The young or juvenile green iguana aka common iguana was found on our small farm in Matina Limon. The larger iguana is a resident of Selva Verde Lodge in Chilimate, CR. The Iguana iguana is a herbivore that lives in the trees. Adults are only seen on the ground when no path exists above or the females are laying
I spotted a new three toed baby sloth yesterday. Read about its family tree. I take the dogs for a walk on the farm twice a day. It gives me a chance to inspect the land, make sure that the gate is shut and say hello to all of the birds and animals. If I am
How to take great photos during your trip to Poas Volcano Poas Volcano is at a stunning 2600 meters or 8700 feet above sea level (our farm is 100 meters or 300 feet) The rim is almost a mile wide. As you can see from our images the weather and scene can vary greatly hour
Arenal Volcano, the youngest volcano in Costa Rica and easily the most active is surrounded by Arenal Lake at its West flank and Cerro Chato, an inactive volcano, at its East. The nearest town, La Fortuna, has everything a tourist needs and is heaven for back country folks like us. We stayed at Arenal Observatory
Three Neotropical Bird Eating Snakes, patterns colors & characteristics This Bird Eating Snake (Psuestes poecilonotus) was found on a farm that raises turkeys and chickens. The environment was perfect for the Bird Eating Snake but not so good for the humans, or the chicks for that matter. The first images show a puffing type of display that gives this
Lime Green Caterpillar in the tropics This lime green caterpillar and 10 of his friends were just about to eat my Anona (custard apple) tree until it looked like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I planted that Anona back in 2009 and have been waiting patiently for it to shower me with fruits. These caterpillars
False Coral Snake Coral Falsa Culebra (Erythrolamprus mimus) This False Coral Snake was crossing Barry’s path as he went to check on a leak in our water source. He was with a Costa Rican that wanted to immediately kill the snake thinking that it was a “real” Coral, which has an extremely deadly poison. Barry told
A Tropical Gnatcatcher Bird This is a sad story. I saw what appeared to be a little bird fall from one of our young mango trees. I went to it to see where it came from and to see if we could put it back, but I couldn’t find the nest. I looked in every
Common Tody Flycatcher Bird In order to give guests a better bird watching area in front of the cabins we decided to take down a fairly young lime tree and an old, non-producing orange that were directly in front of the hammocks. The day we intended to do the work Barry had two little yellow
Spotted Wood Snake from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica This 10″ Spotted Wood Snake was found close to our avocado tree underneath the scattered leaves. This is their normal habitat. They eat insects from the ground. Their defense mechanism is to flatten themselves to the ground when in danger. You can see in the first
Poke Salad using Pokeweed (Phytolacca icosandra) I was on my way to the creek when I passed this plant with a bright magenta arch and little alien pods that sprouted out of it like it was from a child’s science fiction fantasy. Pokeweed is a very curious looking plant, upon further research I discovered that people
Longest Insect – The Walking Stick The family of Walking Sticks boasts the world record for longest insect in the world. Shortly after finding this gal and getting some images I had the pleasure of researching this amazing creature. Walking sticks can, at will, remove limbs if a predator has a grasp and then regenerate
Hummingbird Eggs in a Nest We found another hummingbird nest and this time we found eggs instead of babies. We have had a lot of wind and rain here in the last two weeks and I keep wondering how those little eggs are making it. I just know that one of the baby birds is
Hummingbird Babies I happened upon this hummingbird nest with hummingbird babies in it as I was doing yard work. The nest is only about 8 feet above the ground and securely nestled in a Manu Plantano tree. I probably wouldn’t have noticed them if I had not seen the mommy hummingbird flying to it. They
Smilisca Tree Frog (Smilisca phaeota) found in Limon Costa Rica This Masked Smilisca Tree Frog was an excellent model. When we moved her from the bamboo to the lipstick palm she just clung on and waited for us to get the shot. We found her in a puddle surrounding our construction site. She had probably just laid
This orange spider is the Rusty Wandering Spider. It sometimes found in banana shipments from Central America. Wandering in our Plantain I found this orange wandering spider while cleaning our plantain. It secreted a web like substance and it ate the gecko that we fed it. It is not dangerous to humans. Even a bite
Fer de Lance (Bothrops asper) an adult and a juvenile found in San Miguel de Matina, Costa Rica. Barry shot this Fer de Lance using two separate backgrounds. A similar colored tree branch to show the amazing, natural camoflauge of this snake and a large bunch of poisonous, tropical berries as a contrast to display
Three Toed Sloth after a Storm on our Farm in Limon After about 3 hours the rain stopped and Stinky, the three toed sloth, started to get back to normal. He moved around a little bit and ate the plantain that Barry put out for him. When he seemed settled Barry took a few more
Wet Three Toed Sloth in Limon Costa Rica stranded under a heavy tree banch. During a rather heavy storm this weekend this very wet three toed sloth fell about 25 feet when the tree top that he was in broke off from the rest of the tree. We had known that he lived there and
Collared Aracari (Pteroglossus torquatus) Toucan Images from the Caribbean slope of Costa Rica The collared aracari (air-a-sorry) is a medium sized bird in the toucan family. The razor sharp beak is used to open nuts and fruits. They love mountain papaya. The trick is getting up high because the birds don’t generally come down to the ground
Tarantula Molting We found a tarantula the other day and put him in our “calm down” bucket so that we could photograph him the next day. We also added a cockroach in case he got hungry. When we checked on him the next morning the cockroach was dead and there were two tarantulas. We were
Common Blunt Headed Snake (Imantodes cenchoa) We originally thought this was a Cat-Eyed Tree Snake because of its large, protruding eyes but after a bit more research we believe this to be a Common Blunt-Headed Snake. He was lying in the bananas waiting for a gecko to pass but instead he found Barry’s lens. He
Satiny Parrot Snake (Leptophis depressirostris) from Limon, Costa Rica eating a tree frog and on bamboo. This Satiny Parrot Snake had just captured this frog as we came upon it. We had to be sure he knew we were not any danger and that he could finish eating. He was having a bit of difficulty
Wood Turtle This is a wood turtle we found in the small creek after a big rain. The creeks and rivers here rise so fast that I can only imagine the thrill ride this guy took to get in that spot. I don’t know if they make a game of it or not but it
This Tropical Night Lizard was found at approximately 10 & 83 under some leaf litter at an elevation of 50 meters, during the day. This Tropical Night Lizard is generally found under leaf litter or decaying logs as much of its diet is comprised of termites. It occurs in the lowlands of Mexico through to
Black and Green Poison Dart Frog (Dendrobates auratus) in a croton. This Dendrobates auratus poison dart frog is much bigger than the previous ones we have seen. We frequently have the little red and blue ones (Oophaga pumilio) on the bases of our trees and every so often we get to see a cute little black and green
Rio Destierro Barry has been wanting to photograph this river for 3 years now. He’s gone and set up and the river has been to low or to high, started raining really hard when we arrive or something screwy always happens. Well, finally here is the Rio Destierro at the San Bosco bend. I personally
This is Rio La Perla in San Bosco, Limon, Costa Rica. The river runs from Turrialba volcano down to where it meets up with Rio Destierro and the two form one larger river that runs on into the Caribbean Sea approximately 30 miles away.
These are the same images but the second processed in HDR. Which one do you prefer?
Pineapples are a big business here in Costa Rica. The big companies use chemicals, to keep pests down, that are poisoning the water. In some cases, they are made to replace a towns water supply with another source but few are made to clean up the existing mess. There are rows and fields and entire