charliedoggett.net
A local friend who has connections with a private religious retreat center in the mountains of Santa Eulalia, Atenas Canton, took me and two other friends last Saturday morning for a really nice birding hike that included all nature! 🙂 You can see the photos at:
https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2022-January-21-Sermon-on-Mount-BIRDING
Or if I did it right just click this first page of the gallery . . .
¡Pura Vida!
Before Christmas I get down to just a few butterflies and because of the Jan-Mar winds will not see many again until April or May just before the winter here or “rainy season” during which I see the most. The number one most seen during this off season in my yard is the Carolina Satyr which is a small butterfly about the size of the upper half of my thumb or less. The folded wings view has the distinctive Satyr markings with particular ones for the Carolina. But the open wings view is just plain brown.
My Carolina Satyr Photo Gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
If I look more to the right from my terrace at a North to a little Northeast I see more distant mountains toward Arenal and the closer Poas Volcano which I think may be under those clouds on the mid-right. I haven’t been to Poas in a long time, which now requires a reservation, and you must go early morning to avoid the cloud cover. When clear, it is the best volcano in Costa Rica to visit because only there can you look down into the bubbling cauldron and of course smell the sulphur. They recommend no more than 15 minutes at the rim for health reasons in breathing sulphur.
¡Pura Vida!
And this will be the last of my Arenal posts for a while, realizing I’ve done more than 3 weeks worth! And this final post will be considered the weirdest one by some or what I used to call “Leaves and Nature Things” and now refer to as “Designed by Nature” or “Nature as Art” which is also my photography brand. I debated about naming each photo and then decided to let your imagination flow! 🙂 I will give physical identities to most items when I get them in my gallery – but for now, watch the slide show as a fairy tale! But first an image for the email! 🙂
From the top of a volcano to the mangroves at the ocean’s edge and even in the tiny garden behind my casita, I’ve daily photographed nature for 8 years here and called that photography “Nature as Art!” and shared it in this blog. 🙂
I like this Collins Online Dictionary definition:
Nature is all the animals, plants, and other things in the world that are not made by people, and all the events and processes that are not caused by people.
Thus in nature I worship God and find my peace & inspiration from Him, the creator of it all!
Each year I find it difficult to select only 12 photos from the year and I first tried to come up with 12 “categories” of nature to make sure I selected a variety, but that became as cumbersome as trying to have a “photo-a-month.” So I decided to just stick with “12 favorites,” even if more than 12 are favorites! 🙂
So, however labeled, here’s 12 photos I made in 2022!
Happy New Year and Pura vida! 🙂
To the nearly 500 email subscribers: I hope you read on for the other 11 favorite photos . . .
It is too late to get it for Christmas except in the states, but my reasons for publishing now is to have in January and February to share on trips. I have no ambitions to make money on my photography but operate with an almost obsessive desire to create and these little photo books provide that creative outlet more than anything other than maybe this blog! 🙂 The sharing of photos on this blog and in my gallery are two other outlets and to a lesser degree the sharing of bird photos on eBird and butterfly photos on butterfliesandmoths dot org. 🙂 Right now I’m the biggest contributor of butterfly photos from Costa Rica! 🙂
Check this book out with the free preview and let me know what you think! And I hope you are exploring the world where you live! There’s a lot to discover literally everywhere!
¡Pura Vida!
Photographed under the same Higueron Tree as yesterday’s mushrooms, only a few days later and the mushrooms were gone! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See also my Just Fungi GALLERY!
🙂
and one website called it an “Urban Mushroom” while a third site more logically called it the “Japanese Parasol Mushroom.” 🙂 These were seen on a morning walk growing under the Higueron Tree (Strangler Fig) by the cow pasture in front of my house. This identity was found on the internet which sometimes works if I use the right words! 🙂 I started to just call them “Fluted Mushrooms” (my first impression) but learned on the internet search that that is the name of a culinary recipe! 🙂 There is also a “Fluted Bird’s Nest Mushroom” that is different and concave like a nest. Nature continues to entertain me! 🙂
. . . is one I never tire of and though the same, it is slightly different every morning with changing light, sky, clouds and foliage. I am so thankful to live retired in a tranquil little farming town in what might be the most nature-centered and ecology-minded little country in the world! We use 99% renewable electricity and are slowly but steadily moving towards electric cars and buses and have more than 25% of the country’s land set aside in reserves or national parks and we still plant trees! Pura vida!
¡Pura Vida!
View GALLERY: From My Roca Verde Terrace
I will be one of the participating artists in this year’s “Just in Time for Christmas ART SHOW” in Atenas, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica.
Mark your calendar now! Just 1 month from today!
Read about the other Artists at JIT for Atenas!
See you December 9-11!
¡Nos vemos del 9 al 11 de diciembre!
¡Pura Vida!