So many and so much color! Here’s a sample photo and then read on for the slide show of 19 different flowers.
Flowers of Banana Azul
Wood-Rail Bath Time!
Yesterday afternoon three of the juvenile Gray-cowled Wood-Rails lined up at the pond to splash in the water for their bath. Note the sister waiting for her two brothers to finish first in the series of 4 photos below.
Poan Skipper
Yes, I had a photo of this butterfly not too long ago, but this one looks a little different and it is my last garden share before the Caribe trip. Just two shots and my first of one flying.
“Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine.”
-Jeffrey Glassberg
¡Pura Vida!
ID is from book: A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffrey Glassberg.
Great-tailed Grackle
Yesterday morning I heard some bird making a racket or singing a not-too-melodious song. I walked out on the terrace and found this young Grackle male moving from limb to limb in my Guarumo (Cecropia) tree chattering away. These two shots show that he is probably a younger male since he is not as large as most male Great-tailed Grackles nor was his tail that “great” like the bigger males. His tail will grow! 🙂
With his smaller size I almost thought he was a Melodious Blackbird, but his song was not “melodious” (which theirs really is) and the yellow eye (instead of black) cinched him as a Great-tailed Grackle, teen or young adult male (perhaps looking for a female which is brown in color). 🙂
“Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.”
—George Santanaya
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See my Great-tailed Grackle Gallery.
And the eBird description of him.
Orange-chinned Parakeets
I hear these guys flying over my house most afternoons when it’s not raining hard but they seldom stop on their way up the hill to their roosting tree at my friend Dan’s house. Yesterday afternoon, before the rain started, they flew over and stopped for a little rest and grooming in a neighbor’s tree. I got a few shots, though not good with the overcast sky. But as bad as the photos are, they’re my nature shots for today! 🙂
This first shot is of the tree showing several scattered throughout and then I follow with a gallery of 6 individual birds or couples, with one couple cutely snuggling! 🙂
Whispering from Every Leaf . . .
“There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky.”
― Dejan Stojanovic
And I have always considered every leaf an individual work of art – O so many beautiful canvases!
Yesterday I was motivated by another blog to go photograph leaves. Below is that collection of 14 “Art Masterpieces” by God Himself! Fourteen totally different leaves in my garden . . .
Continue reading “Whispering from Every Leaf . . .”Looking Up!
Yesterday it was afternoon before looking for something to photograph. The morning blue sky and fluffy white clouds were gone, so I looked up the other direction behind my house, up the hill where others live and to the beauty of their gardens above my Monstera seen below! 🙂
“Look up on high, and thank the God of all.”
~Geoffrey Chaucer
Here’s the 4 shots of LOOKING UP at nature from my garden!
Continue reading “Looking Up!”El Bastón del Emperador
I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness;
Psalm 7:17
I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High.
This Spanish name of what English-speakers call “Torch Ginger” flower, “El bastón del emperador” has stuck with me from my first hearing of it. The English translation is “The Emperor’s staff” (or king’s scepter). And since most of the time I have at least one blooming in my gardens, it is a reminder of who my king is and my early pledges to follow Jesus as my life guide, ruler and “King” if you please. And what better “scepter or staff” for Him than a beautiful tropical flower! 🙂 Here’s the one blooming this weekend:
Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.For the Lord is the great God,
Psalm 95:1-3
the great King above all gods
¡Pura Vida!
Nothing is Really Small
Almost alone in the garden yesterday morning were 2 or 3 of these tiny butterflies, the size of my thumbnail, flitting from flower to flower. Nature never ceases to amaze! 🙂 The English name of this one is the Double-White Satyr. (Link to my gallery of more photos.)
Nothing is really small; whoever is open to the deep penetration of nature knows this.
~Victor Hugo
¡Pura Vida!
Imagining Shapes in the Garden
Sometimes it is fun to look for something different as I walk through my garden, and yesterday I was looking for shapes, patterns or textures. Naturally, with different imaginations we all see different things, whether it be in the clouds or the plants! 🙂 So see what shapes, patterns or textures you find in these plant photos . . . (share in Comments if you wish) 🙂
Continue reading “Imagining Shapes in the Garden”