So, I’m photographing clouds and not even from an airplane! 🙂 The photo is from my terrace at breakfast like so many! And for more BIG SKY photos, see my gallery: VISTAS, BEACHES, SUNRISES, SUNSETS COSTA RICA
Since Costa Rica is open for local only tourism now (and I’m local!), I thought I would reschedule that April trip to San Gerardo de Dota for the next week or two. I’m ready to go photograph some new birds and without foreigners I’m less likely to encounter the virus! So I may not wait until the July trip, though so far I’m unable to contact the right person at the Savegre Lodge with their website and email down on Friday and the guy I got on the phone was obviously not a reservations employee and had trouble understanding my bad Spanish, so I will try again this week. Like much of the world, a lot of Costa Rica is simply shut down! I’ll just have to enjoy the clouds! 🙂 Maybe I’ll see a bird there!
“If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations.“
He’s revisiting my garden and thus I’m posting some new photos of a favorite bee here. See my Bees Gallery for some better photos made earlier or posted on earlier blog posts linked below. And if interested in reading about this Central American bee, there’s a good history on Wikipedia. (People in Florida are trying to introduce them there.)
Come join one of the guides at Selva Verde Lodge on a typical night hike in their Sarapiqui Private Reserve. Since people have not been able to visit them live, they put this”virtual night hike” on their YouTube Channel. One of the guides shows you the kinds of things I get to see live when I go on such night hikes at this and other lodges in Costa Rica. It is real and typical except for the short time of only 3 minutes! In real life there is more walking between the animals seen! 🙂
Featured image is from my Red-eyed Tree Frog Gallery and another night hike somewhere else (Danta Corcovado).
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And here’s the same guide on a DAYTIME TOUR of Selva Verde, Just be aware that in an hour or more tour you see a lot more wildlife than in these little 3 minute videos! But both are a taste of what I regularly see and photograph in my retirement in Costa Rica:
Sure! I photograph ALL BIRDS, anywhere I find them, and many zoos are great places for birds, with some you will never get to see in the wild!
One of my many “quarantine projects” is getting my old “pre-Costa Rica” photos in my online gallery where I can see, use or reference them. One of the biggest galleries I am now working on is the gazillion photos I made at Nashville Zoo, my favorite zoo in the whole world!
And my first sub-gallery for Nashville Zoo is of course BIRDS! Today (Monday) I just finished my Nashville Zoo BIRDS gallery with 65 different species and a few of my favorite photos from Nashville days. About 6 of those are “wild” birds that just flew in for the ponds, trees, etc. Just be aware that these are older photos made between 2004 & 2014 and some birds may not still be there and of course there are new animals there I’ve never seen! 🙂
First page of Nashville Zoo Birds alphabetically. Each is a gallery with multiple photos of that bird.
That got me thinking about the birds I’ve seen and photographed at other zoos, so today (Monday) I created a new page for my big BIRDS gallery: Links to BIRDS in ZOOSwith literally hundreds of bird photos from around the world and 40 zoos! Only a few birds in each zoo, none comparing to my Nashville Zoo collection, but a lot of birds and fun to collect! Staying busy at home! 🙂
What the links page look like in my BIRDS Gallery.
More than a week ago I cellphone-snapped a shot of this funny-looking flying bug in a drop of water on my bathroom counter. He was gone the next morning, either flown away or eaten by one of my many geckos.
Retirement in Costa Rica does include living with bugs and this year’s “pre-rainy season” seems to have included more than usual for me, especially flying insects around the lights at night. I sometimes just never turn on the light in my bedroom at night to avoid being bothered by flying insects when in bed. 🙂
We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics. ~Bill Vaughan
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See my photo galleries: More Insects – OR – the separate Butterflies gallery. Insects are truly amazing!
Today is “Global Big Day” of counting birds where you live to help science better see what is happening to the health of our planet. I was out from 5:30 AM to 7:15 AM along the border between our housing project, Roca Verde, and the adjacent farms on the border-line gravel road called Calle Nueva (literally “New Street”) that serves as one emergency evacuation road from Atenas along with being a great nature walk and road for bicycles.
I’ve had better days and worse days of birding on that road, so maybe “average” is what the scientists want! 🙂 I observed at least 60 birds of more than 12 species, which is the number of species I photographed. I only report on eBird what I get photos of, which is not the typical eBird user, but I feel more confident with my reports because of that and eBird has volunteer “checkers” to make sure I labeled a bird correctly. Of my 60 seen, 30 were one flock of parakeets! 🙂
It was overcast or cloudy almost the whole time I was out, meaning poor light and white skies as terrible backgrounds most of the time! Only one photo has even a semblance of a blue sky. That’s life! There were no “lifers” or first-time birds for me, though my first time in Roca Verde to see and photograph the Rufous-capped Warbler, and the photo included here is of him “warbling!” 🙂 The name link is to my gallery with shots of this bird from 4 other locations in Costa Rica and some are better shots. And then maybe a first for me at Roca Verde is the juvenile or “immature” Yellow-faced Grassquit which at that age does not have the bright yellow on his face.
Here’s my mostly weak photos against drab skies, but they show you what I saw today:
Okay, yesterday I compared waterfalls so today as I finished my last gallery in the Pre-Costa Rica TENNESSEE Photos gallery, I must do the same with wildflowers. The last gallery for the state of Tennessee is simply Tennessee WILDFLOWERS and again I tried to pick just one photo from each of about 150 species of wildflowers for this gallery with more variety or multiple images in the location galleries where they first appear. The wildflowers were another of the many elements of nature that I enjoyed during my 37 years in Tennessee with an amazing variety!
Tennessee Coneflower — Growing across from my Nashville row house in the Bicentennial Capital Mall State Park where I spent many hours with nature.
And the featured photo at top is on a huge Magnolia tree in the same park near my house. The beauty of nature is everywhere!
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Similarly I have enjoyed the beautiful tropical wildflowers (most of my garden is wildflowers). See my Costa Rica through regional flower galleries in my big gallery of flowers I call FLORA & FOREST Costa Rica. Click and enjoy! I’ve only been here 5 and a half years, but spend most of my time with nature now! Just one of the many reasons I love being Retired in Costa Rica!
Growing in a ditch along my street uphill from my house. Pura vida!
“Do you know why wildflowers are the most beautiful blossoms of all, my son?”
Dain shook his little head.
Soft waxen curls blew forward in the breeze as she lifted her storm-gray eyes to gaze out over the sea of petals. “Wildflowers are the loveliest of all because they grow in uncultivated soil, in those hard, rugged places where no one expects them to flourish. They are resilient in ways a garden bloom could never be. People are the same, son—the most exquisite souls are those who survive where others cannot. They root themselves, along with their companions, wherever they are, and they thrive.”
Sidewalk graffiti? Gang tag? Logo? Coat of Arms? — Something else interesting, like the flowers that I see on my walks. You see so much when you walk! Why would I ever want a car again? 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
NOTICE: Authorities have stated that borders will remain closed until May 15, 2020. We will wait on the Decree that regulates this to determine what other measures are impacted by this new date.
Sorry tourists!You will have to wait until at least May 15 or longer if the border closing is extended more.
BUT COSTA RICA IS ON THE DOWNHILL SIDE OF ITS COVID19 CASES CURVE! All the efforts of social distancing, hand-washing and business and event closings has paid off in a big way! And no stupid Republicans here to demonstrate against health protections! 🙂 We work together here! Read on . . .
No new flower or wildlife in these photos, but each one is a new expression of “nature as art” as I walked through my garden Sunday with camera in hand. I love doing this occasionally and though maybe the same subjects, the art is different each time!
Thornless Crown of Thorns
Once de Abril
Triquitraque
Shampoo Ginger
God’s Confetti — Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea
Tibouchina or Princess Flower
Polydamas Swallowtail on Porter Weed
Blue Plumbago
Southern Broken Dash Skipper on Once de Abril plant
Crown of Thorns
Golden Shrimp Plant
Torch Ginger
Green Orchid Bee on Porter Weed
Clay-colored Thrush or Yigüirro singing in the rain.
And that Yigüirro is singing his heart out every day now “calling the rains in” which happens every April in anticipation of the May rains or the beginning of the rainy season, our winter here. That is why he is the national bird of Costa Rica.
One of the things that drives perfectionist Americans crazy about Costa Rica is the multitude of one-lane bridges all over the country even in the cities! Look no further than right outside the main gate to Roca Verde Housing Development! Our entrance gate is on Avenida 8, better known by the little bario (neighborhood) there as Calle Boquerón. Just outside our gate going towards central Atenas you cross the little rainy season stream that goes by the cow pasture in front of my house. And of course on a one-lane bridge! Don’t know why or who influenced it, but the city of Atenas is widening that little bridge.
The concrete tubing for water flow has already been extended and fill dirt and rocks added around it and as I photographed Monday they were pouring concrete for maybe a base to something or a wall? These two school kids out of school for Coronavirus will probably soon be joining the city construction team as they sit here and learn how easy it is to build a bridge over a concrete pipe. 🙂
Walking from town, the bridge is just before Roca Verde gate on the right. Note also on the right the pedestrian sidewalk & bridge built by volunteers a few years ago.
School’s out and these two boys are learning how a bridge is built here over a big pipe!
“If Rome had been built in a day we would have used the same contractor.”
