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! 🙂
Yep! I seem to see my garden a little differently each morning and never tire of walking through it. Here’s my snaps of flowers as seen 2 or 3 mornings ago – I know that they are often the same flowers but I am seeing them differently each time. 🙂 Pura vida!
My Desert Rose in a pot continues to surprise me with blooms year around for 6 years now!
A sample for the email announcement and then a slide show . . .
I never before thought of my garden as a place of carnage, but insects eating other insects is quite normal and helps with the balance and ecology – then I witnessed it first hand this past Tuesday morning as I focused my camera on what I hoped was a new butterfly species (it was!). This, my first Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak (Strymon istapa) was flying and landed on one of my Heliconia flowers (1st photo below) and when I snapped this photo that tiny Jumping Spider (Salticidae) down below him in the photo jumped up on the little butterfly (with attached silk thread) and grabbed the butterfly by its head, biting it with a venomous bite that instantly paralyzed and will soon kill the butterfly which the Jumping Spider will eat. I did not stay around for the full meal, but photos of three stages follow this one. 🙂
Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak above and Jumping Spider below. Yes! He jumped that far!
3 more photos below of the capture, paralyzing and preparing to eat.
It is looking like someone may soon buy this property and live in the big house on top of our hill as my new landlord, so I walked up to the now vacant big house the other day for some “Hillside Vistas” of what they can see from there that I can’t from lower down on our hill. Nothing spectacular and the mountains opposite us that I usually photograph were covered in clouds, so here’s some closer views that I can’t see from my house and I like what looks like hillside farm land near us that I hope will not be covered with houses anytime soon! 🙂 Que sera, sera . . .
Walking back from town yesterday I saw a guy trying to catch a big snake with a broomstick out by the small apartment complex’s garbage basket (Canasta de Basura). He was obviously experienced and quickly caught the large snake and conveniently stopped for me when I pulled out my cell phone for a photo. I’m guessing that it is his pet Boa that had escaped and could have soon found a home in one of our gardens nearby. 🙂 But no worry! They are non-poisonous and live on small mammals, birds and even other reptiles which they squeeze to death and swallow whole. Hmmm.
There are several varieties of Boas and after researching online I think it is this one described by Wikipedia as: “Boa imperator or Boa constrictor imperator (in common usage) is a large, heavy-bodied, non venomous species of snake, of the boa genus, that is commonly kept in captivity.”
I have photos of several types of Boas from 6 different locations in Costa Rica, both wild and captive in myBoa Constrictor GALLERY. One shot here for the emailed blog announcement followed by 3 others from yesterday’s serendipity snake experience . . .
That last Friday morning butterfly hike also yielded 6 different species of Damselflies & Dragonflies and I spent hours trying to positively identify them without success! So I just decided to present them without identifications which I really hate doing, but I got only two “probable” IDs! Frustrating! And more difficult than identifying butterflies and moths for me! 🙂
Here’s one for the emailed version and all 6 in a gallery to follow . . .
And all were seen and photographed on Calle Nueva, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica last Friday, 28 October.
There are so many more photos from my trip back to Banana Azul in the South Caribbean of Costa Rica that I intended to share on the blog, but other things are happening now, thus I refer you to the just-finished Trip Gallery for my 2022 Banana Azul Week, click that link or this image of the first page of the gallery for many more photos from nature . . .
Entrance Page to my 2022 Banana Azul South Caribe Trip Gallery
¡Pura Vida!
And About Hurricane Julia . . .
Yesterday (Saturday) Tropical Storm Julia strengthened into a Category 2 Hurricane over the Caribbean Sea and headed toward Nicaragua where it is expected they will receive extensive damage through today (Sunday) from coast to coast as Julia goes across Nicaragua and El Salvador and parts of southern Honduras to finally dissipate in the Pacific Ocean tomorrow. Nicaragua is on the northern border of Costa Rica but we are not expected to receive much of the wind damage, just a lot of extra rain which could mean some flooding and here that also means mud slides and rock slides in the mountain areas. Otherwise we will not be affected drastically by Hurricane Julia. It was just a mild rain last night (Saturday) as I wrote this. But hurricanes have been known to change course.
I’m mesmerized by flowers everywhere I go in Costa Rica and the Caribe is no exception, though the hotels on the east coast aren’t as ambitious with their gardens as some other places I’ve visited that work hard to have a large variety of sometimes rare and even exotic (non-native) flowers. All of these are native to the best of my knowledge and at least half were growing “wild” along the beach or beach road. And I’ve decided this time to not try and identify them, since maybe half I can’t without research! 🙂 One photo for the email announcement and then a gallery of 14 flowers . . .
Beach Spider Lily (Hymenocallis littoralis), Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Limón, Costa RicaContinue reading “Caribe Flowers”
With (1) the lesser popularity of the Caribbean side of Costa Rica from the Pacific side for both tourists and residents. (2) Lesser development on this side of the country (not a single chain hotel). (3) My chosen hotel being away from the other hotels and more popular white-sand beaches further south, and (4) therefore we who stay at Banana Azul Hotel often have the beach all to ourselves! And that’s nice for the tranquility and for the photos! 🙂
I no longer swim or surfboard in the ocean for many reasons, but I love to walk on beaches and also here I walk on a beach road with glimpses of the ocean through the trees. Plus my favorite beach photos here are my sunrise images which I shared daily each morning last week, so you’ve seen those. But here are a few others shot this year that I basically liked.
Tomorrow I will share a few “People Shots” that I sneaked of people on this beach and the beach road. “People watching” can be fun! 🙂 Here’s one beach shot for the email and 6 more to follow online below . . .
I donated to the Corcovado Foundation recently to plant trees in an area of the Osa Peninsula where earlier farmers or loggers had removed trees. I was surprised the other day to receive an email with photos of “my” trees including some of the little metal tags they attached to each with my name. 🙂 I was not expecting that! But thankful that my money was really used to plant real trees and I even got to see them! 🙂
I encourage you to help plant trees wherever you live or in other places in need of trees like by clicking the Corcovado link above. Planting trees is one of the best ways to fight Climate Change and prevent the future destruction of a planet God told us to care for! And you too could help Costa Rica continue to replace trees lost in earlier years as we become ONE OF if not THE greenest countries in the world! 26% of our land is now in protected reserves and national parks and growing! Plus we are now at 99+% renewable electricity in Costa Rica.
