I was impressed by this little article in The Washington Post today:
The garden has lessons for us in this quarantine, if we are willing to stop and listen
Photo above in my garden today.
My Gallery Flora & Forest
¡Pura Vida!
I was impressed by this little article in The Washington Post today:
The garden has lessons for us in this quarantine, if we are willing to stop and listen
Photo above in my garden today.
My Gallery Flora & Forest
¡Pura Vida!
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! 🙂
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 ZOOS with 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! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
The Health Ministry on Monday presented Costa Rica’s plan for a gradual reopening.
Beginning May 16, Costa Rica will further ease coronavirus restrictions and allow limited visitation at beaches and national parks. If the epidemiological curve permits, more measures will be lifted in June and beyond.
Here is Costa Rica’s timeline for reopening, as presented Monday by the Health Ministry.
* All plans beyond the measures announced for May 16-31 are tentative and may be changed if Costa Rica experiences a surge in cases.
The Health Ministry announced a series of “golden rules” that should be observed by all residents of Costa Rica.
Starting on May 18, the following daytime vehicular restrictions will be enforced between the hours of 5 a.m. and 10 p.m.:
A total vehicular restriction — with a few exceptions — will be enforced nationwide every weeknight from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. the following morning.
The weekend driving restrictions will continue between the hours of 5 a.m. and 7 p.m.:
A total vehicular restriction — with a few exceptions — will be enforced nationwide every Saturday and Sunday night from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. the following morning.
Thankful to live in Costa Rica with common sense national leadership! ~CD
¡Pura Vida!
Or “Tree Trunks in the Rain!” which sounds like it could be a song or poem in addition to one of my “Nature as Art” experiments. I was sitting on my terrace watching it rain when I got the inspiration to photograph the wet tree trunks during the rain – and yes, they do look different when wet.
You could do this anywhere in the world with many different kinds of trees, so give yourself a “quarantine break” for a little creativity – try it!
This is the kind of thing I really expected to do more of in retirement and in this blog – so maybe I will now! 🙂
And oh yes! The rainy season has started! Good rains two days in a row! (Saturday & Sunday) My favorite time of year! And it is made even better because tourists don’t like to come when it’s raining! More peaceful! 🙂
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” ― Martin Luther
¡Pura Vida!
See also my gallery: Flora & Forest
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:
On March 29 I got 19 species of birds on this same walk on Calle Nueva.
See all of my BIRDS galleries or go for just Costa Rica Birds.
¡Pura Vida!
The day for all of us to count birds where we are to help science better determine the stability of our fragile planet. Today, 9 May 2020 is GLOBAL BIG DAY of counting birds.
Find out how at:
https://ebird.org/news/global-big-day-9-may-2020
¡Pura Vida!
And after you have counted bird, check out my collection of BIRDS photographed from around the world!
And here’s an interesting NPR article shared by Larry, especially for those who are noticing their birds more – read or listen to at:
Do Those Birds Sound Louder To You? An Ornithologist Says You’re Just Hearing Things
Help create a better picture of the total health of our globe by counting bird species in your yard or neighborhood THIS SATURDAY, 9 MAY 2020. Simply count the birds you see any time that day and report them to eBird. To learn more or get a free eBird account, go to:
https://ebird.org/news/global-big-day-9-may-2020
And to help motivate you, check out my collection of BIRDS photographed from around the world! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Health Ministry forecasts long path for return to international tourism (Tico Times)
Hogar de Vida (Home of Life), a Christian children’s home for abused and orphaned young children here in Atenas gains much of its budget each year from the visit of “mission teams” who pay to come work with and for the children year around with most coming during the northern summer months (now). The Coronavirus has stopped all team visits this year through at least August with the borders closed and groups afraid to travel, thus there is a financial emergency at both the home here in Atenas, Costa Rica and the similar home in Guatemala. Go to this link and consider giving online to help the children here in Costa Rica or the ones in Guatemala if you choose:
For Hogar de Vida
And God Bless You!
¡Pura Vida!
My gardeners made a special trip over today with three new plants to freshen up three pots, two outside and one inside. I may show them later, but after completing the job they gifted me with a bunch of bananas (probably from one of the yards they service) and I had just bought some yesterday! So – extra bananas!
I keep them in the frig because earlier I had bats eating my bananas in a fruit bowl on the counter, so they will keep – but I still need to eat them more frequently this week. Thus I had a banana split after my spaghetti dinner tonight! Small dips of different kinds of ice cream: Fig, Rum-Raisin, and Chocolate Mint with chocolate syrup and two cherries on top! Betcha you never had that combination! Pretty good! 🙂
Yeah, in Central American Banana Republics we eat a lot of those! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Read The Washington Post stories that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize Especially the one explaining climate change!