charliedoggett.net
Both my gardens and ones I visit
The Green-breasted Mango (eBird description) is a type of Hummingbird found only in Central America and northern South America. My Green-breasted Mango Gallery has photos from three locations in Costa Rica. The featured photo of a female is not particularly good photography, but I like it because I caught her looking right into the camera at my eye-level which I’m seldom ever able to do! 🙂 Read more about this shot and the places I’ve seen this bird under The Backstory below.
Not exotic but one of the most often seen birds across Costa Rica is the Great Kiskadee (eBirds link) and I have a lot of photos of them in My Great Kiskadee Gallery, but I still can’t tell you what makes him “great.” 🙂 And be forewarned that I still get them confused with the Social Flycatcher (looks the same but is technically smaller) and some of the other flycatchers that are the same colors.
I don’t really have a “Backstory” for this bird or this photo and since the locations where found are pretty much “everywhere in Costa Rica,” I will not link to trip galleries where I have photographed them. But you might want to see in my bird galleries some of the ones that are often confused with the Great Kiskadee and hey! Some of these photos might even be mis-labeled. 🙂 I really do get them confused!:
¡Pura Vida!
Ever since the gardeners broke my fragile pottery bird in my garden I have intended to replace it with a more substantial or concrete art and finally did that this week. This particular meditating indigenous man statue is one I’ve seen in some of the lodges I visit and liked, but not available in Atenas or even in the viveros (plant nurseries) of La Garita. My gardener sent me to an outdoor arts business on the outskirts of Naranjo de Alajuela and there I found depictions of the indigenous people of Costa Rica.
I haven’t found out yet if he is intended to be “the thinker” or someone in “some kind of meditation,” but the art style (copied of course) is similar to the Pre-Columbian Diquís Culture statues as a part of the Meso-American Pacific Culture. I like it and think it adds a touch of calm and history or maybe even spirituality to my garden. It is made of concrete, thus not as likely to be broken! 🙂
The response to yesterday’s blog post “Verdure” has been good and of course that older English word refers to the “green” in nature. One response caused me to look up quotes about “green in nature” and there were so many good ones! I limited myself to sharing just three:
“For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green.”
– J. R. R. Tolkien
“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.”
– Pedro Calderon de la Barca
“Nature in her green, tranquil woods heals and soothes all afflictions.”
– John Muir
¡Pura Vida!
🙂
Verdure = the fresh green color of vegetation.
Verdure Hugging me Daily Upon My terrace Fresh, Green
Seeing The garden Colors
Feeling The Garden Tranquil
“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”
—Jane Austen
¡Pura Vida!
More CR Nature Haiku
Simple Butterfly Plain Brown
See my GALLERY of other Chisos Banded Skippers.
¡Pura Vida!
This is my second sighting of this bright turquoise fellow, this time INSIDE my house! There are better photos made in the garden this same time of year, two years ago in my Two-barred Flasher Gallery. Here’s two cellphone shots of one on my kitchen counter.
¡Pura Vida!
See all my Costa Rica Butterflies Galleries, 130+ species.
“I’m going on an adventure!” said Bilbo Baggins
~JRR Tolkien in The Hobbit
Only great books deserve “re-reading” and The Hobbit (Wikipedia link), the 1937 published book by JRR Tolkien, is certainly one of those! I just finished reading it again on my Kindle and of course discovered “new stuff” not in my memory! He pretty much introduces a new character or creature in every chapter and then brings them all back together for the epic “Battle of Five Armies” at the end of the story.
I will not write a full or formal review but just share some first impressions and personal feelings on the re-read of a favorite book, which I followed by a re-watch of the 3-movies version of the book . . .
Continue reading “The Hobbit Re-read”
Soon after the Covid Pandemic started in March of 2020 the regular work on renovating the Central Park of Atenas slowed and then stopped in October 2020. I don’t know, but guessing they ran out of money or the pandemic caused a reduction of tax income or something like that for the city. There has been no work on the park renovation for more than a year. Well, this week it started up again!
First I noticed the tin fence around a small triangle of the park between two sidewalks at the corner opposite Olivera Pizza and between the City Hall and Banco Nacional.
As I walked around the fence to see what was going on inside the fence, I stopped at the very Northwest corner of park opposite Olivera Pizza:
Continue reading “Park Renovation Continues”
“Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.”
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning
It’s just a Croton Plant in my yard, one of many and in one of the many colors that Crotons come in, most multi-colored. But for some reason the other afternoon when it wasn’t raining and a ray of sunlight hit it. I saw a “burning bush!” Maybe I should remove my shoes more often! 🙂 And thanks to Elizabeth Browning’s thought, I will continue seeing “every common bush afire with God,” and other parts of earth also, where God waits for us to notice. 🙂