It is both a fave bird and favorite photo of the Pygmy Owl! Read about them at Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (eBird description) as the Central & South American version of the pygmy owls found around the world. See also my Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl Gallery for my shots from 3 different locations in Costa Rica. Plus below I’m adding a shot from Guatemala of a whole family of them! 🙂 My other favorite pygmy owl photo! 🙂 And also below I will include the TRIP GALLERIES of all 4 trips where I photographed this owl and The Backstory of the featured photo.
This bird has always intrigued me with its bright colors and unique nests and because I have seen him all over the country from coast to coast, mountains, valleys and lowlands! Read about the Montezuma Oropendola on eBirds site or see my collection of photos in my Montezuma Oropendola Gallery. I tell more about this photo and the unique nests they make in my Backstory below plus links to the places I made my photos as trip galleries.
Ficus lyrata, commonly known as the Fiddle-Leaf Fig (Wikipedia), is often used as a smaller houseplant indoors though it eventually has to be pruned or moved outdoors. Since the last plant I had in my bedroom died I decided to try something different in harmony with the Strangler Fig Tree outside my bedroom window (behind those palms). We will see what happens in this window-side spot that receives very little sun. I liked this houseplant choice especially for the big leaves! 🙂
Fiddle-Leaf Fig
Fiddle-Leaf Fig has big leaves!
“Plants give us oxygen for the lungs and for the soul.”
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.
Great Kiskadee, Xandari Nature Resort, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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!:
I decided to pick only one of my many hawk photos and honestly, I’m not sure why I liked this one best. The Common Black Hawk is the one I’ve photographed the most with the Road Hawk a close second and I have some good photos of both. The Gray Hawk (eBird description) is common and sure of himself and seems determined in this photo. See others I’ve photographed in my Gray Hawk Gallery from many locations. And read below The Backstory on how and where I photographed this and the other Gray Hawks in my gallery.
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.”
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.
View across old park while standing in street in front of Banco Nacional or the North side of park.
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:
A first for my garden, seen on the trunk of a small palm tree. This “strange” butterfly is very much like the Guatemalan Cracker, with the latter having 2 blue rings instead of one. I have photographed 3 species of the Crackers, seen in my CR Butterflies Galleries: The Gray Cracker in Nicaragua, the Guatemalan Cracker at Corcovado NP Costa Rica, and now my third, the Variable Cracker in my Garden, Atenas, Alajuela Province yesterday. 🙂 More photos are in the gallery linked above.
Variable Cracker, Hamadryas feronia
“If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day.”
Because I wasn’t running around on my usual side-trips this past week (in my over-80 slow mode now) 🙂 I got started on and have now finished the “CR TRIP GALLERY” for this 2021 Banana Azul Caribe South week (link is to the gallery).
There’s a lot more to photograph when not leaving a hotel than I thought. Now granted, there are fewer photos of birds and other wildlife and none from national parks, wildlife refuges, waterfalls, indigenous reserves, or wildlife rescue centers (all of which I’ve “toured” from this very hotel in the past). This week became my “quiet mode” focus. I just stayed put and photographed the little things in nature all around me on the hotel grounds, plus some fun shots from the small plane flight there! There are 9 sub-galleries! 🙂 Just click the first page of the gallery below and ENJOY! 🙂
CLICK above image to go to the gallery.
“Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real.”
– Ansel Adams
¡Pura Vida!
And if you are interested in some of those great “side-trips” I’ve made from this same hotel, check out the galleries from other trips to South Caribe:
