They usually have a long black horn as long as his head width. This one seems to have been broken off. See my Rhinoceros Beetle gallery for what the horn usually looks like. He was at first on his back and could not roll over (lots of beetles have this problem!) as seen in 3rd photo of gallery. I turned him over for topside photos, then he later climbed up the outside door as shown in second photo of gallery.

There are so many strange and interesting insects in Costa Rica and some scientists say that there are still many that have not been identified or named yet. I have better photos in my Rhinoceros Beetle Gallery or you might like seeing the similar Hercules Beetle Gallery or another similar Longhorned Borer Beetle Gallery or for my whole collection of More Insects CR (non-butterflies) with more than 80 species of unusual insects I’ve photographed in Costa Rica. I think that insects are incredibly interesting!

Rhinoceros Beetle, Costa Rica
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Giant Grasshoppers

The last wildlife I saw and photographed as I left the hotel early morning with low light and clouds were a flock or family of these “Giant Grasshoppers,” which is what everyone calls them here, but I found no good website about them. I photographed one on one of my pre-move trips here, the Carvan.com tour, at the J.W. Marriott Resort in Guanacaste. See it. or for something really interesting, see my CR Grasshoppers Gallery for 13+ different species of Grasshoppers here! 🙂 Here’s three shots of the ones I saw this morning . . .

Giant Grasshopper, Costa Rica
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Dolphins & A Whale

Today I took the “Whale-watching Tour,” 4 hours on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with 4 other tourists, all from Germany, and we saw much more than a whale which we only saw during our last hour. Later I will post about the natural arches, birds on Whale Rock Island, snorkeling, and other things we did or saw – just the dolphins and the whale today with 3 photos of each. Note that whales come up for air only every 10 to 15 minutes and stay up for only 3 or 4 seconds and one doesn’t know where they will come up! 🙂 Almost impossible to photograph! 🙂 Below whale shots are me barely catching the tail as it goes back under water – same whale, 3 different times. Fortunately, Dolphins stay on the surface longer! 🙂

Tropical or Spotted Dolphin, Uvita, Costa Rica.
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A Bird, A Bug & A Bouquet

Well, we had a real sunset tonight, so that will be a separate post a little later. Here’s the representatives of daytime today . . .

Yellow-throated Toucan eating breakfast one morning.
Butterfly on a “Hot Lips” Flower
One of my many “favorite” Costa Rica flowers.

Later tonight I will have some sunset photos to share.

¡Pura Vida!

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Second Day Report

I woke up to rain this morning which continued until after breakfast when it cleared off and was mostly a hot, sunny day as you can expect some of the time on the coast. 🙂 The below photo is what the ocean view looked like just AFTER breakfast. All afternoon I hoped for a clear skies sunset but around 4pm the clouds and rain starting moving in. Below this ocean image is a gallery with a couple of birds (12 species today!), one butterfly and one tree from a wonderful walk in the rainforest this morning plus my effort at a sunset photo again this evening in the rain. 🙂

After breakfast, around 8 am, clear skies that continued until about 4 pm.
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