Category: Spiritual

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A BLM Example in Nature

Today was my first “bird day” with what looks like will be around 40 species, but still not through processing nearly 2,000 photos! 🙂 So I will have to show the collection later and it looks like I could beat the 53 species I got here last year!

My interim post will be an interesting little oddity in nature. For whatever reason, the Giant Cowbird (a big blackbird) sometimes lay their eggs in the nest of the Montezuma Oropendola and the really good mother Oropendola hatches the egg and raises the child as her own (do the cowbirds know that?). I had heard about this but never seen it until today. At the rather ugly fruit feeder at the dining room I got this photo of a mother Oropendola feeding a juvenile (bigger than a baby) Giant Cowbird she evidently is raising it as her own child. Since the baby is in the blackbird family I somehow thought of the Black Lives Matter movement in the states and thought this might be considered a beautiful example in nature! Hope so! 🙂

Mother Montezuma Oropendola feeds a “baby” Giant Cowbird she is raising as her own child.

Love the world as your own self; then you can truly care for all things.

~Lao Tzu

And for you birders, I know it is a Giant Cowbird juvenile because he has red eyes, not obvious in my photo but in real life it is. No other blackbird has red eyes.

See my Costa Rica BIRDS Gallery for many more birds, though none from this trip are added yet.

¡Pura Vida!

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Breakfast Visitors

My favorite time in my house is during breakfast on my terrace when I usually have many visitors and sometimes try to photograph them, whether bird, butterfly or other creature. This morning I managed to grab shots of 4 after trying and failing to get shots of two tiny orange & black butterflies that flew as a pair and never lighted on a flower for me. Shooting them in flight is very difficult and I failed. Both these butterflies and birds are regular repeats for me, but each one is a unique individual!   🙂

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Blue-gray Tanager

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Rufous-naped Wren

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Dione Juno

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Polydamas Swallowtail

 

See my Costa Rica Butterfly Gallery  and  Bird Gallery  for more images.

 

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”   ~Rachel Carson

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Rain Pigeons

Well . . . actually Red-billed Pigeons, in the rain! But after a great response on my “Rain Trees” post, I may do some more rain-themed posts.  🙂

I was on my terrace waiting on the delivery guy to bring my once-a-week “meal out” now “meal delivered” from Parrillada Androvetto. I usually have a grilled rib-eye steak but tonight (Friday) I tried their grilled Chorizo sausage which was very good and not too spicy. Well, anyway . . .

It was raining pretty hard with all the birds hiding in the big trees under leaves and limbs except this one loving couple, sitting on the power line like it were a nice sun-shiny morning! Of course their overlapping layers of feathers keep their bodies dry, but it still seemed a little unusual to me. Not singing in the rain, though one was grooming. Blurry raindrops are ugly but the birds are kind of cool! Pura vida!

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Red-billed Pigeon

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Red-billed Pigeon

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Red-billed Pigeon

“Umbrella is comfort, rain is life! You must often leave comfort to touch the life!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

¡Pura Vida!

And my Red-billed Pigeon Photo Gallery

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Fog

The clouds yesterday were easier to photograph! This is what the late afternoon or early evening looked like – a wall of white 50 meters away – so that you cannot see the mountain or hill in 2 of the shots or the valley in the other shot. There is something mysterious and exciting about fog, though hard to capture in a photo.

“Foggy road is a blessing because it is full of surprises and life is such a road! We are incredibly lucky that we all have an unknowable future!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Gazing?

When I watch an animal gazing like this I cannot help but wonder, “At what does he gaze?” Us humans tend to think he is looking for food, and maybe he is – but could he not also be gazing at some beauty unseen by me? A Rufous-naped Wren in my Guarumo Tree during my breakfast.

Gazing on beautiful things acts on my soul.

~Michelangelo
My BIRDS Galleries
or All of my GAZINGS in Costa Rica
¡Pura Vida!
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May Day Morning Walk

On this cloudy morning I walk up the hill above my house and back at less than an hour with these colorful photos even without sunshine. Nature is everywhere and my favorite way to celebrate “May Day” or May 1.

May, more than any other month of the year, wants us to feel most alive.

~Fennel Hudson

May Day Birds

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May Day Flowers

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May Day Vistas

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I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.

~Henry David Thoreau

¡Pura Vida!

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WILDFLOWERS – Tennessee & Costa Rica

Okay, yesterday I compared waterfalls so today as I finished my last gallery in the Pre-Costa Rica TENNESSEE Photos gallery, I must do the same with wildflowers. The last gallery for the state of Tennessee is simply Tennessee WILDFLOWERS and again I tried to pick just one photo from each of about 150 species of wildflowers for this gallery with more variety or multiple images in the location galleries where they first appear. The wildflowers were another of the many elements of nature that I enjoyed during my 37 years in Tennessee with an amazing variety!

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Tennessee Coneflower  —  Growing across from my Nashville row house in the Bicentennial Capital Mall State Park where I spent many hours with nature.

And the featured photo at top is on a huge Magnolia tree in the same park near my house. The beauty of nature is everywhere!

-o-

Similarly I have enjoyed the beautiful tropical wildflowers (most of my garden is wildflowers). See my Costa Rica through regional flower galleries in my big gallery of flowers I call FLORA & FOREST Costa Rica. Click and enjoy! I’ve only been here 5 and a half years, but spend most of my time with nature now! Just one of the many reasons I love being Retired in Costa Rica!

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Growing in a ditch along my street uphill from my house. Pura vida!

 

“Do you know why wildflowers are the most beautiful blossoms of all, my son?”

Dain shook his little head.

Soft waxen curls blew forward in the breeze as she lifted her storm-gray eyes to gaze out over the sea of petals. “Wildflowers are the loveliest of all because they grow in uncultivated soil, in those hard, rugged places where no one expects them to flourish. They are resilient in ways a garden bloom could never be. People are the same, son—the most exquisite souls are those who survive where others cannot. They root themselves, along with their companions, wherever they are, and they thrive.”

― Micheline Ryckman, The Maiden Ship

 

¡Pura vida!