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The humble banana plant flower, seen here along the shores of Rio Tarcoles but also found all over Costa Rica in lowlands and rainforests.
¡Pura Vida!
See the Day Trip Gallery: 2025 January 7 — Rio Tarcoles & Punta Leona
See also my gallery: FLORA & FOREST Costa Rica
Our January 7 day trip with 6 Canadian friends from British Columbia to Rio Tarcoles & Punta Leona Beach was a fun trip with lots of nature photo ops! And I now have the “Trip Gallery” finished! Click that link or the image of the first page below or this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2025-January-7-Rio-Tarcoles-Punta-Leona In many ways, these trip galleries are my “base galleries” from which I glean photos for subject galleries like Birds! While photos made in my home garden go directly into the subject galleries if they even make a gallery. 🙂 But I love these trip galleries because I always make more photos on a trip!
¡Pura Vida!
My needle biopsy went well yesterday and now I just wait for their report that I will receive in my February 12 appointment. And my sister Bonnie learned that her “colon cancer” was primarily an ovarian cancer that spread to her colon, and now they are about to begin chemotherapy after one more procedure. Our mother and brother both died of cancer and now it looks like the rest of us may go the same way. Only Dad never had cancer. The doctors said he died when his heart just stopped, not a heart attack. And Bonnie and I will both look for the positive while we fight our different types of cancers. Thanks for your prayers!
A new regular that’s seen about as much as the Rufous-tailed! See more photos in my GALLERY: Blue-vented Hummingbird.
¡Pura Vida!
I’m out birding with friends from British Columbia, Canada today and expect to have a lot of photos to share over the next week or so. Stand by! Starting with blog in two days. 🙂
Our plan is to have breakfast in Orotina, which is not far from Tarcoles where we will check in at 8am for the birding river boat trip on the Tarcoles River. I usually get a lot of birds on that trip with my prefered “Jungle Crocodile Safari” boat. They generally do a lot better job finding birds than their several competitor boats who focus mostly on the crocodiles. 🙂
After two hours on the river we will go to the nearby coast and beaches of Punta Leona which is a private development and hotel, but the government requires all beaches to be public and Walter knows how to get in free. At these beaches he has seen sloths and monkeys in the past plus the usual seabirds. We will then eat lunch somewhere and travel the hour or so back to Atenas. That is the plan.
Hope you have a happy day too! 🙂
The Art of Flowers! There is no limit to the creativity in flowers!
See the flower slideshow below . . .
Continue reading “El Arte de las Flores”
This Banded Peacock, Anartia fatima (my gallery link) is the most obvious butterfly to still be around during these months of fewer butterflies. Here in the Central Valley the best time for the most butterflies is May-October which is the bulk of the Rainy Season, which I cannot explain, because they do not usually come out when raining. But now, the wind is just as big a problem and it is more frequent than the rain is during rainy season. The irony is that this is the peak tourist season until May and thus tourist see very few butterflies except those captive in the butterfly gardens. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
As every year on New Year’s Eve, I am trying my best to narrow down my favorite photos to just 12 – pretty much impossible! 🙂 But I always do it anyway and never by the months. This year I created 6 categories of photos and chose 2 pix in each. As usual, the birds category was the most difficult to narrow down, so tomorrow I am publishing another post with the 9 runner ups in the bird category. 🙂
The Categories this year are: 1) Birds, 2) Butterflies, 3) Other Insects, 4) Other Wildlife, 5) Flowers, 6) Landscapes. And the ones labeled from “Atenas” are all from my garden except the vista from Casita del Café.
My twelve choices for 2024 will be below this one photo for the email version. They are a slideshow in the online version, so email recipients please click “Read More” below for 12 great photos! 🙂
And this featured photo is of a Natal Lily or Bush Lily – Clivia miniata that I have seen at only one other lodge, Playa Cativo in Puntarenas Province. Xandari has different flowers blooming every month, so you can expect different ones if you go at different times of the year. For this December trip my Xandari ’24 FLOWERS Gallery has photos of more than 30 species! Enjoy! And it is the first sub-gallery I have completed for this latest “Trip Gallery” that I will announce when finished. The Butterflies’ identifications are slowing me down this time! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
And if you like flowers, check out all mine in the Flora & Forest Galleries. where there is a big gallery for just Xandari!
Flash News!
I finished the entire “Christmas at Xandari” GALLERY last night, so all my photos from this little 2-day retreat are ready to view! Click that link!
Click this image of the first page or go directly to this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-December-24-26-Xandari-Resort-Tacacori-Alajuela
Yes, Xandari is expensive, but it is worth it for me as I think the photos tell. Enjoy my “Nature as Art” photos that are different each time I visit there.
¡Pura Vida!
¡Pura Vida!
I’m spending today and tomorrow at Xandari Nature Resort in Alajuela as my Christmas celebration, so you can expect photos from there over the next few days! 🙂 The day after Christmas I go directly from Xandari early to Hospital Mexico for an ultrasound scan of my neck to continue monitoring any possible spread of the cancer removed 2.5 years ago. That and continued removal of small skin cancers (like the one on my nose in November) keep me totally cancer-free! ¡Gracias a dios! And this nature blog continues as always! 🙂
I’m also pleased with my nature-centered photo Christmas Cards over the ten years here and you can see all of those photos in the photo gallery “My Christmas Cards From Costa Rica” (linked). Just one more of my “Nature as Art” creative outlets! 🙂 Merry Christmas!
¡Pura Vida!
And for more, enjoy my GALLERY: FLORA & FOREST Costa Rica