Category: Costa Rica

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Today’s Nature Photos

Blue-crowned Motmot
At the Monteverde Butterfly Garden, Monteverde, Costa Rica

I had narrowed them down to 8 photos to share and the internet connection here just could not handle it, so I will share some butterflies and a sunset vista from my cabin grounds after I am home with more upload ability. I’m in the boonies this weekend! But one thing I can share indirectly. I emailed my photo of an unknown brown, blue & orange butterfly to them. They identified the unusual butterfly using a Costa Rica University book. It is in English a Blue-winged Euyrbia, one of the lycisca butterflies found only between Mexico and Ecuador. So glad of that! Click the linked name above for my photo gallery image of it. Or a very brief article on Wikipedia. 

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Planning a Weekend Trip

Reserva Monteverde

The Birding Club is going to Monteverde this weekend and I responded early enough to get to be included in the group of only 15 because of limited cabin space available. And as usual, I am going a day early to explore on my own Thursday and Friday before the club activities Friday afternoon until Sunday morning.

You can check out the links to see my plans for my first trip to Monteverde, originally a Friends Community of mostly dairy farmers, thus the cheese capital of Costa Rica in one set of mountains.

THURSDAY

  • I take bus to Alajuela  to get a rent car at San Jose Airport, early. 
  • I drive by my house for bag and camera. Then a 2.5 to 3 hour drive to Monteverde. As my Spanish gets better I will go places like this by bus, usually going through San Jose. But everyone in the club has a car and it usually works better to have rent car, though much more expensive. 
  • Check into Los Pinos Cabinas for my first night only in the edge of a forest preserve and rated internationally as a Sustainable Tourism location. 
  • I have made acquaintance with the owner and director of the Monteverde Butterfly Garden,  so that afternoon I plan to visit it. It is supposedly one of the best in the country. We will see!
FRIDAY
Butterfly Garden at Selvatura Park
  • I plan to spend the morning through lunch at Selvatura Adventure Park which will not includ zip-lining which I’ve already done and once is enough for a 75 year old!  🙂   But I may walk

    the canopy bridge of 2 miles and will see as many of the animal gardens as time allows: Herpetarium & Frogs, Hummingbird Garden, and another Butterfly Garden. Lunch at the park and 20 minutes back to Monteverde and . . . 

  • Check in to Cabanas La Pradera where the birding club has reservations. I plan to look for birds on their property that afternoon and meet club members for brought appetizers before going to dinner. Then we have a . . . 
  • Night Hike  into surrounding 14 hectares of forest belonging to the cabanas for owls, bats, and frogs + who knows what else!  🙂  We have a local guide for that tour. 
SATURDAY
  • 6 AM Breakfast and . . .  
  • Morning hike/birding in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve which I’m expecting to be very good with hopefully some new birds for me!
  • Lunch at Caburé, an Argentine Restaurant and Chocolate Shop. 
  • Afternoon birding at Curi Cancha, a private reserve near the public Cloud Forest Reserve seen in the morning with usually different birds we are told. This will be a full day of birding in some different mountains than the Talamanca Mountains I have visited three times and I may also get a photo of the Resplendent Quetzal here too! Looking forward to a new place! 
  • Check our birding lists with guides and have evening bocas at Janelle’s house who lives nearby.
SUNDAY
  • Early morning birding around the cabins with one of the authors of our Costa Rica birding guidebook, Bob Dean, before breakfast. 
  • Drive home to dump bags, then to airport to drop off car and back on foot, bus, and taxi!  🙂
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Rufous-naped Wren, God’s Creation!

Rufous-naped Wren in Yellow Bell Tree off my Terrace

Rufous-naped Wren

Rufous-naped Wren with his feathers ruffled – possibly a juvenile

Rufous-naped Wren posing by one of the few lingering flowers

You probably don’t remember that last July 2015 I reported here about one of these inside my house.



My Costa Rica Birds PHOTO GALLERY  or All My Costa Rica Galleries

RAIN IN THE DRY SEASON?
A surprise light shower or sprinkle on this Sunday afternoon, March 6, 2016. It is dry season in the central valley with no rain since October, and this one lasted maybe 10 minutes, getting everything wet, but not soaking my flowers and trees – a reminder that it will start raining again for real in May. And tomorrow night I will continue my every two day watering routine.

If you follow all my adventures you may remember that we had rain stop us from seeing Poas Volcano two weeks ago, but it is at a high altitude, “The Cloud Forest,” that has rain year around as does the coastal lowland rainforest such as Tortuguero where we had a little bit of rain on each of our two nights/3 days there. But the rest of Costa Rica is in the Dry Season until May. Read about the WEATHER in Costa Rica.

Genesis 1:20-23The Message (MSG)

20-23 God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!
        Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”
    God created the huge whales,
        all the swarm of life in the waters,
    And every kind and species of flying birds.
        God saw that it was good.
    God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
        Birds, reproduce on Earth!”
    It was evening, it was morning—
    Day Five.


Emphasis is mine. ~C.D.

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Zooming In On Blossoms

Plumbago

I think most of my photos have been of the total garden or yard and not each blossom. So here are some close-ups of a sort, zoomed in on with my Canon Rebel and 75-300 zoom lens. Enjoy!

Flame Vine  or Triquitraque
My large Heliconia
There are so many varieties that
I hesitate to identify the species

This large Heliconia has seeds in it that birds eat or they grow to new plants

There are 6 varieties of this small
yellow Heliconia growing in wild
and cultivated. I have two . . .
This is my other small yellow Heliconia
Then this small red Heliconia that is finally blooming again. None open yet.

The almost constantly blooming Red Ginger
here with a fully open bloom and . . .

A Red Ginger bud just opening and growing sideways
I cut all of mine back and so they are just now starting to fill with blooms again.
One of the many colors of Lantanas I have as a border.
They are coming back strong after I cut them to the ground 2 months ago.

Porter Weed for Hummingbirds
I have pink and purple.

A special Costa Rican variety of Petunia that blooms heavy each morning
and then all blooms drop off in the afternoon to none, nada! Every day!
It is kind of like the Morning Glories my landlord has growing on his fence.
They too bloom every morning only. 

The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.    ~William Wordsworth

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Polydamas Swallowtail – This Year’s First Butterfly!

Polydamas Swallowtail Butterfly
My Garden in Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica

Well, the butterflies are starting to come! And this is the first other than the Banded Peacock which was the only one to stay all summer (Your northern winters are our windy summers.). You may remember that I posted photos of this Polydamas Swallowtail Last June – not the most colorful but a butterfly!

I also hope to increase my photo gallery Costa Rica Butterflies this year where I now have 36+ species with a variety of Skippers, which I have already seen some of this year. As I remember last year, June and July were the peak months, but my garden didn’t get going good until into June, so a head start this year!  🙂  And truthfully, it has been too windy for butterflies since mid-December, but the wind will slow down and stop by April. Plus I’m going to the Monteverde Butterfly Garden next week which may give me some new ones, I hope! Though so far most of these butterfly gardens tend to have about the same butterflies.

“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince  (One of my favorite little books!)

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Guess who organized the Paris Climate Summit?

A Costa Rican of course! Or a Tica as we would say here. I just copied this article from another expat newsletter which you might find more entertaining than mine or at least with more humor: The Golden Gringo Chronicles by Bob Normand who lives in Quepos which is near Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific Coast.  Pura Vida!  -Charlie

What’s-in-a-Word

Answer to ¿Que Es Eso?
The message in blue lights on the first balcony at the Eiffel Tower that night in early December 2015 was “Pura Vida”. It was done in honor of the chairwoman of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christina Figueres of Costa Rica (actually Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen) who organized the recent Paris summit on climate change.
Christina is the daughter of, José Figueres Ferrer, a gent who was  President of Costa Rica three times (1948–1949, 1953–1958, and 1970–1974). That 1948-49 stint, of course, was at the end of the Costa Rican civil war and the founding of the Second Republic, the one which led to a stable, democratic government here for the last 67 years. Nice tribute to Costa Rica, Christina.
Bon hommage, bien fait Christina.
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Slowing Down in Atenas + March Birding Trips

I’m beginning to take palms for granite!
These are by the church at central park.
Like steeples they point to God!
Uplifting!

I’m slowing down after a busy schedule during Reagan’s visit here though still having to learn how to truly rest!  🙂  I’m back to just one Spanish Class again since Zaray got a high school teaching position and can no longer teach our Tuesday night class at the church. And my conversational tutor Jason has moved to Liberia to live with his sister for awhile. So I’m on my own with Spanish and have a little more time to catch up on some work here at home.

But two great trips planned for March!  🙂

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Click to see the YouTube Video  from Cornell Lab of Ornithology showing the joys of birding.

Birding is an incredible hobby! Here Cornell says “Thank You” to all who helped with the 2015 Christmas Bird Count around the world. Watch the birds where you live! They will give you an incredible sense of joy and peace. And it is even more fun for me to capture many of them in photographs! My growing gallery of Costa Rica Birds now has photos of 161 species and growing monthly plus I’m getting some better images to replace or supplement older ones. Plus I’m about to add a pretty good collection from Nicaragua and already have one from Panama. Fun!

Lynn Thomson

“I think the most important quality in a birdwatcher is a willingness to stand quietly and see what comes. Our everyday lives obscure a truth about existence – that at the heart of everything there lies a stillness and a light.”
― Lynn Thomson, Birding with Yeats: A Memoir