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New Ranking of Birding Lodges

On January 5, 2020 I did a Blog Post 2020 Ranking of My Birding Lodges, which is now out of date and it even included Nicaragua and Panama lodges, where today’s is only Costa Rica and I have included the multiple trips to places I repeat with each bird count, but only those with 10 or more birds photographed by me. Even on eBird I count only the ones I get a photo of. These are from my birding visits since 2015, my first year living in Costa Rica.

Montezuma Oropendola at Arenal Observatory

The Feature Photo at top is my Treehouse Room at Maquenque Lodge, Boca Tapada.

And the 2021 Rankings by number of species are . . .

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Mid-day Walk “Leaf Collection”

Tuesday I had a morning doctor’s appointment in San Jose, getting back a little before noon and took a walk on my nearby “Country Lane” extension of 8th Ave. As I entered the road I asked myself, “What can I photograph today?” Almost immediately my eyes fell on a leaf! And so I tried to see how many different leaves I could make photos of with my cellphone. Here are 13 that were accessible and I purposely did not include fern fronds since I did a post on them last week, nor palm fronds because most are too high to reach with my cellphone! 🙂

Here’s one for the email and then you go to the full post for the gallery of 13 leaves!

A leaf growing alongside a country road.
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Experiencing Nature

My newest photo book is my cheapest ($8.83), smallest ( 6×9 in, 15×23 cm) and shortest (30 pages) as an introduction to why I retired in Costa Rica with 47 photos demonstrating my nature photography here. It’s not exactly a portfolio because of the cheaper paper, but . . . it actually is a cheaper version of a portfolio 🙂 and it also describes the 5 ways I experience nature and share it. As with all my books there is a FREE PREVIEW electronically of all pages in the bookstore at:

https://www.blurb.com/b/10782574-experiencing-nature-retired-in-costa-rica

Or click the front cover image below:

My Newest Book

This will become my “give-away” book to guides, lodges and others here in Costa Rica, since some of my other books are too expensive to keep giving them away as I have been. But I’m still not in the photo-selling or book-selling business. I’m retired! 🙂 I make my photos to share with others online and the books become ways to do that physically on occasions. Prints and wall art are available in my gallery with no profit for me, just a good service of (and profit for) my gallery host. 🙂

And while you’re in my bookstore, check out some of my other photo books! They have free previews too!

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Yellow-bellied Elaenia

Not a new bird for me but the first seen in a long time and not in my yard. Saturday morning I walked up the steep hill above my house where usually near the top there are a lot of birds. Not! I don’t know if it is the time of year, the weather or something else – but I’m just not seeing as many birds this year as in the past, either in my yard or other places like this walk. But I was glad to capture this Elaenia, even if against an overcast white sky! 🙂

Read about the Yellow-bellied Elaenia on eBird, or see my other photos in my personal Yellow-bellied Elaenia Gallery and/or peruse all my CR Birds Gallery.

Here’s my featured shot, then read on for two more different shots . . .

Yellow-bellied Elaenia, Roca Verde, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Banded Skipper?

This is a “general ID” with the book having a full page of different banded skippers, but none show the orange on tail like mine and none with 6 or 7 spots on outer wings like mine, but otherwise matching several of the “Banded Skippers.” See my other photos of this same butterfly in my Banded Skipper Gallery, all from my garden. None of the online sites I studied help me. There are so many species of butterflies in Costa Rica that it could even be one not officially identified or labeled yet. 🙂

Banded Skipper? – Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Banded Skipper? – Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

See my Banded Skipper Gallery for more shots of this butterfly.

Or see all of my CR Butterflies Galleries.

¡Pura Vida!

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Fern on the Rocks?

Along my “Country Lane” extension of Avenida 8 road they at one point cut through rock to make the road and just a week or so ago it looked like this:

On yesterday’s walk I noticed that much of that rock was now covered in a new fern to me that the best I can tell from an internet search is the Delta Maidenhair Fern – Adiantum Raddianum (Wikipedia link). Please correct me if you know better. It was the closest match on the web and I don’t have a fern book! 🙂 Here’s what much of the rock looks like now, followed by a small gallery of more images. Very beautiful plant to me!

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Trees by the Meadow

I’ve often shown the meadow my terrace overlooks and the mountains beyond but maybe not as much of the trees that surround the meadow. Here’s four telephoto shots from my terrace of just trees:

My “Trees by the Meadow,” Atenas, Costa Rica.

“If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.”

― Hal Borland

¡Pura Vida!

For more tree photos, see my Flora & Forest Galleries or the Trees Gallery.

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Learning from a Leaf

In nature everything is always changing and nowhere is that more obvious than in the leaves. Yesterday my attention was grabbed by this small dead leaf curled up in the larger green and very living leaf of a different plant which will soon let it slide on to the ground to renew the life of all the living things around it as the dead leaf becomes nourishment for the other living plants. And what can I learn from this? Maybe about change, like the changes my life continues to surprise me with, and maybe, as this little leaf, I will add nourishment to another life somewhere? 🙂 Learning from nature . . .

“Change”

“Learn character from trees, values from roots and change from leaves”

– Tasneern Harneed

¡Pura Vida!

For more CR Nature Photos: My Gallery

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Green Field

I’m back home for awhile and one of the first contrasts with the big city was the green field across from my house, seen here at ground level . . .

Grazing place for cows, hiding place for Fer-de-lance and a peaceful place for me!

And online I found a poem that expresses some feeling of my front yard “green field,” though I would never lay down in this one with the cow patties and snakes! 🙂

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El Camino de Costa Rica – New Info

A Hiker Guide

One of my blog readers, Patrick, who is thinking about beginning his retirement in Costa Rica (like I should have!) shared with me the just-released new hiking guide available on hiking coast to coast across Costa Rica. It’s first on his agenda here! Are you interested in such a hike?

Available on Amazon as paperback or Kindle edition: El Camino de Costa Rica Hiker Guide

There’s also a newer video of the trail than the one I showed earlier plus more new info on the website and I found a good “Make the Leap” story I’m also linking! 🙂 . . .

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