RANCHO MARGOT

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Rancho Margot

Edie and I arrived at Rancho Margot early afternoon on Sunday.  The route included a 14 kilometer rough road after leaving the highway.  There were a number of lodgings and attractions along this road but Ranch Margot was at the very end.  Located on the south side of Lake Arenal and about a half hour from the tourist town of La Fortuna, it is isolated but in a tourist rich region. We were greeted by an English-speaking young man who took us up to our Bungalow.  The ride was appreciated since the bungalows are all located up a long hill.  The bungalow had the most room that we have had so far with three beds and a wrap-around covered porch with hammock. There was a lot of privacy and flowering vegetation surrounding us and I had visions of doing a lot of photography right from the porch.
Rancho Margot  was the wild card on our trip since it is not a destination birders use or even know of. It was a substitute for the Arenal Observatory Lodge which was booked up.  I was intrigued by their web site which touted the lodge as a leader in sustainability, off-the-grid, totally organic lifestyle.  I told Edie this would probably be a very good experience or a very bad one. Unfortunately for us it was very bad due to a weather system which arrived soon after we arrived carrying rain, rain, and more rain for almost the entire time we were there.  We got a good lesson in what the name, "tropical rain forest" means.  When Dr. Sanjay Gupta featured Rancho Margot on CNN's "The Next List" in September 2012, he did not mention that you could be washed away.

 New garden plot with compost next to it

 Guests can help milk the dairy cows if they wish

 Organic garden plots were located all over the acreage and tended by students and workers.

 Pool and hot tub available but did not seem well-used

 Teak and bamboo was used a lot in constructions

Bar and bananas

 Our Chilean non-English speaking housekeeper was quite clever with the towels.

Students who come to learn have sparse living conditions

 Standard daily wear during our stay

 800 chickens and a lot of pigs - all organically grown

Where the workers live

organic soap making

Pottery making

SELVA VERDE LODGE

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Costa Rica Nature Pavillion

In 1976 Dave Lando Sr. left California and headed to Costa Rica looking for adventure.  He married a Costa Rican girl and began his passion for tropical agriculture. His property has benefited from this passion.  In 1985 he began a reforestation project.  His son, also named Dave, joined him in an effort to plant for a high diversity of wildlife and sustainability.  Together their efforts have gained them a selection as a National Geographic Destination.  Their property boasts over 225 bird species and attracts guests from around the world.  They have set up their pavillion to provide bird photographers with a first class experience and all other visitors with close up looks of the bird life coming to their feeders and well placed perches.  Both work constantly to replenish the feeders and answer all questions.  They are only a ten minute taxi ride from Selva Verde Lodge.  Although no toucans appeared in the morning I was there, I added several new species.  A side porch contained hummingbird feeders which buzzed with activity.

Golden-hooded Tanager

Male Olive-backed Euphonia

Black-cowled Oriole

Scaly-breasted Hummingbird

White-necked Jacobin

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

Red-legged Honeycreeper

Crimson-collared Tanager

Dave Jr. answers questions from a photographer from Great Britain while Dave Sr. (on right bottom) stocks the feeders.

COSTA RICA NATURE PAVILLION

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Costa Rica Nature Pavillion

In 1976 Dave Lando Sr. left California and headed to Costa Rica looking for adventure.  He married a Costa Rican girl and began his passion for tropical agriculture. His property has benefited from this passion.  In 1985 he began a reforestation project.  His son, also named Dave, joined him in an effort to plant for a high diversity of wildlife and sustainability.  Together their efforts have gained them a selection as a National Geographic Destination.  Their property boasts over 225 bird species and attracts guests from around the world.  They have set up their pavillion to provide bird photographers with a first class experience and all other visitors with close up looks of the bird life coming to their feeders and well placed perches.  Both work constantly to replenish the feeders and answer all questions.  They are only a ten minute taxi ride from Selva Verde Lodge.  Although no toucans appeared in the morning I was there, I added several new species.  A side porch contained hummingbird feeders which buzzed with activity.

Golden-hooded Tanager

Male Olive-backed Euphonia

Black-cowled Oriole

Scaly-breasted Hummingbird

White-necked Jacobin

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

Red-legged Honeycreeper

Crimson-collared Tanager

Dave Jr. answers questions from a photographer from Great Britain while Dave Sr. (on right bottom) stocks the feeders.

RANCHO NATURALISTA

Friday, February 5, 2016

Rancho Naturalista

The next morning we got a little more acquainted with Ranch Naturalista.  It is a small family-run lodge with a main lodge and several other guest buildings.  A gorgeous view can be seen out of the second floor balcony of the main lodge.  It looks out over the country side and fruit feeding stations. On the ceiling perimeter are hummingbird feeders which attract a large variety of hummingbirds although several species seem to avoid them and prefer the natural flowers around the lodge.

The lodge raises as much of its own food as possible and also has a daily recycling service.

The rainforest night life is awesome.  A sheet with a light attracts many insects which in turn attracts birds in the morning.

Hummingbirds start working the feeders before 6 AM followed soon by the fruit feeders.

A banana stealing squirrel

Grey-headed Chachalaca

Brown Jay

An English photography group of a dozen members arrived in the afternoon and immediately set up two multi-flash units in the coveted balcony area where the hummingbird traffic was heavy.  After an hour the leader came down and said they could not get rid of "ghosting".  This causes images to have several ghost like images along with the main image and is usually caused by not setting all your flashes at the same power.  I gave him my settings and he later came down and said the problem was fixed.  He said they hadn't practiced any multi-flash techniques before they left England because there were no hummingbirds to practice on.

After lunch I lost my assistant who wanted to take a cooking class.  Edie learned how to make "gallo pinto" and fried plaintains.  Both are Costa Rican staples.  I am sure the Sunday dinner crew will benefit this summer at home.

COSTA RICA

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Costa Rica

Birders have a lot to like about Costa Rica.  In an area the size of West Virginia there are more bird species than all of the continental United States and Canada combined. An American birder living east of the Mississippi expects to find one species of hummingbird on a regular basis.  A field guide to Costa Rica lists 50 species with descriptive names including the words brilliant, fiery, sapphire, magnificent, emerald, and mountain-gem.  It is easy to see why a popular field guide calls hummingbirds "avian jewels".  When you throw in toucans, trogons, antbirds, mannakins....the list goes on and on, a trip to Costa Rica has to be on every birder's list.

My strategy for this trip was different from previous trips in that I would not get a rental.  Having experienced city traffic in the Dominican Republic and talking to Americans who got ground up in the Latin American way of handling traffic accidents (whether you were at fault or not), I arranged for private transportation.  If I could have completely avoided San Jose traffic and stayed rural I probably would have gotten a rental.  This strategy meant, of course, that I would be anchored at each stop with limited means of making spontaneous side trips.  The solution to this problem was Costa Rica's wonderful eco-lodges.  Australia taught me that wandering through the rainforests was not the most efficient way of capturing bird images.  Lodges designed to attract birds and therefore birders proved by far to be the most enjoyable and easiest way to photograph the local birdlife.  Why chase them when they will come to you?

Our three hour flight left Orlando at ten in the morning and we arrived in San Jose around noon their time.  We were warned that there would be many "helpful" people around with offers to assist us but were advised to ignore them all except for the individual who would be waving our name on a sign and know our destination.  Sounded easy except that when we exited customs there were several hundred gentlemen waving signs with passenger names - but none with our name.  Oh ...oh.  I guarded the luggage while Edie went down the line again.  Meanwhile a gentleman approached me and tried to grab my voucher with the idea of helping us.  He said he would call our travel agency for us.  I wasn't having any of that and was rather forceful in refusing his efforts to grab my voucher.  I did give him the number to call.  Edie returned without our driver so we switched places and I went down the lines looking for our name - also unsuccessful.  Another ten minutes and suddenly the first helpful man showed up with our driver in tow.  I mentally chastised myself for being suspicious but Edie was still nervous that the two were working together and had quickly written our name on a sign after the first person had seen our name on the voucher.  She eventually relaxed when she saw the company shuttle and noticed he was wearing the company logo.

Besides being late our driver was new on the job and lost his way twice.  The GPS was always the excuse.  The low point was when he bottomed the front end of the shuttle in a ditch on a terrible street and tried to grind his way through it.  That attempt was rather unsuccessful and we were hung up.  We finally backed out of the ditch accompanied by sound of tortured steel .  I asked if it was his vehicle or the companies.  He said it was the company vehicle but in reality he treats it as his own personal car because he can keep it at home.  He also liked side trips which was ok for a while but put an extra hour and a half on our trip and I was hoping to photograph that evening.  He decided to give us a tour of San Jose which was informative and also reinforced my decision not to city drive in Central America.  Traffic density is horrendous and everybody heads for the nearest opening and guns it.  Motorcycles are everywhere and usually you proceed with them using the narrow space between you and the car on your side except they are going three times faster.  Motorcyclist believe there are speed lanes just for them between cars and also between cars and the curbs.  They are required to wear helmets and a narrow beauty contest like sash diagonally across their back and front.  It can be any color.  I don't believe the Harley crowd would appreciate these restrictions. The sashes don't do much in the way of rider protection since the injury rate is high.

We missed seeing the Presidential Palace when the street became blocked by police and a sea of red taxi cars. The "legal drivers" were protesting UBER drivers and had plugged up everything. We were also proudly shown the new soccer stadium which was a gift from the Chinese government to help foster trade relations between Costa Rica and China.  Everything including materials and even workers were brought in by the Chinese.  They didn't trust the corruption in Costa Rica so no currency flowed through the sytem to be siphoned off.  Kind of smart when you think about it.

We finally reached our lodge, Rancho Naturalista, in time for a quick look around.  Soon after a bell rang to announce the evening meal.   Their web site said they were known for their warm, relaxed, friendly atmosphere, brilliant birding, good company, and delicious gourmet food served with the best fresh local ingredients.  This proved to be quite true.  The meal of fish, salad, mashed potatoes, and vegetables was served family style.  We sat with two guides who were more than willing to share good locations with us. Renee was from Brazil and owned his own birding company there.  Megan was a young Alabama girl who fled the corporate world after a couple years and has worked at Rancho Naturalista the last four years.  Tomorrow we will try for hummingbirds.

PROVIDENCE CANYON, GEORGIA

Saturday, October 31, 2015

PROVIDENCE CANYON, GEORGIA

Sometimes billed as “Georgia’s Grand Canyon”, Providence Canyon does at first glance, bear some similarities with its striking bands of color, steep pinnacles, and canyon walls.  The real Grand Canyon, however, is in a completely different category.  Providence Canyon is quite small.  You could hike the perimeter in a short time while a trail to the bottom and back would not take much over an hour.  Formed entirely by erosion it changes slightly every year. 

Providence Canyon is located near Lumpkin, Georgia.  There is no lodging close by.  Columbus to the north is the largest city but we decided to stay a half hour west in Eufaula, Alabama.  The Quality Inn is located right on the Chattahoochee River.  A bonus is the “Cajun Corner Restaurant” which serves great crawfish etouffee and gumbo.  Edie finished with Praline Bread Pudding.  When they brought it out, I thought they had switched her order and made a banana split instead.