Well…we’re coming to the end of images from the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica…and we currently have no trips planned so I dunno when I will have some more images to pass along. Maybe I’ll have Neil pull some more out from the Africa and Costa Rica trips until something better comes along. We’ve got a short trip out to Arizona next month for a Saint-Saẽns concert but other than that there aren’t many birds yet at any of the prime birding locations so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. 

Things are getting back to normal after Milton…the beach areas and some of the places that got hit harder will have a longer recovery but here in North Fort Myers everything has pretty much died down and we’re normal again…and the weather the past couple of days has been pleasantly cool so that’s a break. We were able to open up the house and get some fresh air for the first time in months…that’s a good sign we’re getting to the time of year when we can stay open most of the time.

Some of Connie’s Ladies of Elks things got moved around due to the storm…meetings and lunch and such that were originally scheduled at the Punta Gorda lodge which being right on the Peace River got slammed pretty hard. She’s in charge of the meeting so has had a bunch of phone conversations and emails with other important personages to get them rescheduled. 

Connie’s off again tonight to Mastersingers rehearsal…they missed last week and there’s only another month or so until the concert…and Neil finally got his ticket for it straightened out; he had paid for one but instead of being issued by the Gulf Coast Symphony they are collaborating with the print at home ticket was to be issued by the venue and it never got here. The folks at the Symphony got it sorted out though.

We will be so glad when the election is over…both of the candidates are essentially lying for votes at this point. We don’t like either one and wish None of the Above was on the ballot instead. While we’re not fans of the former President at all…we have to recognize that most of the media is in the tank for Ms. Harris and the coverage from most of the media has been extremely biased because unfortunately most of the media is pretty much to the left and at this point in time about 99.5% of all media is no longer interested in journalism and reporting the facts but instead are more interested in being the news rather than reporting the news and pushing whatever their political viewpoint is…and that is true of both right and left leaning media. It was so much better back when folks like Walter Cronkite were on the evening news…he just told you the facts because that’s the way it is as he used to say. Not until he retired did we ever get a glimpse of his actual politics…and he was what would have been described at the time as a flaming liberal but even he wasn’t as far left as the progressives are today. The fact remains though…he didn’t let his personal views affect the way he did his job…nope, it was just the facts.

Ok, on to images…the flowers are Connie’s and were not on the boat ride but all of them get sorted by exposure time so that’s why they are where they are.

American Crocodile…not the same one as last time with the butterfly.

Green Iguana…this is the same species we have in Florida but ours are normally all bright green and down in Costa Rica they’re mostly black/gray but you can see the green in the legs. This one was about 2 feet long.

Green Heron hatchlings…like most heron babies they’re pretty ugly and were the offspring of the adult one in the last post.

Proboscis bat…they found a whole lot of these underneath a bridge on the boat ride.

Capuchin Monkey…they found two different troops of these on the ride near each other on opposite sides of the river which was maybe 40 or 50 feet wide. They don’t swim and there are predators in the water anyway so mostly they just scream at each other.

You can see in this shot that their legs actually have hands instead of feet…makes it easier to climb due to better flexibility and ability to grab onto things along with the opposable toe/thumb.

These bird shots were not taken on the boat ride but rather at Dennis Valverde’s sloth preserve…they stopped by there to allow folks on the workshop to pay for the wives that had gone along on then chocolate tour earlier in the week…that was not an official part of the workshop but wives were invited along for a brief nature/wildlife outing followed by chocolate fondue.

Thick Billed Euphonia.

Painted turtle…very similar to several species we have here in Florida. Neil was hoping for an action shot as it slithered into the water and triggered a 20 frames per second burst when it moved…but unfortunately it went off the far side of the log.

Scarlet Rumped Tanager…again very similar to the Scarlet Tanager in the US except the red and black areas are swapped.

More Thick Billed Euphonia.

And the final bird…the Costa Rica National Bird. This is the Clay Colored Thrush…and Neil originally had to wonder why it was chosen instead of one of the many far more beautiful bits in the country…Macaws, Toucans, Parrots and the like. He asked Dennis and it was selected because unlike all of those other birds which are only found in specific regions of the country this one is found everywhere and whoever decides these things thought it made a better selection. It’s a pretty good sized bird…much larger than the Euphonia and Tanager but still smaller than the Toucans, most of the parrots, and the Scarlet Macaw.

Here are a couple snapshots from where they had lunch after the boat ride. The boat departed from the dock at the left so it wasn’t much of a commute to lunch from the boat.

And just in case you couldn’t figure out where to recycle the beer at.

So…that’s it for the trip down there…I’ll leave you with these three final shots as we prepared to take our leave from what turned out to be a pretty nice country with very friendly folks and really good food.

Neil really thought this one captures the essence ofd the place pretty well.

And if one had to pick his second favorite shot of the wildlife there…the Scarlet Macaw pretty much takes that cake.

After a farewell dinner at the resort they got all packed up and were off to the airport for the flight home shortly after breakfast.…and then there was some excitement on the outgoing flight. First off…the plane turned out to be overweight but one of the participants wasn’t leaving out of San Jose that day but staying overnight before flying out so he volunteered to go back to San Jose on the afternoon flight…that solved the first problem. Then…despite the fact that there was one and only one outgoing flight on the ramp and all 9 passengers in the terminal were scheduled for that flight…they managed to leave Neil’s tripod bag in the office at the airport which they didn’t figure out until landing in San Jose. Once they discovered that…talking to the folks at both the domestic and international sides of the airport indicated that it would be on the next flight from Osa landing about noon and he could pick it up then. They were told to go ahead and check in and enter the international section of the terminal and he would be allowed to leave and go pick it up. So that’s what they did and once the flight was scheduled to arrive Neil tried to do that…only to be told that he had already passed through outbound immigration and thus was actually no longer legally in the country and that he couldn’t leave to go back over and pick up the tripod. This naturally disturbed him since it’s an expensive carbon fiber model with a fluid head and set him back more than $1,000. He started texting with Rose Perry back in the US (she did all the logistics for the workshop) and she was working on getting somebody to bring it back when they returned from their workshop the next week (there were 4 or 5 in a row) and she would ship it to him. This was going to be an issue since he needed it just a week later for another workshop in Glacier National Park…so he started talking to those folks (different organizer) to see if he could borrow a tripod from them for the duration. Nothing had been settled by the time they got on the plane, but they were sitting in first class on the right side and as he saw the luggage being loaded…lo and behold he recognized his tripod bag. Turned out that the bush plane airline folks had figured out he wouldn’t be able to come and pick it up so they brought it over, figured out which airline and flight he was on, and got it checked through to Miami for him. So…good on them for outstanding service.

Then as it turned out the workshop in Glacier he ended up canceling (and losing the fee since it was too late) because he ended up with diverticulitis. Luckily…the tickets there were transferrable so he was able to use that balance to pay for half of their flights to Arizona next month.

So…all in all they can confirm that Costa Rica is a pretty nice place to visit. Yeah, it’s hot and humid but wildlife is great another are several other sections of the country…the Cloud Forest in the north and the east coast lowlands…that have different wildlife so it’s possible they’ll head back there again for another workshop or just a trip and hire guides to show them around.

Cyas.