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Photographed on my last morning in Tortuguero (yesterday) and these are probably my favorite bird photos bird photos from this trip. 🙂 Chestnut-colored Woodpecker, Celeus castaneus (linked to my gallery. I’ve seen this unusual woodpecker only one other time and that was in the South Caribbean, at Manzanillo. Tortuguero is in the North Caribbean. It is found from Mexico to Panama. And this is my first time to see a woodpecker eating a flower! 🙂
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.
This colorful bird is not always around but seen more this year than usual and the other day in my big Strangler Fig or Ficus Tree, called a Higuerón in Spanish. See more of my photos in the gallery: Lesson’s Motmot, Momotus lessonii. Interestingly to me is that since February 2022 (when a counter was added) I’ve had more than a thousand visitors to that gallery. 🙂 Just this one photo here . . .
¡Pura Vida!
One of my interesting garden lizards is this Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, Ctenosaura similis (my gallery link) who lives only on the Pacific slope of the continental divide. One week from today I will be in Tortuguero on the Caribbean Slope where I will definitely see some of the Green Iguanas, similar but different. Watch for those photos next week. 🙂
The national bird of Costa Rica, believed to “sing in the rain” in April and May, beginning the Rainy Season. An ever present bird you can find in most of Costa Rica is one that I never tire of photographing. Just one shot from my garden a week or so ago.
See my gallery of Clay-colored Thrush for many more photos! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
This Gray Cracker, Hamadryas februa (my gallery link) is one of 5 different species of Crackers I have photographed in Costa Rica, every single one on a tree trunk, and they can all be seen in my Brushfoot Galleries. This one landed on my Cecropia Tree the other day for just a few seconds before flying off, with me getting only two shots at an angle. And yes, I know that he is not literally “gray,” but the previous one photographed that was even more of a tan color. He is identified by specific spots and not the overall color. Just one shot . . .
¡Pura Vida!
And that is my first impression of these male & female Hoffmann’s Woodpeckers, Melanerpes hoffmannii (my gallery link). But these days everybody looks young to me! 🙂
The Plain-capped Starthroat is new to me, thus a lifer or first time seen bird.
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!