With the offical morning bird walk and personal walks around the lodge grounds today, I saw several birds not seen yesterday. The two special ones were the babies. The featured photo above is a baby Collared Aracari peeking his head out of the tree hole nest. Also in the slide show below is a baby Great Kiskadee. Both were first-time baby sightings here. It is that time of year, the beginning of the rainy season. Tomorrow I may share the birds we saw on our “Boat Bird Safari” Saturday, then sometime the other wildlife. It is so great to be out in a rainforest like this! Pura vida!
New Birds at Lodge Today
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“Pan, who and what art thou?” he cried huskily. “I’m youth, I’m joy,” Peter answered at a venture, “I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
My 3rd Christmas living in Costa Rica (2016) was spent at Selva Verde Lodge Sarapiqui, a birding “Hot Spot” in Costa Rica. Tomorrow (Thursday) I return and because I liked my room so much last time, I requested the same one. That is not always possible, but we will see. See My 2016 Photos.
I’m staying longer this time, not driving, and expect to relax more as well as photograph a lot of birds. Stay tuned for a lot of photo reports. 🙂 And enroute tomorrow morning my driver and I will stop at Soda & Mirador Cinchona for breakfast where I hope to photograph my first Barbet in the Americas. I photographed a different variety in The Gambia. They hang out at Cinchona some.
An old English saying “in the nick of time” or Just in Time could be applied to the saving of a wetland near my old home of The Gambia West Africa on the Dakar Senegal Peninsula: Diplomats visit a key biodiversity site (article on BirdLife.org which I encourage nature-lovers to subscribe to).
If you have ever been to the sprawling metropolis of Dakar you have seen the danger of another city getting too big and another wetland destroyed like New Orleans did in the states. The great Niaye of Pikine, commonly known as the Technopole, is an exceptional urban wetland located in the heart of Dakar. And a big chunk of this one has been saved and hopefully the biodiversity that goes with it. Though getting less news coverage, scientists say that the loss of biodiversity around the world is as big a danger to the future of life on earth as is climate change. Yet modern man continues to destroy the natural worlds of places like this in Africa, in Amazon, etc. I’m thankful to live in a small country trying to do its part in saving the world’s biodiversity!
I finished it last week but was waiting for Blurb to offer one of their discounts before I ordered my copies since I have to buy at least one copy to offer it for sale. That’s business! 🙂 I usually get about 4 copies, sending one to my host lodge/hotel and one to the birding guide I used and I’m saving a copy for some local library here in Atenas but I haven’t found the right one yet. Long story.
By including some photos from my 2016 visit to Monteverde the book has 123 photos on 78 pages with about 45 species of birds plus other animals and nature. I’m pleased with this photo book available in my bookstore at:
The Prehistoric Hoatzin Bird found only in the Amazon – photographed in the Mamiraua Reserve, Brazil, August 2006
I continue to dig up my old photos and stories of past travels in my blessed retirement days for the TRAVEL pages of this website with the bulk being links to my new “Pre-Costa Rica TRAVEL” photo galleries.
The newest web page and set of photo galleries is summarized on SOUTH AMERICA. The feature photo at top is of a boat similar to what we traveled & lived on for a week of the mission trip on a tributary to the Amazon River, Rio Purus. Just a few more reports on the blessings of my retirement.
If you prefer to go straight to the photo galleries they are linked here:
Finally, all the photos made during a week in Monteverde, Costa Rica have been sorted, culled, labeled and organized into the few best in each category as one of my “Trip Galleries” labeled as:
Now I will start working on the photo book about Monteverde and making more photos around here as I report on things in Atenas like the progress on our central park remodeling and the climate fair here next week with our annual oxcart parade – always something happening! 🙂
Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
Now that I am wrapping up the photos from my week in Monteverde last week, I’m better realizing how good a trip it was! It was one of my best birding trips in recent years with useable photos of 44 different species of birds, 16 were first-time sightings for me or what birders call “Lifers.” See the 44 birds in the gallery:
The featured photo at top is of a Wilson’s Warbler. And I am now working on the other parts of my trip gallery like other wildlife, the hotel, flowers, etc. which will go much faster than my huge collection of bird photos! 🙂 It’s at 2019 April 7-13 — Monteverde, Costa Ricawhich the birds gallery is just one part of.
Collared Redstart
I am thankful that when the Quakers came from the states and founded the little mountain farming town of Monteverde they also had the foresight to start preserving the virgin forest around the town and that other ecologists came and continued the effort with some of the largest forest reserves in the world! Nature is the main attraction of Monteverde!
My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.
~Claude Monet
Three-wattled Bellbird close to the ground in search of food – A 1st for me!
Just a few sample shots of the beautiful cloud forests of Monteverde, Costa Rica which I’m sorry I did not pay more attention to in my photography this past week. Every tree is a beautiful work of art and some are old growth or a part of an ancient virgin forest. I was particularly surprised to see how close we were to Arenal Volcano and what a beautiful view we had from the continental divide in Santa Elena Reserve shown above in the feature photo. I plan to go back to Arenal in November! So many beautiful places of nature here!
Monteverde Forests & Vistas
Arenal Volcano Seen from Santa Elena
Selvatura Tree Tops Hanging Bridge
An Unusual Tree that Got My Attention in Curi Cancha
Looking Down on Forest from a Hanging Bridge, Selvatura
An Old Growth Ficus Tree in Monteverde Reserve
Forest Trail in Selvatura
Another Vista from Santa Elena
My Guide Rodiber Finding Tree Information
Cloud forest is quite different from lowland tropical rain forest. The name comes from the observation that the forests are nearly always shrouded in clouds. These forests are situated at high altitude along the continental divide down the spine of Costa Rica. As the warm moist air from over the Pacific or Caribbean is pushed up the sides of the mountains, it cools, and the moisture begins to condense forming clouds. ~Costa Rica Guide, https://costa-rica-guide.com/nature/refuges/monteverde-cloud-forest-reserve/
I just realized that I have started to repeat some photos, so this will be all of my reports on a wonderful week in Monteverde. My “Trip Gallery” will be coming to my online photo gallery soon at 2019 April 7-13 — Monteverde Lodge & Gardens – just need a few more days for that and then “The Book,” my first on Monteverde even though I was there one other time. Watch my Bookstore for the Monteverde photo book! This trip alone yielded photos of 44 species of birds!
And check out some of my other trips in theCosta Rica TripsPhoto Gallery! Almost every location is as beautiful and exciting as this one.
Bajo del Tigre Reserveis the smallest of the nature reserves within Monteverde even though it is a part of the largest total Nature Reserve in Costa Rica called Children’s Eternal Rainforest or better known here by its Spanish name Bosque Eterno de los Niños. The better part around Monteverde is outside of town in the forests where you must stay in cabins to see many birds or other wildlife. And the very best area of the bigger reserve for birds is east of here near Arenal which I hope to visit sometime.
Here’s my better photos of wildlife seen in about 2.5 hours on the Bajo del Tigre Trail. The close-up of a Three-wattled Bellbird was when he came down near us (me & my private guide) feeding or looking for fruit to eat. Wild avocados are ripe right now. 🙂
Bajo del Tigre Wildlife
Armadillo
Three-wattled Bellbird
Emerald Toucanet
Long-tailed Manakin
Red-tailed Squirrel
Brown-hooded Parrot
Brown Jay
Lesson’s Motmot (formerly Blue-crowned)
“Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs, — To the silent wilderness, Where the soul need not repress its music.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Selvatura Parkis (or was) a great combination Nature Park next door to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve AND an Adventure Park (which part is now taking over). It was a super place when I visited 3 years ago with the biggest and most impressive Butterfly Garden I had ever seen and they claimed it to be the largest in Central America. Well this time the butterfly garden had only two species of butterflies – my hotel has more in their tiny butterfly garden! Their Hummingbird Garden is flowers & feeders attracting wild hummingbirds, so what seemed like fewer this year may just be what is happening in the wild (or what they are feeding them and fewer butterfly-attracting plants). I refused to pay extra for the serpentarium or insect exhibit, expecting they had gone down like the butterfly garden.
The hanging bridges seemed to be about the same and like before I saw one Bellbird and one Quetzal. So they are more about the forest than birds and I enjoyed the bridges the most, but I do not recommend spending the high amusement park prices if you just want a nature visit. The adventure business of zip lines, tram ride, a new “Superman” zip and other such has taken over here. For nature lovers and birders I recommend sticking with the four nature reserves in Monteverde. Here’s 4 slide shows of what I saw there which was still nice as I hope the photos show.
I finished it last week but was waiting for Blurb to offer one of their discounts before I ordered my copies since I have to buy at least one copy to offer it for sale. That’s business! 🙂 I usually get about 4 copies, sending one to my host lodge/hotel and one to the birding guide I used and I’m saving a copy for some local library here in Atenas but I haven’t found the right one yet. Long story.
