Category: Nature

My profession is to always find God in nature.

– Henry David Thoreau

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My Christmas Treat

Tomorrow morning early I fly Sansa south to the Palmar Sur Airport south of Uvita and then back north by car to Uvita where I’m doing a repeat visit to the Hotel Cristal Ballena (Hotel site link) on a hill overlooking Uvita’s Whale-watching bay on the Pacific Coast (feature photo & one below). I will not be quite as active as I was on my last trip there: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita (link to my trip gallery). The photos from then will show you what a wonderful place it is to just hang out at the hotel and hike in their private rainforest not to mention all the nearby sights! December-February is the time for Humpback Whales from South America to be there, so I might get to see & photo one! 🙂

I have an Ocean View Room!

And here’s just two of the wildlife I photographed from my room terrace last time . . .

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Bye to My Garden for a Few Days

The Yellow Bells have started blooming and maybe the Triquitraque will be when I return with two little blooms already. My stone indigenous guard will watch over all while I’m gone! 🙂 It is always a pleasure to return to my own garden, a different pleasure than the adventure of travel. I love both!

Yellow Bells blooming now.
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Strangler Fig

I daily encounter the huge Strangler Fig Tree by my house and almost daily the one on the road in front of my house by the cow pasture. The Wikipedia article gives the broader information about the many different tropical ficus trees with the common name of “Strangler Fig.” I am not able to identify which ficus tree it is in my yard and down the road by the cow pasture. They both seem to be typical of others I’ve seen on my travels across the country, but I will not try to guess the species and online searches only confuses me inf my ID effort! 🙂

The feature photo at top is the horizontal view of the one in my yard as seen from the corner of my terrace and below is a vertical shot from my terrace and another from within my yard closer. Though you cannot see it in these photos, it, like all this species, strangled a smaller tree that now has just one limb living. It will likely also overtake another little tree between it and the street.

Strangler Fig from My Terrace
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Costa Rica Brown Skipper

Or one of the many other brown skippers! 🙂 This one was on the glass-top table on my terrace this morning and I snapped him/her with my cellphone. Interesting and my first for this particular species.

Costa Rica Brown Skipper
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My “Hill Walk” Vista

Well, just one of many vistas from the hill above my house, but one of my favorite, the hilltop farm of the local farmers’ university here in Atenas, usually covered in cows. 🙂

Hilltop Farm next door to Roca Verde Residential Community.

And that’s the last photo to share from my “Walk up the Hill!” 🙂 Just 4 more days before I go to a Pacific Coast resort south of here for Christmas where I will do daily “same day” reports on that part of my paradise! 🙂 Happy Holidays!

¡Pura Vida!

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Tropical Kingbird

This is the last bird I will show from that nice morning walk up my hill with camera in hand! It is the fairly common Tropical Kingbird (eBird description link) and of course I have a lot more photos in my Tropical Kingbird Gallery from 18 different locations in Costa Rica! 🙂

Tropical Kingbird, Atenas, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica

Costa Rica is issuing a new Sloth Postage Stamp. ~Tico Times article 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Cloud Cuckoo Land a Must-read for . . .

. . . lovers of stories, books and libraries – the 3 main characters in this multi-layered story of totally different people from the 1450’s all the way through 2020 and to the future in 2164, all impacted by this fictitious lost and found story by a very early Greek writer who called his story “Cloud Cuckoo Land” (in Classical Greek of course!). It touches on so many life issues and about our own future on earth that I won’t try to list them all. You move between the stories of totally different people (ages 12 to 86) affected by Cloud Cuckoo Land (the Greek novel) in Constantinople (1450’s), Bulgaria (1450’s), Idaho (1940’s to 2020), Korea (1950’s), and outer space (2164) so that like his “All the Light” book (just 2 overlapping stories) you can get confused at first (if not more so). Eventually the many complicated pieces of the puzzle start coming together and you too begin to get what all these others are getting from Cloud Cuckoo Land. It is more multi-layered than Anthony Doerr’s previous classic All the Light We Cannot See (Goodreads Reviews), but just as impactful (if not more so) and will certainly become another classic! I highly recommend both books! 🙂

Read some other Goodreads Reviews of this NY Times best seller, Cloud Cuckoo Land. Now I will simplify my reading escapes with another Agatha Christie mystery! 🙂 Rest my simple mind which is still spinning from this read. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Gray-headed Chachalaca

The “resident big bird” in Roca Verde neighborhood with a lot of them is the Gray-headed Chachalaca (eBird description link) and you can see some of my many photos from here and other locations in Costa Rica in my Gray-headed Chachalaca Gallery.

Gray-headed Chachalaca, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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The Other Grosbeak on this Walk

Earlier I shared my shots of the Blue Grosbeak female from this same walk up the hill, now a couple of shots of a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak (eBird description link) which doesn’t have the “rose breast” that the male has, and I saw no males of either of these grosbeaks today. You can see my other photos of both male and female in my Rose-breasted Grosbeak Gallery seen earlier here near my house plus at Monteverde and at Xandari Resort Alajuela and as with most birds, the male is more colorful. 🙂

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Female, Atenas, Costa Rica
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White-winged Dove

This White-winged Dove (eBird description) is the most common in my neighborhood closely followed by the Inca Dove. Its a beautiful bird and you can see more of my photos of him in my White-winged Dove Gallery from all over Costa Rica!

White-winged Dove, Atenas, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!