Category: Photography

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In Search of the Perfect Sunset

Most of my trips within Costa Rica are in search of more birds! And most give me at least one new species. But I also love photographing other nature, vistas, waterfalls, and of course Sunrises & Sunsets!

Multiple expat friends here have told me that the best sunset vistas and photos are from the restaurant & theater at a hotel on a hill near Jaco, just an hour away, Hotel Villa Caletas. It is upscale or expensive, so only 4 nights which is not as long as I prefer to stay to really see a place, but that will still be 4 sunset opportunities, Sunday-Wednesday nights, weather cooperating. I’ve had more than one sunset rained out or covered by clouds, but that’s part of the adventure!

Villa Caletas is different from the nature lodges I usually visit, but still immersed in nature with hotel birding trails and a jungle trail down the mountain to their beach with shuttle rides back up the hill. It is close to Punta Leona which had very good birding and also close to the Carara National Park (good birding) which I may or may not visit again – been there 4 time now! Just going to take it day by day after I get there. A serendipity trip!

I think I already have some pretty nice sunset photos in my gallery called   VISTAS, BEACHES, SUNRISES, SUNSETS CR . The featured image above is one of mine of a sunrise on the Caribbean side which I like to use because so many people here think everything is better on the Pacific side – well, maybe just more expensive!   🙂   And most can’t see a difference in sunrise or sunset.

What I get at Villa Caletas will go in the Pacific Sub Gallery of the above linked sunset gallery and then we can compare to see if they really have the best sunsets on the Pacific coast!   🙂   My favorite on the Pacific so far is the one I took from a Sansa Airplane  (on return from Danta Corcovado). And they weren’t too bad from a hillside hotel in Manuel Antonio last Christmas! Yep! I love sunsets!

While the Atlantic or Caribbean side is mostly for sunrises, I have been pretty lucky over there too! (Where I go again the end of this August.) You just have to get up earlier to see sunrises!  Yawn!    🙂

And to be fair to Villa Caletas, here is one of their website photos of their sunset which is very nice! Hope mine will be as good or better!   🙂

Sunset photo from Villa Caletas online. — Not my photo.

¡Pura Vida!

 

When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.

~Mahatma Gandhi

Here’s The Science Behind The Magical Colours of Sunsets And Sunrises

🙂

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Guarumo Bird Gallery

“Guarumo” is the Spanish name Ticos call a Cecropia Tree (English name) and about 4 years ago I asked my gardeners to plant one in my front yard because I had heard that they attract toucans for the easy perches and the food of the flowers. I would be patient, not really knowing how fast they grow!

In just 4 years it is the tallest tree in my yard, more than twice the height of my little house and my favorite “Bird Gallery” or place for birds to land so I can photograph them because it is such an open tree with a limited number of large leaves. See in the tree photos below what it looked like when we planted it and how big it has grown.

No telling how many birds I miss that land in the top of the tree!   🙂    But the lower limbs are what I watch while eating breakfast every morning and where I photographed from my terrace the birds in the birds photos below, including two kinds of toucans! I love nature’s gallery of birds that helps me grow my own photo gallery of birds!   ¡Pura Vida!

Birds in Tree

CLICK photo to enlarge or start manual slideshow.

The Tree

CLICK photo to enlarge or start manual slideshow.

 

“Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish.” 

― Munia Khan 

¡Pura Vida!

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Breakfast Motmot

I have not been having many interesting or colorful birds at breakfast for awhile, with many rufous-naped wrens & clay-colored thrush!  And it seems like maybe a year since I’ve seen one of the Blue-crowned Motmots now renamed to be Lesson’s Motmot (wish they wouldn’t do that!). But yesterday at breakfast, early for me, about 6:20-6:30 I had a motmot visit. This one Lesson’s Motmot flew into the Nance Tree looking for Nance Berries I assume, staying there 3 or 4 minutes, occasionally flying to the ground and briefly foraging, maybe for fallen berries or an insect. Then he was gone. If I spent more time on my terrace I would undoubtedly see more birds! i.e. Two different neighbors have seen Crested Caracaras in the cow pasture in front of my house and I haven’t. Too much time on my computer?!   🙂   Well, I focus more on birds on my monthly trip and that is when I photograph the most. But it is nice to know that I still have a large variety of birds near my house!

 

Note that this one has both pendants on the end of his tail which is almost unusual now as most seem to catch then on a tree or something and tear one or both off as you can see in my gallery.

See some of my other Lesson’s Motmots  photos (better photos!) as a sub gallery of my bigger Costa Rica Birds Gallery where you can find other sub galleries for 3 other types of motmots:

These 3 can be seen in the right parts of Costa Rica, though the Lesson’s is most common and most widely distributed and favors the Pacific side of CR.

“Wake up with the birds and go to sleep with the stars.” 
― Marty Rubin

¡Pura Vida!

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Another Witch Visits!

Yeah, I have these Black Witch Moths visit my house almost every year and you can see at least 4 others in my Butterfly & Moth Gallery, found alphabetically as “Black Witch Moth.” And I obviously don’t believe the Latin Folklore that the appearance of one means death is coming to that house soon.

This one was on my bathroom wall at the ceiling last night and gone by this morning. To the naked eye it is very dark as this photo on my Canon SLR without a flash shows (only bathroom ceiling light on in the night). In February I shot one on my brown shower curtain with my cell phone and flash and if you go to that link you will see how much more colorful they are with more light or in the gallery there is also one with the Canon using the flash. Big difference! As light always brings!

As one visitor to my house said “I always see something scurrying away when I turn on the light during the night.” Well, living with strange wildlife is not for everyone, but I find it quite interesting and kind of fun when one is named a “Witch!”    🙂    Why, it even calls for a Halloween Cartoon I think:

Witch-Quiditch Cartoon

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

 

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Brilliant! The Book

Because it was a special week, I’m doing a second book on Xandari where I celebrated my birthday last week. It was such a colorful week, I titled it “Brilliant!” Follow the link to a free online preview of the book showing 82 of my photos. Or click this smaller image of the book cover below:

Brilliant Book cover
Click cover to Preview the book online.

Also see the 2019 Trip Gallery for this week. 

Or the older 2018 Xandari Trip Gallery

And my photo book for that year’s visit titled Xandari Enchanted by Nature

A truly amazing place!

Xandari Nature Resort

¡Pura Vida!

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Xandari Flowers

Xandari has one of the best flower gardens of many in Costa Rica and I would be hard-pressed to name any one as THE best – but this one does a great job and here you can browse through about 40 species blooming there this month (that changes month to month!) and I will do a separate post of “other plants,” seeds, fruit and even interesting leaves! So much beauty in any garden! As always, click an image to enlarge it or in this format to start a manual slide show.

Xandari Flowers

 

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.
– Luther Burbank

 

I will be starting work on my Xandari 2019 Trip Gallery today but give me a week to complete it – lots of photos!   🙂   In the meantime, check out my other trip galleries which I egotistically consider amazing!   🙂   OR specifically . . .  the Xandari 2018 Trip Gallery where I showed more of the architecture & Art than this year. It is one of my favorite hotels!

And/or check out my other flower photos in the gallery Flora and Forest.

Xandari Nature Resort

¡Pura Vida!

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Xandari Birds

Three or four of these I’ve shown, but most I have waited to put all together for this particular trip all together, 22 species with both male & female of Hoffman’s Woodpecker and a second male which was so different, making 24 photos here. I will put even more photos of most species in the gallery.

Xandari Birds

Click Image to See Larger

 

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” 
~Aristotle

 

Xandari Nature Resort

¡Pura Vida!

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Flying Flowers: BUTTERFLIES!

The combination of some of the biggest and best flower gardens anywhere with the right time of year for butterflies in Costa Rica means that Xandari has thousands of flying flowers now!   🙂   Like hummingbirds, most are very difficult to photograph, but here are ten I managed to capture, or the ones who stopped at a flower – some seem to never stop!   🙂

And to see more of my butterfly photos, go to my Butterfly Gallery where you can also order prints or wall art of any of the photos in my gallery.

This is my last day at Xandari, leaving tomorrow morning, but I will be sharing more photos here over the next few days including a nice collection of birds and of course creating a trip gallery soon. Stay tuned for more Xandari Magic!

Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.

~Drew Barrymore

Xandari Nature Resort

¡Pura Vida!

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Birthday Color!

Last night before dinner we were treated with a double rainbow! This morning the maids brought me a new bouquet of flowers with a “Feliz Cumpleaños!” greeting. And I have already enjoyed 4 fresh strawberries dipped in chocolate for my birthday! Plus the staff sang Happy Birthday in English to me at breakfast!

AND . . . this was my guided bird-hike morning with the most interesting birds being the mother & juvenile Crested Caracara (rare find) who landed in the same tree as the Yellow-headed Caracara did the other day!    🙂

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Rainbow  —  el arco iris
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Tropical Flowers from the Hotel Gardens in my room
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Crested Caracara adult & juvenile, Xandari Nature Resort, Costa Rica

“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.” 
― William Shakespeare

🙂

Xandari Nature Resort

¡Pura Vida!