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When I watch an animal gazing like this I cannot help but wonder, “At what does he gaze?” Us humans tend to think he is looking for food, and maybe he is – but could he not also be gazing at some beauty unseen by me? A Rufous-naped Wren in my Guarumo Tree during my breakfast.
Gazing on beautiful things acts on my soul.
Not at a seafood restaurant but in my garden! It’s English name is “Golden Shrimp Plant” and it is a beautiful heavy-bloomer year-around, at least here where we have year-around Spring! The last additions to my garden included one of these plants and I love it. Read about it on Wikipedia or since it is used in gardens in the states during warm weather, read more on this Master Gardener website.
“Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.”
―
More flower photos in my Flora & Forest Gallery.
World Day for Cultural Diversity
Thursday May 21, 2020
¡Pura Vida!
He’s revisiting my garden and thus I’m posting some new photos of a favorite bee here. See my Bees Gallery for some better photos made earlier or posted on earlier blog posts linked below. And if interested in reading about this Central American bee, there’s a good history on Wikipedia. (People in Florida are trying to introduce them there.)
¡Pura Vida!
He was showing an interest in one of my dried up flowers in the garden the other day and I have not found a name for him yet – just another interesting creation of God!
“Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit — the cosmos?”
― A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
¡Pura Vida!
See my “Other Insects” Gallery for more fun bugs.
This is one of several birds I saw at breakfast this morning including a Lineated Woodpecker, Blue-gray Tanager, Clay-colored Thrush, White-winged Dove and some unidentified flyers. But this is the only one I got a photo of and my second time to see this species here. One of my guide books says they come as breeding visitors Feb to Oct. It is a sparrow-sized bird very much like the Red-eyed Vireo which is less common here.
I saw the other one March 28 on Calle Nueva with not as good a photo, but you can see it in my Yellow-Green Vireo gallery. Or read about them on eBird with a map showing where they are found. Happy birding!
“Not humans, but birds often witness the most beautiful mornings in this world!”
―
¡Pura Vida!
P.S.
And oh yes, if I haven’t said yet, “Rainy Season” or “winter” (my favorite time of year) is well under way here with rain or showers every afternoon. I love it! Cooler, fresher air and so much greener! My garden loves it too! 🙂
Not only are we required to wash our hands before entering the supermarket, but they have a sign from the Ministry of Health showing us how! 🙂 But hey! We don’t have thousands dying from COVID19 in Costa Rica!
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” ~Benjamin Franklin
¡Pura Vida!
Costa Rica has the lowest COVID19 death rate (0.86%) in Latin America! See the statistics in the “Live in Costa Rica” blog report:
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!
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!