Delicate flower buds, a dead leaf and a huge tree on the hill above my house – just using my imagination and playing with nature in the camera . . .
Nature as Contemporary Art
Garden Pix
Walking through the garden on two mornings (March 11 & 12) and I chose these shots to share in a little slide show. Rainy Season usually sorta starts the middle of April and really starts in May, but by March 12 we have already had 3 little but nice rains! So I’m glad as is my garden! 🙂
Each and every bloom is unique and beautiful to me. Enjoy walking through my garden with the slide show below and here is the only one I can’t identify, from across the driveway in neighbor’s yard . . .
Calle Nueva won’t be “Country” Much Longer
And as a nature lover, I do not always embrace “progress” that henders nature, but as always, I learn to live with it! 🙂 This old dirt country road called “Calle Nueva” winds over three or four hills through the woods and farms on the western edge of Pueblo Atenas running from the western side of town to the nearby village of Rio Grande at the entrance to Ruta 27, our controlled access highway between San Jose and Jaco Beach. This narrow country dirt road has been considered an emergency exit road in case of a disaster requiring evacuation. Now it is about to become a major street or road to enter or exit Atenas. They first graded and widened it to 9 meters taking a few trees and lots of wild flower with their backhoes, graders and chainsaws. Now they have started at the Rio Grande end widening it to 14 meters and paving it! Working this way! And more than half finished! Already traffic has increased and when all is paved it will stay busy!
Of course I am disappointed that I am about to lose my little “shady lane” country road for birding and butterflies along with other nature photography, but even with pavement and more cars it will for a while have more birds and other nature than city streets, just gradually the farms along this road will be turned into housing developments as more foreigners move here in both retirement like me AND now so many younger adults who work on the internet and can live anywhere are choosing to live here! 🙂 It’s all part of our big changing world! At least I’m already living in one of those more desirable places in the world to live! 🙂
I will continue to walk this road for its nature until there is no more nature. The additional people, traffic and greater speed of vehicles will discourage the birds and other animals in time, but for now it is still a nature path, even when the pavement goes down. And I will continue to document here the birds and butterflies I find through these woods and farms, but for you who live here, be aware than “progress” is coming! 🙂
More photos of the road below from my March 10 sunrise walk . . .
Continue reading “Calle Nueva won’t be “Country” Much Longer”
New Book for Hotel Patrons
My favorite hotel in Costa Rica’s Caribbean South is Banana Azul and I just completed a new book which I will take copies of on my next visit there in September for other patrons to enjoy in the lobby along with others of my photo books about the area that are already there.
This new book has photos of 28 species of butterflies photographed on the Banana Azul property or at nearby locations. Enjoy thumbing through it for free electronically at my bookstore by clicking the cover image below or just going to this web address:
https://www.blurb.com/b/11513083-hotel-banana-azul-butterflies
¡Pura Vida!
Today is No Homework Day!
A fun holiday for school kids only if you can convince your teachers! 🙂 I discovered in the Washington Post article about fun and silly holidays . . . March 6 – No Homework Day!
At this point in the school year, you may be tired of homework. Share this holiday with your teachers, and they may give you a one-day break to play soccer with friends or finish the book you started on Read Across America Day, March 2. (We also learned of a No Homework Day in May, but don’t count on getting two of these.) 🙂 I’ll try it on my Spanish teacher! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Meet the Tayra
And to continue my usual emphasis on nature and wildlife, here’s a link to another Tico Times Wildlife Article “Meet the Tayra” which is Costa Rica’s version of a tropical weasel. The linked article has more of the Guanacaste Camera Trap Videos from which the above pix came.
¡Pura Vida!
Meet Costa Rica’s Gray Fox
Read this Tico Times online article in English about a really different kind of fox that actually climbs trees! Plus the author has camera trap videos put together with several different individuals of this beautiful tropical fox. Unfortunately this is not my photo but one by the article’s author, Vincent Losasso. Simply gorgeous!
¡Pura Vida!
Margaret’s & Pat’s Costa Rica Adventure
Some of the new friends that have come into my life in Costa Rica are “seasonal” or some say “Snow Birds” who come to our tropical climate as an escape from the snow & ice up north during the coldest months. One, who has in the past stayed in Roca Verde just up the street from me, is Margaret from British Columbia, Canada and like me, a birder in her 80’s.
This year she decided to go beyond Atenas and see the birds and other sights of many areas of Costa Rica and brought her friend Pat with her. Here’s the diary or journal of their very economical adventure by public bus and staying in local B&Bs, like I did in my early years here . She included 45 photos that I could not copy with the story and adding all individually to this blog post would greatly slow it down, so I chose 4 to scatter throughout the story. And her good “storyteller” way of reporting their adventures makes her words the “illustrations.” Her third person references (you and yours) are to Jill, one of their first hostesses she was writing much of this to. The sub-headings are my addition to indicate the general area of Costa Rica they were in at that time of their trip. Enjoy! And plan your own adventure! 🙂 ¡Pura vida!
Margaret & Pat’s Costa Rica Adventure
By Margaret
Rainforest Floating Reflexions
I’m up to photos of about 40 bird species plus at least 20 other animals and I don’t leave until noon tomorrow, so it will be a while before I report on all of those, thus here’s a few representative shots from the different boats I floated on through the Tortuguero rivers and canals . . .
Here’s 10 more shots, some of which could be considered art (I think) . . .
An Iguana from Today & New Bus Station Open in Alajuela
Today was too busy because I had to take tours when they were available – two today! Morning and afternoon, both by boat and both with some rain. Reports on both great tours later but here’s a male Green Iguana who, I know, is orange! The male Green Iguanas turn orange during mating season because that is supposedly more attractive to female iguanas than green! Hmmm! Who am I to question female iguanas? 🙂 I photographed it near my cabin after lunch today between the two boat tours.
See my gallery of other Green Iguana photos.
And I read an article today about the new bus station in Alajuela that is finally open! It’s the one I will use regularly.
Continue reading “An Iguana from Today & New Bus Station Open in Alajuela”
My Caribbean Cottage for 4 Nights
I look out over the main river in Tortuguero when in my colorful Caribbean Cottage. I’m in the downstairs one on the left in photo below. It rained off and on much of my arrival afternoon but I got a few photos with an Oropendola my only bird. Took the night walk and might have some photos from that later. And in the morning I do my favorite boat tour of the national park with lots of birds and other animal possibilities, then tomorrow afternoon visit a small community in the middle of the rainforest. So lots of photo-ops! 🙂
