Yesterday afternoon three of the juvenile Gray-cowled Wood-Rails lined up at the pond to splash in the water for their bath. Note the sister waiting for her two brothers to finish first in the series of 4 photos below.
Wood-Rail Bath Time!
Red-eared Slider
In the little man-made stream that runs by two sides of the Banana Azul Restaurant there are several of these common water turtles in Costa Rica. Their name always frustrates me because their “ears” are not noticeably red! Oh well, naming animals was not assigned to me! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
My Red-eared Slider GALLERY.
Today’s Sunrise – El amanecer
More golden this morning with a lone kayaker going by at first light . . .
¡Pura Vida!
East Coast Sunset?
Welllll . . . sort of. The sun seemed to be setting in the northwest last night and by shooting north along the beach I got some reflected light in sky and lots of shadows from the rainforest trees on the beach. 🙂 Late afternoon is nice light anywhere and the sky is nice, even in the second shot where I shot due east over the Atlantic! But I probably won’t try that again here. It was not like Tambor Bay beach that curves and you can get both sunset and sunrise there if in the right places. 🙂 And here – I’m just a retired old man playing with my camera! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
My Sunrises/Sunsets GALLERY.
Weird Butterfly
This is one of those tiny ones, the size of my thumbnail or smaller! I don’t have my butterfly book with me and could not find this one online. With the strange tail that looks like another head he is similar to the Silverline Butterflies found in Asia, but patterns are different. Maybe I will find him in the book when I get home.
¡Pura Vida!
My Costa Rica Butterflies GALLERY.
Tuesday Sunrise
“If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, just watch the sunrise.”
― Jeannette Walls
¡Pura Vida!
Learning How Small I Am . . .
“Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you are.”
— Felix Baumgartner
One of my many joys of traveling across Costa Rica is occasionally getting to fly in the small planes for 20 to 40 minute flights and seeing this beautiful country from above and yes, learning how small I am as I look down! 🙂 I have so many photos from the plane this morning that it was hard to pare them down to just these 5 shots. I will use some of the other shots in the eventual photo gallery of this trip. We stopped in Tortuguero on our way to Limon. Enjoy the thrill of flying with me . . .
Continue reading “Learning How Small I Am . . .”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 . . .
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.
“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!
ID is from book: A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffrey Glassberg.
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). 🙂
“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.