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| Gartered Trogon in the Cecropia Tree beside my terrace during Spanish Class Tuesday morning at my house. Quick cell phone shot & he flew away. I’ve traveled many miles to get a photo of this guy and he finally comes to me when I’m without good camera. 🙂 |
Trees Blooming Today
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| African Tulip Tree Also called Flame of the Forest and Fountain Tree At a neighbor’s house on the hill above me. Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Yellow Bell Tree I have many of these around my house & just starting to bloom. Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
My photo gallery FLORA & FORESTS
Or more specifically MY HOME GARDENS
No Official “Thanksgiving” BUT “Black Friday” Everywhere!
Thanksgiving Day is a unique American Holiday only, not here, so the banks are open here today and there are no parades or football games! BUT, tomorrow is a huge day here as Black Friday or Viernes Negro as possibly the biggest shopping day of the year here too! The malls are so crowded I wouldn’t think of going tomorrow! Even for the big sales! Not even for Star Wars which I will see next week. 🙂
¡Y oh sí! ¡Para el mejor clima del mundo! J Cuando me mudé aquí, yo era el único en Atenas que lo creía.
We have a neighborhood chef now who prepares very good dinners to be picked up at his house Monday to Friday and today he prepared a traditional turkey & dressing dinner which I enjoyed with my neighbor Anthony along with a cranberry salad and pumpkin pie Anthony had prepared. I’m stuffed and ready to take a nap!
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| Our Thanksgiving turkey dinners came in decorated bags, here on plates at Anthony’s house ready for us to eat. |
And at my Spanish Class this morning we joined with another class for coffee and homemade goodies, language games, and each of us presented what we are thankful for, en español of course! Here is my paragraph as presented this morning:
Gracias a Dios
Doy gracias por una vida lenta y tranquila en Costa Rica. ¡También para una casa muy agradable y propietario excelente! Y para la gente amable de Atenas y muchos buenos amigos. Y muchos hermosos pájaros y mariposas.
¡Y oh sí! ¡Para el mejor clima del mundo! J Cuando me mudé aquí, yo era el único en Atenas que lo creía.
The second paragraph is kind of a joke about the slogan Atenas uses everywhere, saying “Atenas – The best weather in the world” which most locals don’t believe and often joke about. But I still sorta believe it! And definitely thankful for the weather here!
And oh yes, Hurricane Otto passed north of us with only a little more rain this morning and no major winds, so that “best weather” town of Atenas still is! 🙂 We had no flooding, power loss, trees down, evacuations, or anythingf else that was going on in the path. Fortunate again! ¡Gracias a Dios!
Read about it in La Nacion.
¡Pura Vida!
Ready for Hurricane Otto!
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| Copied from La Nacion – Heavy rains & flooding BEFORE the hurricane hits in Caribe. |
Costa Rica’s first hurricane since 1851 is expected to hit land tonight in the northern Caribbean near by beloved Tortuguero National Park or further north in Nicaragua. Atenas is not in the “Red Zone” that expects the most wind and rain, but we will get both all day on the American Thanksgiving while I eat turkey with my neighbor.
For more on the hurricane, today’s Tico Times article
And track it on The Weather Channel and a hundred other websites! 🙂
And the best coverage in Spanish is in our national newspaper La Nacion which Google will translate into English for you. Lots of photos and videos.
They are forecasting up to 20 inches of rain and very high winds in the path (north of us) as it travels all the way across the peninsula to the Pacific Ocean. We will get rain as we have all day today and some winds, but probably not the very high, damaging winds. Yet hurricanes do change paths sometimes, so I bought my bottled water and prepared if it knocks out our power and water. Which could mean no blog post tomorrow night! 🙂
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| There wasn’t a run on water at the supermercado, meaning I guess that most don’t really expect us to have much damage. I’m always the Boy Scout! Being prepared! |
Brush that dead leaf off the counter!
That’s what I did and it just flew away when I touched it. Life in the rainforest is interesting!
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| “Dead Leaf” Moth or Lonomia moth Inside my house, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
When you leave your doors open during the day you can find some really interesting creatures around the house! Read about him on Wikipedia. This one is called Taturana in Spanish.
See also my BUTTERFLY & MOTH Photo Gallery for more interesting flying creatures!
Seeing Behind the Leaves
In the forest or my garden, one must look through tiny windows to see behind the leaves:
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| Blue-crowned Motmot at breakfast this morning In Yellow Bell tree that will soon be blooming, Atenas, Costa Rica As usual, I said “Oh fuey! He’s not in the open for a good shot!” But this is a more common view! |
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| Tropical Kingbird (pretty sure, can’t see breast) From my terrace, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Maraca or Shampoo Ginger In jungle of my garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Heliconia behind Heliconia plants My garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Red Ginger amongst the ginger leave My garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Red Ginger amongst many plants My garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Layers of Leaves My garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Heliconia Overshadowed in my garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Between the leaves in my garden Atenas, Costa Rica |
Maybe My 2 Most Frequent Visitors
These two I see from my terrace every day and possibly more often than any other birds.
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| Rufous-naped Wren Seen at breakfast from my terrace, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| White-ringed Flycatcher Seen at breakfast from my terrace, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica Similar to the very common Social Flycatcher, Great Kiskadee & Boat-billed Flycatcher. But white on head makes a complete ring around his head and Kiskadee & Boat-billed are noticeably larger with larger bills. |
See also my BIRDS Photo Gallery
This Morning’s Garden
Each morning I walk through my garden and then eat breakfast on my terrace. Today I liked:
There are many more blooming of course, especially the red ginger and porter weed all the time, but not sure I’ve shown the above recently, so enjoy! I love life in the natural, slow lane in Costa Rica! With no car! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See also my photo gallery call Flora and Forests for more flower photos.
Biggest Moon or Magic Moon?
The news media told us the moon would be bigger tonight than it has been since 1948! (November 14, 2016) Well, it was definitely a full moon, and big, and bright! But since not close to our horizon when I tried to photograph, it did not seem that huge to me. But for the “magic” see my second image where it appears that I photographed the moon and the earth together! I’m assuming that is a reflection of the moon somehow in my camera, but interesting! 🙂
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| Shooting directly at the moon & cropping for this position. |
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| Pointing camera away from moon I get the earth too? Magic? Reflection? And you can even see a star in the distance. I don’t know how I did it! Cool! Bazaar! Weird! Fun! |
Here’s a better full moon shot I made in Nashville a few years ago.
And a shot of a quarter moon sitting on Lower Broadway in Nashville
Montezuma Oropendola
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| Montezuma Oropendola Across street from my house, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Montezuma Oropendola Across street from my house, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Montezuma Oropendola Across street from my house, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Read article on Montezuma Oropendola on Wikipedia & click for sound of their bubbly song and see photo of their cool, long nests that prevent monkeys from stealing eggs.
I usually go to exotic birding lodges for these guys but now they may be taking up residency in our neighborhood of Roca Verde in Atenas, Costa Rica. Kind of neighbors I like! 🙂
And I have better photos from other locations on my BIRDS PHOTO GALLERY (in both the Costa Rica and Nicaragua galleries, including a nests photo)