Category: Charlie Doggett

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Toucan Eating Banana Flowers

My one photo today through the very slow internet here is probably my favorite from the 6:15 am birding hike today.

Yellow-throated Toucan and Banana Flowers, Punta Leona, Costa Rica

The bird was eating banana plant flowers and interestingly at breakfast this morning a monkey got in and stole a banana of a man’s plate. 🙂

Tomorrow I will share one butterfly shot from the 9:30 am butterfly hike, during which I was not feeling great and will definitely slow down the rest of my time here! By 10 it is almost unbearably hot & humid and I was exhausted, coming back to the room for a nap and then this afternoon another nap. 🙂 I guess I’m an older man than I want to admit. 🙂

Tonight will be the hotel’s “special” Christmas Dinner. Tomorrow I will focus on the beach on Christmas Day with shore birds early morning, maybe a tidepool effort at low tide, and maybe a sunset reflection on the ocean, since the sun sets here now behind the land with the coast at an angle. 🙂 The better sunset place here is at Villa Coleta up the hills from Punta Leona.

Merry Christmas to all the faithful readers!

¡Pura Vida!

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In a Forest by the Sea

I got here in more time than usual because of heavy traffic, maybe the many San Jose residents who escape to the coast for Christmas. 🙂 And as always the coast is hotter than the mild climate of Atenas! Fortunately my room was ready ahead of the official check-in time and I went straight to it in what they call the “Selvamar” section of rooms with each pathway of rooms named after a Latin American country. I’m in the Cuba section and love the room with a small outside patio and everything here is surrounded by tall trees, thus tonight’s photo from my room.

Hotel Punta Leona Selvamar rooms are all surrounded by trees!

I may share photos of my room and the Selvamar rooms area later which is all nestled into the forest surrounded by many tall trees. I think it is the best place to stay for a short visit to Punta Leona and I will tell about other lodging later.

I organized my room and then did a lot of walking and got hot and tired, so I utilized their free shuttle buses to get back to my room. 🙂

Tomorrow morning before breakfast, I take the morning bird walk and then after breakfast the butterfly tour! 🙂 My only other tour is a sloth walk on Thursday. The last time here I also went to Carara NP for birds but decided not to this time, nor the nearby Tarcoles River morning bird boat tour. Instead, I will explore the tidepools and the gigantic trees trail here instead. And later I will write an evaluation of Punta Leona (their website link) telling what I like and what I don’t like about it, but for now just sharing photos and maybe only one photo a day since the internet is a little slow here. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Pacific Coast Beaches Today

I’m spending my Christmas or the next 5 days on the closest beach to where I live, Punta Leona, Jaco, Puntarenas Province in a protected transitional forest with lots of birds including the Scarlet Macaw, monkeys and other wildlife, plus two beautiful beaches for walking, birds, tidepools, sunsets, etc. I do not swim in the ocean anymore for multiple reasons.

My only other time at Punta Leona was in 2019 (trip gallery link) at a different time of year (March) and I’m hoping for better sunset photos in December than I got then. Plus I plan to explore the tide pools between the two beaches this time (new to me) and spend more time on the forest trail of “gigantes” or giant trees over 55 meters tall, enjoy the butterfly house and the Macaw nesting boxes. Punta Leona Posts will start tonight. Below this introductory photo is a gallery of my beach photos from 2019 . . .

Sunset on Playa Mantas, Punta Leona
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Northern Yellow Warbler

Another migrant from up north I think. The northern version males & females look like this while the “Resident Yellow Warbler” here has a female that is also the same while the resident male has a reddish-brown cap. In my gallery I just keep them all together in the Yellow Warbler Gallery. 🙂 And there I have only one photo of a resident male, seen on Rio Tarcoles.

Yellow Warbler, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Favorite Green Life Photos 2025

To live in a green world, absorbing both the oxygen and the green spirit is one of the greatest blessings of living in Costa Rica. I randomly picked these photos as representative of this spirit, though many others could have represented it just as well . . .

Red Croton, Atenas — The Simple beauty of nature!
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Favorite “Other Wildlife” Photos 2025

More photos from outside Atenas in this category because I always see more wildlife at the parks, reserves and lodges than at home, which may be best. 🙂 And with less travel this year there were fewer exotic animals, but here’s a few that are pretty interesting 🙂 . . .

Red-mantled Dragonet, Tortuga Lodge, Tortuguero NP
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Favorite Butterfly Photos 2025

And in 2025 I got multiple new species, mostly in my Garden as are most of these photos! This is just a sampling with my effort to not show 2 of the same species . . .

Banded Orange Heliconian, Atenas
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Squirrel Cuckoo

Not your every day bird but definitely one of my favorites, the Squirrel Cuckoo, Piaya cayana (my gallery link) is one I’ve seen in multiple locations across Costa Rica, just not frequently. See all those in the above-linked gallery or for my all-time favorite, a portrait of one who posed for me in the Cecropia tree back in 2017: Cuckoo Portrait. A metal print of it hangs in my living room here. 🙂 This one last Sunday was in a tree behind my house only about 40 seconds, so I had to act quick to get these shots before he flew off to a neighbor’s tree and out of sight.

There are 7 species of cuckoos in Costa Rica and I’ve seen and photographed only three, the other two being the Mangrove Cuckoo (in two locations) and the Lesser Ground Cuckoo in one location, (both names are linked to my galleries).

Squirrel Cuckoo, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Favorite Bird Photos 2025

This year I’m not limiting myself to 12 favorite photos of the year like in the past, but doing separate posts over 4 days of (1) Favorite Bird Photos, (2) Favorite Butterfly Photos, (3) Favorite Other Wildlife Photos, and (4) Favorite Plant Life Photos. And you will notice that the big majority of photos were made in Atenas, where I live, because I’m not traveling as much as I used to. The “Atenas” shots were mostly in my garden and Rio Tarcoles runs through Atenas though the river photos were made west of here near the coast. The only other two locations were the two trips made before now at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge and Tortuguero NP. (And sorry for this post coming on the same day as the Cuckoo post. I’m getting sloppy in my scheduling!)

“Birds” is the first gallery of “favorites” from this year, found just below this sample photo for the emailed edition of the post:

Keel-billed Toucan, Atenas, in my Nance Tree.
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A Thrush Enjoys Leftovers! + Positive News

In the recent days of many creatures eating the ripe palm berries, a Chachalaca or a squirrel broke one of the berry limbs off and it fell to the ground. With many more on the tree, he/she stayed in the tree and the bottom of the pecking order, Clay-colored Thrush, enjoyed the berries off the dropped limb. Plenty for everyone! 🙂 And as I watched this epicurean delight I suddenly realized that these birds have no teeth to chew their food and thus swallow the berry whole! 🙂 I’m enjoying these observations of nature! Simple life in a simple country.

Clay-colored Thrush, Atenas. Alajuela, Costa Rica
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