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Reading Children’s Books Again!

I’m either “a child at heart,” a “simple-minded old man,” or maybe I just like good adventure stories and some of the best are written for children! 🙂

I wrote earlier about finishing The Wingfeather Saga series (4 books) of adventure stories for children written by a singer in Nashville and recommended to me by an old friend in Nashville. It was a good series and if he continues it, I will probably read the future stories, but right now that particular writer (I follow him) is too busy making an animated series of his first four books plus related merchandise and just making more money. 🙂

The same friend that recommended The Wingfeather Saga was later reading the The Green Embers series (I follow that friend on Goodreads) and so I thought I would try it. This one is about rabbits (& other animals) instead of people and the writer is a very good story teller with a good story, but my problem is that it is a war story and very gloomy and negative in some ways and I would not recommend it for young children. I read only the first book in the series and decided to go back to something that I already knew was good. But I may later continue that series in spite of the violence. (It is a good story!)

So now I am rereading The Chronicles of Narnia, all 7 books in one big electronic Kindle book! With a “bonus” book of Boxen (another children’s book by C.S. Lewis I never read). I’m reading Narnia in chronological order this time 🙂 , starting with The Magician’s Nephew to hopefully re-learn first how Narnia started (I forgot!). 🙂 So this series will keep me busy to sometime next year, if I don’t tire of it! 🙂 Then I might consider a reread of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Series in the right order again. A much longer and more challenging read! 🙂 But wonderful!

It’s fun to be an adventure-loving child again!

🙂

Which is okay for us old people!

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Join up with your fellow readers!

If you too like to read, you might consider joining Goodreads where all of your “friends” on Facebook (who are members of Goodreads) can be clicked into Goodreads as friends there (your choice). Then you might learn about some good new books that your friends are reading. 🙂 It’s free, informative, and occasionally helpful in evaluating books or deciding what to read next.

Plus their website has lots of very good book reviews which helps you evaluate before buying a book, plus news about new releases, information on book awards, and special discounts for Goodreads members. You also can “follow” your favorite writers to be the first to hear about their new releases or special discounts offered on their books. Another good bonus! I do recommend “Goodreads” (even with the disclaimer that they are connected to Amazon.com for obvious commercial reasons!). 🙂 Happy reading! ALWAYS BETTER THAN TV!

🙂

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New Color Bursting Forth . . .

. . . every few days it seems in my “Miniature Jungle” garden. Here is the unusual bloom or flower on my Ti Plant (Cordyline fruticosa) which rarely blooms but its leaves always give color to my garden kind of like the leaves of the Crotons! 🙂

Ti Plant (Cordyline fruticosa) in Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

And then shots of the whole plants from both above and below (I’m on the side of a hill). A rich, deep red swath of my garden! 🙂

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Christmas ’22 at CITY MALL

The closest shopping mall to me is City Mall in Alajuela across the highway from the San Jose Airport, the largest mall in Costa Rica and second largest in Central America (Panama has a bigger one). Like all malls everywhere, everything is more expensive than at little local stores, but it is still popular, especially with the younger generations! I go two or three times a year for things I can’t get anywhere else and to see the new Christmas decorations. I went last week for my annual photo wall calendar by CR Photographer Pucci in the big and wonderful bookstore “La Librería Internacional” and some Avery Labels at Office Depot. 🙂

Christmas 2022 at CITY MALL Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Boat-billed Flycatcher

This is one of several common brown & yellow birds with Black & White trim and this one most often is confused with the Great Kiskadee as about the same size. Social Flycatcher is colored the same but always smaller (and chubbier) and after awhile you get an eye for size and even the personality of birds which in this Boat-billed is different from the cockier Great Kiskadee. Plus I got a shot from behind and the white ring around this one’s head has all black in the center while the Kiskadee has yellow plus a spot of yellow on the black next to his beak. AND this Boat-billed has a bigger or fatter beak (boat-shaped?). But at first glance all of these look almost the same! I further verified my ID by running 3 of these photos through Merlin, the magical bird-ID app for your phone from eBird. 🙂

Read about Boat-billed Flycatcher on eBird or for more of my earlier photos see my Boat-billed Flycatcher GALLERY.

Boat-billed Flycatcher, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

3 more shots . . .

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Morning Vista . . .

. . . is one I never tire of and though the same, it is slightly different every morning with changing light, sky, clouds and foliage. I am so thankful to live retired in a tranquil little farming town in what might be the most nature-centered and ecology-minded little country in the world! We use 99% renewable electricity and are slowly but steadily moving towards electric cars and buses and have more than 25% of the country’s land set aside in reserves or national parks and we still plant trees! Pura vida!

View from my terrace every morning at breakfast + birds & butterflies! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

View GALLERY: From My Roca Verde Terrace

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Summer Tanager Female

I’m starting to see more birds in my garden trees now with yesterday and today including a Keel-billed Toucan, Squirrel Cuckoo, Gray-headed Chachalaca, White-winged Dove, Red-billed Pigeon, Clay-colored Thrush, Great Kiskadee. Rufous-naped Wren, and today a Summer Tanager Female which was the only decent photo I got. Here’s three shots of her at different angles . . .

Summer Tanager Female, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Strange Cobwebs

Coming down the driveway in early morning I noticed something white in the tops of my neighbors Red Palms or Palmas Roja, an ornamental plant, not a tree and snapped this shot on the cell phone . . .

Then I go get my camera and go for a closer look seen in the next three photos with not a single spider seen anywhere! I will try to research these online to learn more about them, but it looks like a huge “spider city” is being built! 🙂

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A Poan Skipper?

Again I photograph one in my garden that I cannot positively ID. The white fringe on the wings makes it a Cloud-forest Poan or Snow-fringed Skipper (Poanes niveolimbus) while the back and shoulders are more like the Inimical Poan (Poanes inimica) and the red-orange coloring overlaps with many of the Poans and other Skippers too, plus the tail on this one doesn’t match any of the above, so much to my disappointment, I may have to mark it “Can’t Identify!” Though I’m leaning toward the “Snow-fringed Skipper!” 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Check out some of my other Skippers in my GALLERY: Hesperiidae – SKIPPERS (37+) where there are more unidentified plus many more named. And so far, the online websites have been no help to me on this one.

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Gray-headed Chachalaca Portrait

The birds seem to be coming back to my garden little by little, though this noisy little chicken-sized bird never completely left! 🙂 I usually look for interesting behavior shots with them, but when I saw this one in one of my Yellow-bell Trees I thought this might be considered a “portrait” of sorts. Read about Gray-headed Chachalaca on eBird or to see some of the many photos I’ve made over the years, check out my Gray-headed Chachalaca GALLERY.

Gray-headed Chachalaca, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Jumping Spider Eats Butterfly!

I never before thought of my garden as a place of carnage, but insects eating other insects is quite normal and helps with the balance and ecology – then I witnessed it first hand this past Tuesday morning as I focused my camera on what I hoped was a new butterfly species (it was!). This, my first Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak (Strymon istapa) was flying and landed on one of my Heliconia flowers (1st photo below) and when I snapped this photo that tiny Jumping Spider (Salticidae) down below him in the photo jumped up on the little butterfly (with attached silk thread) and grabbed the butterfly by its head, biting it with a venomous bite that instantly paralyzed and will soon kill the butterfly which the Jumping Spider will eat. I did not stay around for the full meal, but photos of three stages follow this one. 🙂

Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak above and Jumping Spider below. Yes! He jumped that far!

3 more photos below of the capture, paralyzing and preparing to eat.

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