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A Brilliant New Photo Book

I just completed my latest photo book, the second one on Blurb’s “Lay Flat Pages” (no gutter) with 100# Premium Lustre Photo Paper containing 16 sunrise photos in my favorite sunrise place, 14 are two-page spreads! I made it for both the fun of creating and as a gift to the Hotel Banana Azul where all photos were made! There are now several hotels like this across Costa Rica that feature my photo books about them in their lobbies.  🙂  And by the way, this is one I think is worth taking advantage of my bookstore’s “Free Preview” electronically by clicking the cover image below or going to this address and just click the pages to turn them!  🙂

https://www.blurb.com/b/11529264-sunrise-banana-azul

CLICK cover image to go to a free electronic preview!

¡Pura Vida!

And by the way, that other “Lay Flat Book” was done way back in 2018 and titled Costa Rica Sunrises and Sunsets. It too is worth taking time for the “Free Preview” with mostly sunsets in that book! Just click that title to go there!

Costa Rica Weekly Video Recap

Brief bits of this last week’s news including 2 totally different rich and famous from the United States now living in Costa Rica!  🙂

Or maybe just read these written articles:

Preserve Planet Fights Against Costa Rica’s Plans to Build New Airport

Illegal Logging: The Critical Situation Threatening Costa Rica’s Environment

Costa Rica Expat Living: My Story of Being a Dependent (With an Unexpected Twist)  Story of a “dependent” (wife) of a legally working husband and how new law opened up legal work for her (which wasn’t allowed before). CR welcomes us retirees who bring our retirement income with us, but younger working adults who might compete with locals for jobs have many more hoops to jump through!  🙂  But from this story it seems to be getting easier!  And I am seeing a lot more working young adult expats, even in little Atenas now, though still most of them work on the internet which is non-competitive to local workers.

Everyone wants to live in Costa Rica now!  🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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English & Spanish Common Names + Latin Scientific

I’ve been working on all my wildlife galleries to have both English & Spanish Common Names as the titles and the Latin Scientific Name in the subtitles as I did first with birds. The one exception is that I cannot find a single easy source of Spanish Common Names for the butterflies & moths! So I’m still working on those, though they do all have both the English common name and the Latin scientific name. But still, I’ve seen no other wildlife photo galleries with this much helpful information.  🙂   I’ve completed the following categories except the Reptiles and Spanish on the butterflies, so almost finished!  🙂

CLICK above image to go to that “Other Wildlife” folder.

CLICK a Gallery Name below to see it:

¡Pura Vida!

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Small Endemic Bird – Spot-crowned Euphonia

This small bright blue & yellow bird landed for 30 seconds or so in my Yellow Bell Tree Wednesday and I managed to get a few shots before he left. He is the male Spot-crowned Euphonia  (eBird link), endemic to Costa Rica and the northern fringes of Panama, only on the Pacific Slopes, and just my third time to photograph one! First time in my garden!  🙂  My other places were at Esquinas Rainforest lodge at Piedras Blancas NP north of Golfito and at Hacienda Guachipelin, Rincón de la Vieja NP in Guanacaste near Liberia. I go back to Esquinas in July for my 83rd birthday and expect to see them again! 🙂

One of my all-time favorite bird photos was of a female Spot-crowned Euphonia eating a berry at Esquinas Lodge! See that and the other shots in my Spot-Crowned Euphonia Gallery! Now here’s 3 shots from my garden Wednesday . . .

Spot-crowned Euphonia, male, Atenas, Costa Rica

Above he’s looking down, next looking up and the third looking right into the camera before flying off!  🙂

Continue reading “Small Endemic Bird – Spot-crowned Euphonia”

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Photographing Through Leaves

This first shot is of my Ficus aurea tree (scientific name) which in Florida is commonly called a “Strangler Fig” Tree or occasionally just a “Ficus”  or a “Golden Fig” Tree and here in Costa Rica the Spanish common name is “arbole Higuerón.”

It is on the street side of my house, shielding my living room, office and bedroom from the afternoon sun and scrambles any view to or from the houses across the street. It has a lot of leaves and is thus difficult for me to photograph anything in it (like birds) or distant objects on the other side! But that is what I did with the three photos that follow this one. In some ways I think this tree makes an interesting “framing” of a shot!     🙂

Ficus aurea, Higuerón or Strangler Fig Tree, Atenas, Costa Rica – in my yard!

Continue reading “Photographing Through Leaves”

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Great Crested Flycatcher

He landed in one of my Nance trees for only a few seconds and then flew away, never showing his face, which can help with ID! 🙂 But after a lot of research online and in my books I am pretty certain that this fellow is a Great Crested Flycatcher which we can have here as both immigrants from the north this time of year or non-breeding residents year-a-round. But this is my first time to see one here, though I saw one in the states in the past.

Great Crested Flycatcher, Atenas, Costa Rica

For the birders reading, notice the distinctive white wing-bars and the slight reddish-orange tinting on the lower edge of his wing. Only Great Crested, Brown and Ash-throated Flycatchers have both of those, eliminating the similar Yellow-bellied Elaenia, Dusky-capped Flycatcher and Northern Beardless Tyrannulet. Plus none of those have this bright a yellow belly or this dark of a brown crest which is also the two reasons I eliminate the  Brown and Ash-throated Flycatchers!

Sometimes bird ID becomes like scientific detective work!  🙂  But I’m pretty confident of this ID, even without a face shot which would have shown no eye ring and a slight bit of pink at the base of his bill.  Read about him on eBird. And you who live in the Eastern U.S. are possibly familiar with him as a common bird there, as shown on eBird’s map, and where I’ve seen him before.

¡Pura Vida!

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“The Tarzan Effect” on Me

Amazon Kindle had a special on the electronic Tarzan books, all 10 of the original stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, for only 99¢ (1.08 with tax) and I grabbed them!  🙂  The early Tarzan movies had

CLICK cover image to see on Amazon.com.

a big effect on me as a child, while most of the later ones I did not consider as good and since books are almost always better than their movie counterparts, I decided for the first time in my life to read the original stories by the author. Glad I did!

I have finished the first three books and boy is it true that, in this case, the books are so much better than the old or new movies. It is hard to believe how cheesy some of those old movies were that I remember liking so much as a child!  🙂  You can watch most of the old Tarzan movies free online now. And the newer movies made up their own stories, ignoring the books!

Then last week I read a climate change article in The Washington Post that really “clicked” with me and merged with my book readings caused me to decide there was a definite “Tarzan Effect” on me in my childhood of Saturday matinee Tarzan movies and that motivated me to start writing again. I now have a new set of web pages under ABOUT on my website simply titled The Tarzan Effect. They share some of the ways I think Tarzan affected me for the better and at one point I even link to stories and essays on how he affected several other people including Jane Goodall who is reported to have said “I fell passionately in love with Tarzan — this glorious creature living out in the jungle doing all the things I wanted to do, and what did he do? He married the wrong Jane.”  🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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The “Brown is Cool” Butterflies

Three butterflies I got the other morning at the same time that are not new to me but I think handsome butterflies, The Tanna Longtail (normal sized) and the Rawson’s Metalmark (tiny fingernail sized), the same species I featured 6 days ago on March 22, and a Plain Longtail not much different from the first one above.

Tanna Longtail, Atenas, Costa Rica

Note that this Tanna Longtail is very similar to the Teleus Longtail (darker side spots, thinner median band) and the Brown Longtail (also with darker side spots) and thus my ID is not guaranteed but I’m pretty sure!  🙂

Rawson’s Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica
Plain Longtail Skipper, Atenas, Costa Rica

 

See my galleries of other shots of these two at:

¡Pura Vida!

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Gutter Iguana?

Well — he’s an immature Green Iguana “I think,” but the immature Black Iguana is also greenish, so he could technically be either one (though I think the face looks more like the green). But the last adult iguana I had here was the Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, so maybe that’s more likely.  🙂  Juveniles are difficult to ID for certain!

This one just happened to be in my casita’s gutter when I was on my morning garden walk the other day. I don’t see iguanas around my house very often, but when I do they often climb the trees to get away from me which makes it easy for a young one like this to jump over on the house roof. I doubt they find much to eat around my house which is why I seldom see one. A full-grown Iguana is more than twice the size of this one! (Green or Black)  🙂

Immature Iguana, Atenas, Costa Rica

Continue reading “Gutter Iguana?”

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The Layered Mexican Yellow

It’s the layers of yellow, white and brown that identify this butterfly more than the spots and their locations which I tend to focus on first. 🙂  This butterfly photographed in my garden is the Mexican Yellow, Eurema mexicana. I’ve seen him before at Arenal Butterfly Conservatory and at Xandari Resort. See all those shots in my Mexican Yellow Gallery.

Mexican Yellow, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

And it looks different from other angles or light . . .

Continue reading “The Layered Mexican Yellow”

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Bird Galleries Like None Other

My Costa Rica Bird Galleries by Species have many helpful characteristics for birders or anyone interested in Costa Rica birds that no other online gallery has nor does any book other than maybe Aves de Costa Rica by Garrigues & Dean and it, like its English version is out of date with many incorrect bird names.

One example of 360 galleries. Note English, Spanish & Scientific Names!

My bird galleries have:

  • Photos of 360+ species of birds in Costa Rica arranged by taxonomy families as in the Princeton Field Guide: Birds of Central America, the most up-to-date birding book for Costa Rica at this time.
  • Up-to-date official English Names (constantly changing) based on the latest from eBird
  • Spanish Names as given in the only Spanish bird book for Costa Rica, Aves de Costa Rica. Note that these have not been changing like the English names and thus often parallel the old English names. PLUS I include the Otros nombres en español that are included in the above Spanish bird book since different regions of the country use different names.
  • The Latin Scientific Name of every bird has recently been added to my gallery of Costa Rica Birds.
  • And as I try to do with all my photos in all my galleries, I have included the specific location in which each bird was photographed. That can particularly help birders who are looking for a specific species they have not yet seen or photographed.
  • All of the above information is included on each photo in the galleries as Keywords making searches easier. 
  • Downloading photo files is free from any of my galleries. Just look for the downward pointing arrow below an enlarged image or use the old fashion way with a right click.
  • You can order quality prints or wall art on metal or canvas of any of the images you consider good enough for those purposes. I have some bad images just to show that a bird was seen in a particular place, but some of my images make great wall art and I personally prefer the ones printed on metal. This is a service of SmugMug Galleries with Bay Photos. This is not a source of income for me and thus my markup is only $1.
  • There is also a link at the top of every page to my Bookstore where you can find find my books of bird photos and many other Costa Rica subjects!

If you love the birds of Costa Rica, I hope you will find my photo galleries helpful to you in studying and learning the locations of these many birds!

Just one of the 360 galleries.

¡Pura Vida!