Category: Photography

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Health Update & Trip Tomorrow

My daily nature post was earlier today with the skipper butterfly – now a personal update from cancer surgery & radiation therapy, plus the coming week that I’m excited about. 🙂

Health Update

As we say here in Costa Rica, “Estoy mejor poco a poco.” I’m better little by little. Most of my taste has returned after losing all of it from radiation. Food is not quite as “tasty” as I remember it being, but so much better now and I can eat almost anything. And my swallowing ability has also greatly improved if not completely normal now.

I still need to sleep long hours at night and sometime nap in the day with not near the high energy I used to have physically. But again it is so much better than it was at the end of June! And I’m still having to accept that being 81 years old might have a little bit to do with my lack of energy or physical ability now. 🙂

Overall I am feeling so much better than I was going into that July trip, plus this trip will be to flat land with no hills to climb! And generally a more “laid back” or relaxing place than my July mountain-top experience! 🙂 Plus right now I’m planning on no tours or side trips, just relax in the forests and beaches of the hotel which I overview below if you read on after this 2019 photo from there . . .

Beach from walk down the “beach road” — Featured Photo Header is Hotel Beach.
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Poan Skipper

Yes, I had a photo of this butterfly not too long ago, but this one looks a little different and it is my last garden share before the Caribe trip. Just two shots and my first of one flying.

Poan Skipper Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica
Poan Skipper Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica

“Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine.”

-Jeffrey Glassberg

¡Pura Vida!

My Poan Skipper Gallery.

ID is from book: A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffrey Glassberg.

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Great-tailed Grackle

Yesterday morning I heard some bird making a racket or singing a not-too-melodious song. I walked out on the terrace and found this young Grackle male moving from limb to limb in my Guarumo (Cecropia) tree chattering away. These two shots show that he is probably a younger male since he is not as large as most male Great-tailed Grackles nor was his tail that “great” like the bigger males. His tail will grow! 🙂

With his smaller size I almost thought he was a Melodious Blackbird, but his song was not “melodious” (which theirs really is) and the yellow eye (instead of black) cinched him as a Great-tailed Grackle, teen or young adult male (perhaps looking for a female which is brown in color). 🙂

Great-tailed Grackle Young Male, Atenas
Great-tailed Grackle Young Male, Atenas

 “Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.”

—George Santanaya

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

See my Great-tailed Grackle Gallery.

And the eBird description of him.

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Orange-chinned Parakeets

I hear these guys flying over my house most afternoons when it’s not raining hard but they seldom stop on their way up the hill to their roosting tree at my friend Dan’s house. Yesterday afternoon, before the rain started, they flew over and stopped for a little rest and grooming in a neighbor’s tree. I got a few shots, though not good with the overcast sky. But as bad as the photos are, they’re my nature shots for today! 🙂

This first shot is of the tree showing several scattered throughout and then I follow with a gallery of 6 individual birds or couples, with one couple cutely snuggling! 🙂

Orange-chinned Parakeets stop over on their way to their roosting tree up the hill.
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Cloudy-Hills Sunrise

The hills opposite my hill looked like they had whipped cream on them this morning. A photo cannot replicate what I saw but here’s my effort with a 6-shot panorama. And this was late, like about 7:00 AM.

See larger image at top as header of online post.

“The sun always shines above the clouds.”

– Paul F. Davis

I look forward to totally different sunrises next week on our Caribbean coast, where I spend Monday to Monday on the beaches of Hotel Banana Azul, my favorite September retreat place.

See my CR Vistas Galleries.

¡Pura Vida!

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Whispering from Every Leaf . . .

“There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky.”

― Dejan Stojanovic

And I have always considered every leaf an individual work of art – O so many beautiful canvases!

Anthurium Leaf

Yesterday I was motivated by another blog to go photograph leaves. Below is that collection of 14 “Art Masterpieces” by God Himself! Fourteen totally different leaves in my garden . . .

Continue reading “Whispering from Every Leaf . . .”
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Looking Up!

Yesterday it was afternoon before looking for something to photograph. The morning blue sky and fluffy white clouds were gone, so I looked up the other direction behind my house, up the hill where others live and to the beauty of their gardens above my Monstera seen below! 🙂

Monstera on wall ABOVE one garden & other shots from above this.

“Look up on high, and thank the God of all.”

~Geoffrey Chaucer

Here’s the 4 shots of LOOKING UP at nature from my garden!

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Driving Into the Hills of Atenas

As with any good coffee farming town, Atenas is in the hills below the big mountains and away from the plains of the big city of San Jose. Yesterday as my taxista drove me back home from a doctor appointment in the city, I cellphone-snapped these photos of the approaching hills as we neared Atenas. No great photos but they bear testimony of the terrain of my little pueblo.

The Hills of Atenas Costa Rica from Ruta 27.
The Hills of Atenas Costa Rica from Ruta 27.
The Hills of Atenas Costa Rica from Ruta 27.
And by the time we were at my house, the clouds had moved in for the afternoon rain. 🙂

“We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.”

~John Muir

¡Pura Vida!

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And One More Biological Reserve . . .

Costa Rica is one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world and already has set aside more than 25% of its total land as either National Parks or Biological Reserves (one at a time). On National Park Day this year (August 24) the park system opened a new reserve in celebration of the nation’s 200 years of independence. Read the whole English article in Tico Times or here’s the summary Introduction:

Reserva Biológica del Bicentenario de la República – Pájaro Campana, a name which invokes the country’s upcoming bicentennial, is located in the canton of Coto Brus, Puntarenas.

The reserve covers an area of 5,075 acres and borders La Amistad International Park, which is shared with Panama, and Las Tablas Protective Zone.

Its forests house biodiversity of scientific and conservational interest, and its rivers supply drinking water to communities in Costa Rica’s Southern Zone.

“These areas become natural laboratories that promote research, for proper management of the protected wild area,” said President Carlos Alvarado.

~Tico Times
Reserva Biológica del Bicentenario de la República – Pájaro Campana

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

—Margaret Mead

¡Pura Vida!

Check out my Flora & Forest Galleries.

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Costa Rica: “Champions of the Earth”

There are many reasons that the United Nations gave Costa Rica the “Champions of the Earth” Award.

Costa Rica was the first tropical country to stop and reverse deforestation. It has managed to produce about 99 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, a rare accomplishment even among the wealthiest nations. And in 2019, it became one of the first countries to craft a national decarbonization plan . . .

~The Washington Post

Read more in this Washington Post article: Costa Rica’s environmental minister wants to build a green economy. She just needs time.

Above in old growth forest, Savegre Lodge, San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica.
Feature photo at top is view from my room at Villa Caletas, Jaco, Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!