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This is my second sighting of a Black Pondhawk, Erythemis atala (my gallery link) with the other one not far from Punta Leona at the old Hotel Villa Lapas in Tarcoles which today (January 1) reopens as a more expensive Marriott, Santa Lucia Jungle Hacienda (their website link). Hope they still have the abundance of wildlife on their property next door to Carara National Park! I may try it out one time, we’ll see. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Like one I photographed in my garden June, just not as good a photo this time. 🙂 And one of the iNaturalist “experts” changed the other photo to an “Orange Cracker,” but me and the AI + my book believe this one is “Red” though I admit the tops of both are similar. 🙂 I’m putting this with my other “official” shots of a Red in my Red Cracker Gallery. And if an “identifier” changes it, I’ll move it. And the butterfly house at Punta Leona says they have both Red & Orange there, so no help there! 🙂 But I’m sticking with red for now! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
One of the many butterflies I photographed at Punta Leona was the White Satyr – Pareuptychia ocirrhoe (my gallery link) which is one that I’ve seen in my garden in Atenas and in 5 other locations in Costa Rica. I got home yesterday afternoon with laundry job #1 and watering plants job #2. 🙂 As I prepared this last night, I decided to get back on my usual schedule of early morning releases, so here it is on the Sunday after Christmas, an angel-like butterfly! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
My one photo today through the very slow internet here is probably my favorite from the 6:15 am birding hike today.
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!
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 . . .
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.
¡Pura Vida!
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 . . .
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 . . .
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).
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.
