Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
~Rabindranath Tagore
You have glimpsed the divine.”
~Vera Nazarian
See my Flora & Forest Gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
Design by Nature
Evening Vistas
“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk . . . mysteries.”
―
¡Pura Vida!
Green
Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.
~Pedro Calderon de la Barca
Featured Photo: Zoomed in on surrounding hills, Atenas.
“Rainy Season” = “Green Season”
My Galleries: Flora & Forest or Vistas
¡Pura Vida!
Life Lessons in the Garden
I was impressed by this little article in The Washington Post today:
The garden has lessons for us in this quarantine, if we are willing to stop and listen
Photo above in my garden today.
My Gallery Flora & Forest
¡Pura Vida!
My Bird Count Today
Today is “Global Big Day” of counting birds where you live to help science better see what is happening to the health of our planet. I was out from 5:30 AM to 7:15 AM along the border between our housing project, Roca Verde, and the adjacent farms on the border-line gravel road called Calle Nueva (literally “New Street”) that serves as one emergency evacuation road from Atenas along with being a great nature walk and road for bicycles.
I’ve had better days and worse days of birding on that road, so maybe “average” is what the scientists want! 🙂 I observed at least 60 birds of more than 12 species, which is the number of species I photographed. I only report on eBird what I get photos of, which is not the typical eBird user, but I feel more confident with my reports because of that and eBird has volunteer “checkers” to make sure I labeled a bird correctly. Of my 60 seen, 30 were one flock of parakeets! 🙂
It was overcast or cloudy almost the whole time I was out, meaning poor light and white skies as terrible backgrounds most of the time! Only one photo has even a semblance of a blue sky. That’s life! There were no “lifers” or first-time birds for me, though my first time in Roca Verde to see and photograph the Rufous-capped Warbler, and the photo included here is of him “warbling!” 🙂 The name link is to my gallery with shots of this bird from 4 other locations in Costa Rica and some are better shots. And then maybe a first for me at Roca Verde is the juvenile or “immature” Yellow-faced Grassquit which at that age does not have the bright yellow on his face.
Here’s my mostly weak photos against drab skies, but they show you what I saw today:
9 May 2020 Birds
On March 29 I got 19 species of birds on this same walk on Calle Nueva.
See all of my BIRDS galleries or go for just Costa Rica Birds.
¡Pura Vida!
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!
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!
“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.”
― The Maiden Ship
¡Pura vida!
Hilltop Morning Walk
Margaret, the lady birder from Canada who was in a nearby casita for one month, did most of her birding right here in Roca Verde, including uphill above my casita and on Calle Nueva, the country lane alongside Roca Verde. (She also walked to other neighborhoods in town and had a few trips away, including to Rancho Naturalista & the Tarcoles River.)
But her finding so many birds here got me back into more birding where I live and beyond my own garden where I have no feeders now which has reduced the numbers. Friday morning I spent an hour walking up and down the hill above my house with the result of the following photos of vistas and birds.
Not bad for less than a 200 meter walk from my house! And I know I have already shared similar views and birds on this blog before, but each new time in the viewfinder is a little bit different perspective, a different light, a different pose or action of the bird, and a new joy for me! No new bird species this time, though the immature Blue-black Grassquit was my first immature version of that species! Notice how different she looks from her mother or some other adult female Blue-black Grassquit in photos above. 🙂 I loved the walk and will keep doing it occasionally!
“In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” – John Muir
Vistas
Birds
“I love walking because it clears your mind, enriches the soul, takes away stress and opens up your eyes to a whole new world .” – Claudette Dudley
See also Walking Calle Nueva Atenas, the country lane alongside Roca Verde or . . .
Walking Atenas – emphasizing flowers in this small farming town in Central Costa Rica
¡Pura Vida!
More Bloomin’ Trees!
At breakfast this morning I just zoomed out a little further for some additional trees that are blooming now. Sorry I didn’t do it earlier when there where some bright orange trees and yellow trees, but I think I’ve shown them before and they are somewhere in my gallery called Flora & Forest Costa Rica, if you want more! 🙂
“They blossomed, they did not talk about blossoming.”
―
¡Pura Vida!
Black Skimmer
My lifer bird this morning on a trip to nearby Tarcoles River was a Black Skimmer. Read an Overview about them on Cornell’s “All About Birds.”
I took two new friends from British Columbia there this morning and we saw way more than 30 species of birds and I think I got around that many photographed! I’m still working on the photos, but maybe a full report tomorrow. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Country Lane Birds & More!
In an earlier post I introduced you to the little 5 km country lane behind our Roca Verde development and along the stream by that cow pasture in front of my house. It is called Calle Nueva which would be simply “New Street” in English and the 2018 blog post was titled Finishing the country road walk today . . . Then later I added a photo gallery: Walking Calle Nueva Atenas 2018. Same photos!
Yesterday I walked part of the road more slowly than I did with young man Jason Quesada back then. It was with another older person who is a birder from Canada! Totally different! We saw more than 15 species of birds just behind where I live and here are a few photos of some of them! Even got one lifer on this walk of about 2 hours, the Black-crowned Tityra, both male & female! CLICK A PHOTO TO ENLARGE.
And apologies for several washed out pictures with white sky. That was because I was not paying attention to details and accidentally turned the dial to “Manual” without setting the manual settings and wasn’t looking at the images on screen! Ugh! Sloppy old man!
Birds on Calle Nueva
Interesting Flowers on Walk
Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong.
~John Denver
¡Pura Vida!