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One of the lesser-seen butterflies is this Banded Tigerwing, Aeria eurimedia (my gallery link) found only in Central America and Northern South America. I think it is a handsome butterfly and I almost used one of my photos of it on my ’23 Christmas Card! 🙂
All the birds in Tortuguero aren’t water birds, and on the Jaguar Trail in the park, running parallel to the beach, I had a park guide (Manuel) who like guides everywhere in Costa Rica, was more skilled at finding birds than butterflies (my target for that trail) and thus I got several good bird shots along with some butterflies. We were looking at a long line of Soldier Ants when this Antshrike showed up! 🙂 See my gallery with more photos from Cahuita NP and Maquenque Eco Lodge, along with these, all on the Caribbean Slope: Black-crowned Antshrike, Thamnophilus atrinucha. Here’s two shots from yesterday’s hike on the Jaguar Trail in Tortuguero National Park. We also saw a Laughing Falcon and I may share one of those photos tomorrow. 🙂
They are almost always hiding behind tree limbs, leaves and/or adjacent shrubs along water, meaning that I seldom get a clear shot of their whole body and face. These two shots were my top clearest views yesterday morning as our guide and boat captain stopped by a known nesting place for Boat-billed Herons (one of many reasons to always use a guide). See some more shots from yesterday and photos from earlier years in my Boat-billed Heron, Cochlearius cochlearius GALLERY. This bizarre bird is called Pico Cuchara in Spanish and is found only in tropical Central & South America in mangroves and lowland rivers.
¡Pura Vida!
This was one of about a dozen birds I photographed yesterday morning on a morning boat trip in Tortuguero National Park, along with monkeys, caimans, basilisks, butterflies and and cool waterscapes. More photos to be shared later. I’m having a fun and relaxed time in the park with only one project a day. Today I hike the Jaguar Trail in the park looking for butterflies which my research said was the best place in this park. Tomorrow night, if conditions are right, I will get to go on the beach and watch sea turtles lay their eggs. But no photos because flash is not allowed on this park ranger led event.
I love flying on the little planes across Costa Rica which I get to do occasionally and on my way to Tortuguero this time I observed a heavily polluted river and saw where it merged with an otherwise clear and clean river which at the merge became polluted too! And all the junk from either farming or manufacturing is dumped into the already filthy ocean. Our world is in deep trouble ecologically, even in a country that supposedly thinks green like Costa Rica!
The feature photo is of an undisturbed forest compared below with how farming is replacing forests. Then a shot of a “clean section” of Tortuguero Nacional Park that doesn’t show one of the lodges which may be a small pollution, but I’m afraid even that diminishes the wildness of what was once all wild.
The most commonly seen dove or pigeon in my garden in Atenas is also one of those seen & liked on my first trip to Costa Rica in 2009. That photo is included below along with today’s photo. It was the first bird I ever photographed in Costa Rica, right after taking a taxi to Hotel Aeropuerto near SJO Airport in Alajuela. As the sun was setting in the hotel garden, I went out just before dinner and this was the first bird I found! 🙂 Our birding tour group had dinner together and the next morning we flew to Puerto Jimenez where I photographed that Tropical Kingbird I shared a couple of days ago. Good memories! 🙂 See more and better photos in my GALLERY: White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica.
¡Pura Vida!
Or if you prefer, use this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2025-July-1-6-Esquinas-Rainforest-Lodge
I consider these “Trip Galleries” the best of all my photo galleries where I put only the best photos from that experience. Then I link some of these photos to subject galleries such as a bird species gallery, etc. The trip galleries can also be of help if you plan a trip to one of these wonderful places I visit here in Costa Rica! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Though I’m slowing down and getting fewer photos of birds and everything else now, I also continue to be surprised with new species, like the Whitened Eyed-Metalmark butterfly in another post and that weird insect, Trychopeplus laciniatus, in still another blog post yesterday. All 4 were new species for me on my 3rd visit to this particular lodge and rainforest! 🙂 Just one reason I like Esquinas! 🙂
Now for the two new bird species this time . . .
That is one shot of the male. See more photos of both male & female in my Blue-black Grosbeak Gallery. The several types of Grosbeaks are all sort of like large Seedeaters.
And speaking of larger seedeater-type birds, the other first sighting for me was this Yellow-bellied Seedeater. (my gallery link) And sorry that I couldn’t get better photos! Two shots in the gallery.
And though not a lifer, I also got a couple of weak photos of a somewhat rare bird, indigenous to this Golfo Dulce area. “Indigenous” means it is found only in this Osa Peninsula/South Pacific area of Costa Rica and nowhere else in the world! 🙂 . . .
Continue reading “2 Lifer Birds at Esquinas”
On one of the trails at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge at Piedras Blancas National Park, I found this mossy root-like or vine-like “thing” walking around under a leaf (must have sticky feet). 🙂 I just posted it on iNaturalist, where the A I said it was pretty confident to put it in the Genus Trychopeplus, a genus of insects. I searched around more on iNat and decided that the closest match for a species is Trychopeplus laciniatus (linked to that page in iNaturalistCR. There is very little info online and no “common name” in Spanish or English, but mine matches most of the photos found of that species.
On land it would be kind of like a mossy “Walking Stick Insect” or to me almost looks more like the underwater “Sea Dragon” creatures found in the oceans somewhere, but I know nothing about those and didn’t try to research. 🙂
It is just one of the many fun things I keep finding here in Costa Rica and will continue to share on this blog. For other interesting insects I’ve photographed in Costa Rica, go the the More Insects Gallery. 🙂
2 more photos . . .
Continue reading “Weird Insect! Trychopeplus laciniatus”
There are oh so many more lizards in the rainforest, but they were never my target for photos, but here’s a Whiptail and adult & juvenile shots of a Common Basilisk. In earlier years I looked for lizards more and you can check out my LIZARDS Gallery for more than 25 species.
2 more images . . .
Continue reading “Rainforest Lizards”
There are a lot of dragonflies around all the different water locations and because we have the dragonfly specialist active in iNaturalist Costa Rica, I wait until after I post the photos there for him to confirm or give the species or even say if I have them in the right family! 🙂 I’m more confident about that amber wing identification, but not the others. And I’m including two reds here, because I think they are two different species.
3 more dragonflies below . . .
Continue reading “Rainforest Dragonflies”