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I believe this is a small or immature Tropical Kingbird in the shadows of my garden. I like the softness of the image even though not very sharp or in good light. 🙂 It could be a rare Western Kingbird, but I don’t think so with the faint white on the neck.
My Tropical Kingbird Gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
This morning at breakfast a Tropical Kingbird sat in my Cecropia Tree for a minute or so and here’s a couple of shots:
You can read about the Tropical Kingbird on eBird, a bird found all over Central & South America. Or see my photos from all over Costa Rica in my CR Tropical Kingbird Gallery. And here’s one more photo from this morning:
Continue reading “Tropical Kingbird”
Okay, I’m kind of “cheating” here by showing two different types of toucans that have perched in my Cecropia or Guarumo Tree: The Fiery-billed Aracari (eBird description) and the Keel-billed Toucan (eBird description). And with many more shots of both from all over Costa Rica, see my Fiery-billed Aracari Gallery and/or my Keel-billed Toucan Gallery. Since I have so many photos from so many different places, I will not try to feature the locations, though the location for both of these shots is my own garden in Roca Verde, Atenas, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica! 🙂 I am indeed fortunate!
I was really excited the first time I saw a Squirrel Cuckoo (eBird description) in my garden, thinking that all cuckoos were rare exotic birds. I’ve since learned that this particular one is fairly common all over Costa Rica and you will find 5 locations in Costa Rica in my Squirrel Cuckoo Gallery. Plus eBird says it is “widespread” throughout Central and South America. It is one of 6 different species of Cuckoos found in Costa Rica. Beyond this one, I have photos of just 2 other species in Costa Rica: The Mangrove Cuckoo (2) and the Lesser Ground-Cuckoo (1). See more information and links in The Backstory below . . .
I became aware of the Rose-throated Becard (eBird description) when in 2017 I got this close-up of a female in my own garden! 🙂 See other shots in my Rose-throated Becard Gallery from only 2 different locations in Costa Rica, one other in my neighborhood and one at Punta Leona on the Pacific Coast.
All art is but imitation of nature.
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.
See my FLORA & FOREST Gallery for more flowers or Birds Gallery or Butterfly Gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
🙂
This bird was watching me eat breakfast yesterday morning on my terrace. Learn more about the White-winged Dove on Cornell’s “All About Birds” website. One of many that frequent my garden.
“Birds are the eyes of Heaven.”
―
¡Pura Vida!
Yeah, I recently added the white caladium border and another little improvement, but this was a BIG change! With 2 hours of rain delaying some of the work, my gardeners spent most of the day on my flower garden yesterday including buying all the plants, soil & rocks. It was for a requested restructuring and elimination of some invasive plants.
The results will look better in a week or two, but we needed to get it done now because the rainy season will end in mid to late November and new plants need rain. I am so fortunate to have such a good crew to do work that is much more difficult for me now.
I’ll update the blog from time to time on the garden, but tell you now that they added a new “feature plant” at the corner by my door called in English an “Elephant Foot” plant which you can see in one photo with the “Elephant Ears” behind it! 🙂 It will grow and bigger ones are beautiful! Much of the other is for color without competing plants and providing a little more cohesive, flowing look to the garden with mounds of new dirt adding to the flow. In a few weeks it will be great! And the Elephant in a year or two! 🙂
Please click an image & do manual slide show.
Life begins the day you start a garden. – Chinese proverb
¡Pura Vida!
This morning after breakfast on the terrace I walked through my garden searching for butterflies (got only one) and instead was attracted to the many shapes, colors and textures in my garden (as I often am) – a gallery of modern art! Of Nature as Art! Enjoy what I saw through the slide show this morning:
Nature is the art of God.
~Dante Alighieri
For More “Nature as Art” see my gallery: Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA or to specifically find more like these, check out the sub gallery of the above main gallery called: Flora & Forest Costa Rica.
And from my galleries you can download the digital files for free (down pointing arrow at bottom of enlarged image) or buy prints or wall art of the images (Click “Buy” button).
¡Pura Vida!
I have been wanting to “open up” or “loosen up” my flower garden and make a couple of plant changes. Finally did that this week with the expert help and physical strength of my gardeners.
The Palmetto had become a giant ugly tree and was interfering with other plants. I had them remove it completely and replace with a Croton, the English name we used in Florida for a colorful-leaved shrub that can become very large if not trimmed. Earlier I had asked for a border of caladiums and they used the only type found in the Central Valley with very long sparse red leaves that went too far over my sidewalk. I explained the kind of small, heart-shaped leaf caladium I wanted and to get 40, as I needed, he had to order them from the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. But now I have what I wanted! 🙂
And we trimmed or cut back everything, especially the Plumbago which just takes over! So more open and clean now (fewer snakes!) but also with fewer flowers for the time being. In the tropics you have to be severe with pruning as everything grows rapidly here.
Here are a few photos I took in the rain yesterday that sort of shows what I have done different. Not many blooms now but there will be and I have two Poinsettias that will be blooming nicely around Christmas! It all will fill in soon.
Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.
~Luther Burbank
¡Pura Vida!