Category: Garden

Both my gardens and ones I visit

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FAVE BIRDS – Spot-crowned Euphonia

The Spot-crowned Euphonia (eBird description) is a favorite for many reasons, including that this photo is so detailed of the female eating a little berry that even her tongue is showing. 🙂 Plus this bird is endemic to Costa Rica, meaning it is found only here and a few spots over the border in Panama. In my Spot-crowned Euphonia Gallery I have shots from only two places and will link to those places and TRIP GALLERIES in The Backstory below, plus I’m adding a photo of the male so you can see the difference. It was photographed at the same time and place as the female and thus they could be mates.

Spot-crowned Euphonia Female, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Piedras Blancas NP.
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FAVE BIRDS – Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

The Rufous-tailed Hummingbird (eBird description) is definitely the most common hummingbird in my garden, to the point of having chased away other types of hummingbirds. 🙂 And it may be the most common all over Costa Rica or at least I’ve seen it all over! In my Rufous-tailed Hummingbird Gallery you will see my shots from 9 locations in Costa Rica. It is found only in Central America and the northern edges of South America. Because it is found almost everywhere in Costa Rica, I will not link Trip Galleries for this bird but just credit the feature photo and my second favorite Rufous-tailed shot which appears below with the two places linked . . .

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Costa Rica
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FAVE BIRDS – Green-breasted Mango

The Green-breasted Mango (eBird description) is a type of Hummingbird found only in Central America and northern South America. My Green-breasted Mango Gallery has photos from three locations in Costa Rica. The featured photo of a female is not particularly good photography, but I like it because I caught her looking right into the camera at my eye-level which I’m seldom ever able to do! 🙂 Read more about this shot and the places I’ve seen this bird under The Backstory below.

Green-breasted Mango Female, Dave & Dave’s Nature Park Sarapiqui, La Virgen, Costa Rica
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FAVE BIRDS – Great Kiskadee

Not exotic but one of the most often seen birds across Costa Rica is the Great Kiskadee (eBirds link) and I have a lot of photos of them in My Great Kiskadee Gallery, but I still can’t tell you what makes him “great.” 🙂 And be forewarned that I still get them confused with the Social Flycatcher (looks the same but is technically smaller) and some of the other flycatchers that are the same colors.

Great Kiskadee, Xandari Nature Resort, Alajuela, Costa Rica

I don’t really have a “Backstory” for this bird or this photo and since the locations where found are pretty much “everywhere in Costa Rica,” I will not link to trip galleries where I have photographed them. But you might want to see in my bird galleries some of the ones that are often confused with the Great Kiskadee and hey! Some of these photos might even be mis-labeled. 🙂 I really do get them confused!:

¡Pura Vida!

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Indigenous Meditation?

Ever since the gardeners broke my fragile pottery bird in my garden I have intended to replace it with a more substantial or concrete art and finally did that this week. This particular meditating indigenous man statue is one I’ve seen in some of the lodges I visit and liked, but not available in Atenas or even in the viveros (plant nurseries) of La Garita. My gardener sent me to an outdoor arts business on the outskirts of Naranjo de Alajuela and there I found depictions of the indigenous people of Costa Rica.

I haven’t found out yet if he is intended to be “the thinker” or someone in “some kind of meditation,” but the art style (copied of course) is similar to the Pre-Columbian Diquís Culture statues as a part of the Meso-American Pacific Culture. I like it and think it adds a touch of calm and history or maybe even spirituality to my garden. It is made of concrete, thus not as likely to be broken! 🙂

Pre-Columbian Meso-American Style Statue, Costa Rica
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Green

The response to yesterday’s blog post “Verdure” has been good and of course that older English word refers to the “green” in nature. One response caused me to look up quotes about “green in nature” and there were so many good ones! I limited myself to sharing just three:

“For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green.”

– J. R. R. Tolkien

“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.”

– Pedro Calderon de la Barca

 “Nature in her green, tranquil woods heals and soothes all afflictions.”

– John Muir
Fern

¡Pura Vida!

🙂

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Verdure

Verdure = the fresh green color of vegetation.

Verdure
Hugging me
Daily

Upon
My terrace
Fresh, Green
Seeing
The garden
Colors
Feeling
The Garden 
Tranquil

“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”

—Jane Austen

¡Pura Vida!

More CR Nature Haiku

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Two-barred Flasher Butterfly

This is my second sighting of this bright turquoise fellow, this time INSIDE my house! There are better photos made in the garden this same time of year, two years ago in my Two-barred Flasher Gallery. Here’s two cellphone shots of one on my kitchen counter.

Two-barred Flasher
Two-barred Flasher

¡Pura Vida!

See all my Costa Rica Butterflies Galleries, 130+ species.

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The Hobbit Re-read

“I’m going on an adventure!”  said Bilbo Baggins

~JRR Tolkien in The Hobbit

Only great books deserve “re-reading” and The Hobbit (Wikipedia link), the 1937 published book by JRR Tolkien, is certainly one of those! I just finished reading it again on my Kindle and of course discovered “new stuff” not in my memory! He pretty much introduces a new character or creature in every chapter and then brings them all back together for the epic “Battle of Five Armies” at the end of the story.

Cover of The Hobbit on Kindle.

I will not write a full or formal review but just share some first impressions and personal feelings on the re-read of a favorite book, which I followed by a re-watch of the 3-movies version of the book . . .

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