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A People Day

And not a single photo of all the neat people I related to today!

I waved goodbye to my neighbors Don & Judy and the landlord’s gardener Javier as I walked out our compound gate for my Spanish Class at Su Espacio. Then “Buenas Dias” to Luis, the guard at our Roca Verde gate.  It is my habit to say just “Buenos” (the new, younger greeting) to everyone I meet on the sidewalk walking to town. If someone refuses to make eye contact, then they don’t want to be spoken to, so I don’t force them!  🙂

I greet the shop keepers around the Su Espacio Community Center and whoever is already in the center, except the exercise class which is very busy! Everyone here is so nice and friendly and we all greet and visit at first. The two hours of Spanish with an hour and a half just talking in Spanish which is what I need the most to learn the language! After class I visit with another student a bit and then head for the post office to wait in line to get postage on a letter to the states.

I mailed my request for U.S. Voter Registration to Nashville as a citizen living out of the country. I’m only allowed to vote in national elections, which is mainly the presidential election every 4 years. To vote for mayor or governor you have to actually live in the city or state. Makes sense! My national election vote is counted among the “Absentee Voting” and I read somewhere that they only count those if the election is very close and it could make a difference. But I like doing my duty!

While waiting in line at the “Correos” (Post Office) I see the business associate from my old apartments, Hacienda La Jacaranda with the new manager. We talk for 5 to 7 minutes in Spanish no less! I’m so proud of myself! The new manager wants some of my photos to possibly use in promotion or marketing of the apartments. I will gladly provide them gratis. I really want that place to succeed! It has so much potential. Then after talking to the two ladies I got acquainted with a nice guy behind me in line who speaks fluent Spanish and English and he chose to use English mostly with me.

From there to Coopeatenas, my supermercado, for about 4 items and a visit in the produce section with Carol, a former Spanish student who may come back. She is from Inglaterra (England) and just got back from a business trip back there.  We talked in Spanglish!  🙂

By then it was late enough for lunch and as I was headed toward La Carreta I bumped into Jason, a local Tico young man who helps in Su Espacio Spanish and English classes, for conversation and tutoring. I offered to treat him to lunch for some Spanish practice (meaning we only talk in Spanish) and we did, mostly! Soon after we sat down Corinna and Nicole came in for lunch but they did not sit with us because they were using this time for Nicole to work on a jigsaw puzzle (he’s the 6 year old son). So they were at the next table. Then one of my first Tica friends in Costa Rica, Anna, came in with an American friend and tenant in one of her houses and did sit with us. The 80 year old friend just moved here from the states and speaks no Spanish, so English took over again with a few exceptions with Jason and Anna. Wow! A big day already and then it started raining (Hallelujah!). After lunch I walked Jason home under my sombrilla (umbrella) and then on home myself. We are going to start getting together more to just talk in Spanish. His cousin sells good wood fire oven pizza and I’ll have him over for pizza one night and talk in Spanish. Whew! Hey! It is really hard work for me to carry on a conversation in Spanish!  🙂

I’ve been home the rest of the day and still greatly enjoy being “Home Alone” but also enjoyed the many encounters with friends today and much of it in Spanish! The best Spanish Class is talking with live people in Spanish! It is one of my goals!  Pura Vida!

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Labeling My Wildlife Photos

Some of the books I use plus the internet now.

Before the Yorkin Trip I had four books specifically for Costa Rica wildlife (in above photo) and the bird book, A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica, was the best of those (seen in above photo by Stiles & Skutch, 1989). I am now replacing it with a 2014 book by one of the members of the birding club I just joined, Robert Dean, The Birds of Costa Rica, A Field Guide. It is obviously more up to date and has more birds. This is the second edition of his book. I’ve ordered it from Amazon.com and it should be here by next week via Miami.

Our birding guide for the club and my first club trip, Pat O’Donnell, also recommends an app (he co-authored) which I got for both my phone and Kindle called “Costa Rica Birds – Field Guide” which is available from most app stores or directly from the producers at BirdingFieldGuides.com  It is very good with lots of photos of all the birds of Costa Rica and a filter to help you label your bird photo. I may end up using it more than the book. We’ll see! With my Kindle Fire I have gone to almost all electronic books anyway.

The Panama bird book (in first photo)is very good, more recent than my first Costa Rica book, and can be used as a backup for identification. We almost have the same birds with a few exceptions. It is our southern birds and their northern birds that overlap. Likewise our northern birds overlap with Nicaragua.

The Costa Rica butterfly book in the top photo is very limited, so I also use the U.S. National Audubon Society guide (glad I kept it!). The only more thorough butterfly book for Costa Rica I’ve found is a college textbook for $80+ and I haven’t gone that far yet! Plus it is probably more technical than I want. I just want images to help me identify my photos.

The internet is good for some creatures, but not all. I still have unidentified butterflies and birds in my photo collection! I have also joined some websites or online organizations to help with birding and bird identification, but not a lot of help yet. So please know that when I label something “Unidentified,” it is not because I didn’t try!   🙂

Likewise I have one book on Costa Rica plants and it is about as limited as the butterfly book. So plants are sometimes even more difficult to label and I’m learning that the common Spanish names and English names are not simply translations of each other. Maybe I should go with the Latin!  🙂

Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.
~Wernher von Braun

——
“Costa Rica Extra” Sports Tidbits:

Was Recreational Ziplining Really Invented in Costa Rica? Yes indeeeed! No data on whitewater rafting which is also big here.

The most popular sport in the little farm town of Atenas is el voleibol (volleyball) with one high school the national champion most years! We have a park with a beach volleyball court, all sand! I don’t know how it ranks in popularity in the country of Costa Rica, but is definitely popular, especially on the two coasts along with surfing there.

Though el futbol (soccer) is the most popular spectator sport in Costa Rica, el beisbol (baseball) is a close second as is el practicar surf (surfing) and el ciclismo (cycling) where we were just ranked high in the El Tour de Francia. And Costa Rica has the Latin American Champion Surfista (surfer) almost every year!

The happiest people on earth love their sports and recreation and smart gringos avoid driving to the beach on weekends when the highways are literally packed bumper to bumper with Ticos at the beaches! Pura Vida!
——

Heraclitus

“Time is a game played beautifully by children.” 
― Heraclitus, Fragments



Bill Watterson

“Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.” 
― Bill Watterson
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RAIN in the Garden!

Has the “Rainy Season” really started now? Afternoon rain for 2 days in a row! 🙂

Rain dripping off a Guarumo leaf.

Wet Palmetto leaf in my garden.

Wet Heliconia leaves in my garden. Camera doesn’t show rain, just wet!
My miniature rainforest in the rain; habitat of birds, butterflies, frogs, & lizards.
But you can’t see the rain in the photo.  🙂   Believe me. It is raining!
Babies!
My pride and joy, rare Maraca Plant (Shampoo Ginger), has 4 new sprouts!
Snapped this as rain stopped and I finished post. See ground cover filling in?
My garden is one of the best things about this house and done from scratch!
With a rare plant to boot! It came from being nice to the gardeners.  🙂

“Open up, heavens, and rain.
    Clouds, pour out buckets of my goodness!
Loosen up, earth, and bloom salvation;
    sprout right living.
    I, God, generate all this.”
Isaiah 45:8
The Message


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Fork-tailed Emerald Hummingbird

Back to my garden . . .

Fork-tailed Emerald Hummingbird
In my garden, Roca Verde house, Atenas, Costa Rica

This is my second time to photograph this species in my garden. Both times the light is not good for a clear and colorful photo. He/she is an iridescent green all over except for the dark, forked tail. The first time was no better.  What I need is sunlight shining directly on the bird!  🙂

SPANISH LANGUAGE UPDATE
My progress has been so very slow. ¡Aprendo poco a poco español! (I learn Spanish little by little.) Is what I say to some people. So I have joined a second class that meets only once a week at the little evangelical church I have attended some, Iglesia Biblical. It provides a text book and workbook for homework and it is too early to see if it will help me learn faster, though every effort is of some value! What I need most is to just talk more in Spanish, ignoring the embarrassment of doing it wrong. That is what David Castillo at Su Espacio is trying to get me to do. We are down to just two in his class right now, so it is almost like tutoring. I also try to do one little activity each day on duolingo.com which is a great free language learning site! And I just ordered another CD-based course. So I’m trying! ¡Pero es difícil! (But it is difficult!) Or slow! David suggested I do this blog in Spanish, but that would leave too many of you out, so I won’t. Maybe a separate blog in Spanish?
DROUGHT
This has been one of the driest “Rainy Seasons” on record for the Central Valley and I have to water my garden and new trees every other day. Everyone says the rain should really come in September and October. We’ll see! It is cloudy and thundering right now, but that often means little or nothing!

The only exception to the drought has been the Caribbean side of the country and a few places in the north. It rained every day we were at Yorkin. The northwest or Guanacaste  area is always the driest part of the country and it is even drier this year. It is really hard on farmers!

 Time flies, but not backwards, like a hummingbird can.
(-:


Good night from Atenas, Costa Rica! The little bit of rain passed fast and gave us fog. Pura Vida!
View from my balcony of course!


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Textures of the Rain Forest

While along the Yorkin River in a Bribri indigenous people village I captured several shots of the forest & its textures.
East of Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

 

All photos made by Charlie Doggett at the Casa de las Mujeres Yorkin

 

 

 

 
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
 
Frank Lloyd Wright

 

 

 

Gustave Flaubert

“I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.” 
― Gustave Flaubert, November

 

 

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Shots of Birding Club Members

Though my focus is always on nature, I did make a few shots of the 18 club members on trip.

Pat is our club birding guide and very good at finding birds!
He is from states but married to a Tica with CR children now!

“Now are you sure everything is in a waterproof bag?

Our feet were wet before we ever got to canoe.

Dugout canoes with outboard motors on the rear and traditional pole in front.

Right outside our thatched roof housing we find many birds!
At least once we didn’t have to wade the stream!

There are about a hundred members of the “Birding Club of Costa Rica” with expats possibly being in the majority (or at least were for this trip). Each and every person is so nice and very interesting with people like my roommate who still works for the World Bank, another retired from the United Nations, and another who sold his software company to Steve Jobs and built a home in Costa Rica. Then there’s the writer and the fun Dutch couple, the author of the latest Costa Rica birding book and so many many more to get acquainted with! I look forward to it!

The only meeting is an annual business meeting with everything else being field trips to find birds. And a cool Christmas Party they tell me! I never made time for a birding club in the states, so this is going to be fun! I’ve already bought the club T-shirt!  🙂
“I think the most important quality in a birdwatcher is a willingness to stand quietly and see what comes. Our everyday lives obscure a truth about existence – that at the heart of everything there lies a stillness and a light.” 
― Lynn Thomson, Birding with Yeats: A Memoir
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Birds in the Yorkin Bribri Forest

We heard and even saw hundreds from a distance. Two club members had big lenses on their camera and I’m sure got much better photos. This is what I could do with my cheap 300 mm lens. Many have been cropped and enlarged to the point of almost seeing dots, but I’m still happy with these 13! 🙂

Montezuma Oropendola
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
Long-tailed Hermit Hummingbird
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
Scarlet-rumped Tanager
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Rufous-tailed Jacamar
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Violaceous Trogon
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Boat-billed Flycatcher
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Long-tailed Tyrant
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Pale-billed Woodpecker Male
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Blue Ground Dove
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
Gray-capped Flycatcher
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Paltry Tyrannulet
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Short-tailed Hawk
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
Black Vulture
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
White-fronted Parrots
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

And the Blue-headed Parrots photos were even darker silhouettes than these, plus another 10 or so bird photos that are not very good and/or unidentified. It was an effort to photograph in mostly poor light of a dark rainforest with overcast or rainy skies while wading through mud. So with those conditions and my amateur camera, I’m happy to have gotten these photos! I’m easy to please!  🙂

They will eventually be added to my Costa Rica Birds PHOTO GALLERY, so check it out sometime for a lot more bird photos collected over the last six and a half years in Costa Rica.

“Sweet bird!  thy bow’r is ever green, 
Thy sky is ever clear;
thou has’t no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.”
–  John Logan 

And yesterday’s post on Bribri Insects has been updated with a correct identification on the unsure one and three more butterflies added! 

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Bribri Insects

Still working on my bird photos, so just 3 insects tonight who are not the ones that bit my legs that still itch!  🙂 We slept under mosquito nets and I sprayed myself every day with Deet-infused Off! Yet these 3 guys still let me get close enough for photos.

Great Blue Skimmer was everywhere! Lots of standing water!
Bribri Yorkin Forest, Costa Rica

Banded Satyr
Bribri Yorkin Forest, Costa Rica

Banded Peacock or Fatima Butterfly
Bribri Yorkin Forest, Costa Rica
Orange-barred Sulphur
Bribri Yorkin Forest, Costa Rica

White Peacock
Bribri Yorkin Forest, Costa Rica
Unidentified Butterfly or Moth
Bribri Yorkin Forest, Costa Rica
And for more, see my separate PHOTO GALLERIES on: 

All life is linked together in such a way that no part of the chain is unimportant. Frequently, upon the action of some of these minute beings depends the material success or failure of a great commonwealth.
— John Henry Comstock

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The Bribri on Yorkin River

A few shots of the Bribri indigenous people during our 4 days at Casa de las Mujeres Yorkin

Our guide’s son and his cousin sucking the “white stuff” off Cacao seeds as
we had done earlier. It is a sweet milky stuff surrounding the bitter seeds that
become chocolate later. Jungle kids don’t get candy or junk food, but pull neat
stuff to eat off trees all the time!

Later they were eating this red fruit that I don’t remember the name of.

We made two morning hikes (before and after breakfast) and one afternoon
hike always passing by different homes or farms on our way into the forest.
All homes are off the ground to avoid flooding and the constant mud in rainy
season and to keep out their own animals as well as wild animals.
No roads to the village but some ride horses around the community or to the
tiny town of Bambu (in Bribri language), called Bratsi by the government.  🙂
No cowboy boots, just mud boots like I wished for every day!
We traveled to and from the village in
dugout canoes with outboard motors which
is their bus and supply system, though there
is a walking trail from Bambu which is about
an 11 or 12 mile hike. Horses use it too!
Boat is the fast way at about 45-60 minutes.
The guy in front of boat used a long pole to
get the boat around rapids and sand bars.
Another guy works motor in back.

I’m still tired from the trip. My new maid comes on Tuesdays, so she helped with my laundry of muddy clothing today. If I ever go there again I will take knee high mud boots. That side of Costa Rica gets more rain year around with I guess muddy trails year around. The Bribri all wear rubber boots outside and go barefooted inside as we did. My hiking shoes were great except not high enough for stream wading and mud that comes up over the ankles. Yuk!

  1. The Bribri are an indigenous people of Costa Rica. They live in the Talamanca (canton) in Limón Province of Costa Rica. They speak the Bribri language and Spanish. There are varying estimates of the population of the tribe. (Wikipedia)
A great article about all 8 Indigenous People Groups in Costa Rica who, like most indigenous peoples everywhere are in danger of disappearing or losing their culture. The Bribri have done a better job than most here maintaining their language and culture. 
The main cash crop for the village we visited is cacao pods used to make chocolate. I will do a post on cacao later. They live off the land with no grocery stores, no refrigeration, no electricity, and we ate several vegetables and fruits I had never eaten before. They farm and have chickens for added protein along with fish of course. No beef or pork. They use powdered milk. This village was hurt when the price of cacao fell a few years ago. The women suggested tourism for cash flow and the men said it would never work and be a big intrusion. The men were later surprised at how well the women’s project has worked and a few men now help with it along with some teenagers. Read about what they do with tourists at this website of one tour operator featuring the name of the women’s project: Casa de Mujeres Yorkin 

The Yorkin River is the boundary line between Costa Rica and Panama and is in thick forest.

Well, I’m still sorting photos, so more later on this adventure including some birds!  

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Last Post Until Tuesday

It seemed like thousands of acres of bananas enroute to the Caribbean.

The Cariblue Hotel is a collection of jungle huts.

Hotel is on the beach at Puerto Viejo.

Though Puerto Viejo is mostly a hippie surfer town, I’m in an upscale hotel.
But only for Thursday night (last night). Friday to Monday is roughing it
in the Bribri village. No more electricity or internet until Tuesday. 

Three others from the club are in this hotel a day early. Very interesting people! This is going to be fun! One guy still works for the World Bank and another is/was a computer software guru with close ties to Apple, IBM, and Microsoft.

See ya’ Tuesday.