Category: Birds

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Palm Berries Feast

These berries on one of the very tall palms in my garden are shown here feeding a Great Kiskadee, Pitangus sulphuratus (my gallery link) while other Kiskadees and Yigüirros wait their turn on a limb of my nearby Cecropia tree (though occasionally there were 2 or 3 birds on this cluster at the same time). 🙂 Those two species and a few flycatchers have now just about stripped all the berries off this tree. And though butterflies have caught my interest more lately, and there are more of them, I still watch and photograph the few birds that come to my garden, mostly Doves, Kiskadees and Yigüirros (Clay-colored Thrush). Here’s just the one photo of this species found in Central & South America . . .

Great Kiskadee, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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There is a pleasure in the pathless woods

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

– Lord George Gordon Byron, 1813

9 more photos below . . .

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A Neighbor’s Birds

Yesterday morning I stopped by Steve & Lucy’s for coffee and snapped a few photos of birds in their garden. Click this image of the gallery or go to this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-08-16-Steve-Lucys-Garden-Birds

CLICK IMAGE OF GALLERY to visit the gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

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Feeding Every Few Minutes

Hummingbirds are a delight to watch and one thing for sure that you will see, is them feeding on the nectar of flowers or sugar water in a feeder. To maintain the energy necessary for their high-speed flights and almost constant movement they must eat almost constantly as shown here with this Rufous-tailed Hummingbird (my gallery link) in my garden feeding on a Torch Ginger or the more fun Spanish name of Bastón del Emperador.

I have three hummingbird feeders that when I fill them they are empty again in 2 or 3 hours and I imagine that sugar water is not as good for them as flower nectar, so I may quit using again, as I did earlier for about 3 years. As long as I have flowers, I will have hummingbirds and butterflies! 🙂

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird feeding on a Torch Ginger or Bastón del Emperador, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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The Bird and The Bee — Blue-vented Hummingbird

A rare hummingbird for my garden (seen there only one other time), the Blue-vented Hummingbird (eBird link) the other day facing off with a bee. 🙂 The hummingbird left. 🙂 This bird lives only in Costa Rica & Nicaragua.

Blue-vented Hummingbird, Atenas, Costa Rica
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The “Other Hummingbird”

Though the Rufous-tailed continues to dominate my garden and especially the feeders when I fill them, the other hummingbird that I still have in spite of the Rufous-tailed is the Canivet’s Emerald Hummingbird (linked to my gallery) and he is a less common hummingbird anywhere here in Costa Rica and is only found from Southern Mexico to Costa Rica. But it seems to occasionally show up and I appreciate her spunk in putting up with the rufous-tailed! Either a male or female has been in my garden from the beginning in 2015, one of the first species I photographed there. Here’s three different views of this female (back, side & front) or go to gallery for more . . .

BACK VIEW: Canivet’s Emerald, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Maquenque 2024 Trip Gallery

Being quarantined at home with Covid means I can give more time to finishing my photos from the July trip to Maquenque Eco Lodge and I now have that “Trip Gallery” finished, which I’m pleased with. It is Costa Rica Trip #121 and I continue to feel my trip galleries are the best.

You can click on the first page below to go there or if prefered, here’s the web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-July-4-9-Maquenque-Eco-Lodge

CLICK on above image to go to the trip gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

And Maquenque Lodge Website

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Maquenque Birds 2024 GALLERY

In my slow state of activity with Covid I finished the birds gallery for my recent trip. 48 species is not bad but not as many as last year with 62! But let’s face it, I’m slowing down. And the good thing is that I got one Lifer this trip, the Yellow Tyrannulet! And from the back porch of my little cabin! 🙂

You can see this trip’s bird gallery by clicking the first page image below or going to: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-July-4-9-Maquenque-Eco-Lodge/BIRDS

CLICK image to go to the gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

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4 Hummingbirds

There were oh so many more hummingbirds at Maquenque, but I’m getting too “slow on the draw” to capture these fast and constantly moving birds. And these four shots aren’t real good, but at least I got some that aren’t Rufous-tailed H, which is all I get at home now. 🙂 Here’s a shot of each of four different species of hummingbirds and only a tiny sample of what’s at Maquenque throughout the forests and gardens.

Stripe-throated Hermit Hummingbird, Maquenque Eco Lodge, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica

See more in my Stripe-throated Hermit Gallery.

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Immature Gray Hawk

Most mornings at Maquenque I walked from my cabin to breakfast around the Lagoon, through two little forests, and a corner of the farm looking for birds. One morning I saw this juvenile, young or immature Gray Hawk perched in a tree long enough for me to get several shots and in okay light! To see the different looks of Gray Hawks, go to my Gray Hawk Gallery with shots from several areas of Costa Rica. I did see a more mature Gray Hawk on another day, but in the shadows and my photo is not good enough to share here though in my gallery.

Immature Gray Hawk, Maquenque Eco Lodge, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica

¡Pura vida!