Category: Nature

My profession is to always find God in nature.

– Henry David Thoreau

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My Spanish Classes

My mornings are spent at Tico Lingo Language School where I am not up to speed with the classroom of students in their 20’s for 4 hours a day so they placed me with a private tutor for 3 hours a day which of course is better for me. The featured photo is of my Professora Ana. Below are more photos of the house converted into a school and where I spend my mornings this week. It is a trial week for me to see if this kind of immersion language study will work for me. If so I will continue more later.

At Tico Lingo

 

Art in the School

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They are all tourist souvenir art work, and yes, if it were me I would stretch those fabrics tight and mount them level, but that is not my job! And the high school and college kids who are most of their customers couldn’t care less!   🙂

Today after class I went to lunch at a different Soda for another Casado with one of the 20-somethings in the other class (to where he wanted to go) and he treated me! He acted amazed that an 80 year old was doing this. So? He ate fast and took an Uber to see his Costa Rican girlfriend called a “Novia” here. I walked around downtown again today and stopped for an ice cream cone, then walked back to my student boarding house where I make this post!   🙂   Tomorrow is a bigger treat as I go to Toucan Rescue Ranch in the afternoon.

And of course I have a “Trip Gallery” of photos from this week, titled:

2020 February 22-28 — Heredia for Spanish Immersion

 

¡Pura Vida!

FYI:     Costa Rica Is The Second Best Destination In The World For Foreign Investment In Tourism

 

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Birds on Tarcoles River

Our trip to the river Thursday yielded more species of birds than any other of my now 9 trips on the Tarcoles River! I got photos of 35 species and know we saw several others, but I only count my photos!   🙂   And this was in less than 2 hours on the river! A good place for birding!

It has been a difficult and rushed job to get the photos ready to post while also getting ready for my trip Sunday to Heredia for Spanish Immersion! I’m only including one shot of each bird in this post, but for more of each bird plus crocs, other wildlife, and other photos, see my “TRIP GALLERY”  2020 Feb 20, Rio Tarcoles Birding Trip for more photos!

CLICK AN IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT

Rio Tarcoles Birds

 

“TRIP GALLERY”  2020 Feb 20, Rio Tarcoles Birding Trip

¡Pura Vida!

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Black Skimmer

My lifer bird this morning on a trip to nearby Tarcoles River was a Black Skimmer. Read an Overview about them on Cornell’s “All About Birds.”

I took two new friends from British Columbia there this morning and we saw way more than 30 species of birds and I think I got around that many photographed! I’m still working on the photos, but maybe a full report tomorrow.   🙂

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Highway West Going 4 Lanes!

You spoiled Americans may say, “So what?” but this is a really big deal here in Costa Rica! For years Ruta 3 was the only route from San Jose to the west coast, a narrow, 2-lane, winding mountain road that went right through downtown Atenas (when travelers got to see this charming little town) and then over another set of mountains & one-lane bridges to Puntarenas and Jaco Beaches.

Ten+ years ago they finished an outdated toll road called Ruta 27 from San Jose to Puntarenas with a side branch to Jaco Beaches, much straighter through the mountains but unfortunately most was still just 2 lanes and all the bridges are 2-lane!  🙂  There are 3rd lanes or “passing lanes” on many of the uphill sections to help get around slow trucks, but that is it! Poor planning for the long-term future! See the operator’s video on Ruta 27.

Now it seems the legislature has approved a coming upgrade to widen Ruta 27 to 4 lanes all the way to Puntarenas and Jaco – a huge improvement for those who drive this busy route when it is finally finished, though they are not even starting until 2021! Read all that I know about it on the “Live in Costa Rica Blog” article. 

And for those fewer people like me who really like the Atlantic Coast or Caribe as we call it here, you probably know that the widening of Ruta 32 from San Jose to Limon (the flat part beyond the big mountain range) was approved a long time ago and is being widened to 4 lanes right now. It is an easier, quicker job after you get through the mountains of Braulio Carrillo because of the flat land between Guapiles & Limon and I assume they will eventually widen it through the mountains too. Both of these widened routes are important not only for retirees and tourists but especially for commercial trucks delivering goods from our two big shipping ports of Limon & Puntarenas to warehouses in San Jose.

In smaller, poorer countries like Costa Rica this kind of “progress” is slow & expensive, but sure as in this case. I don’t want us to become “too big” or “too developed” but one main highway from coast to coast is a good thing for everyone, though you will sure miss seeing a lot when you zoom by!  🙂   And it passes on the outskirts of Atenas just like the old coast to coast train did in a previous century.  🙂     ¡Así es la vida!

¡Pura Vida!

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.    ~Charles Kuralt

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Country Lane Birds & More!

20200209_072404_001-A-WEBIn an earlier post I introduced you to the little 5 km country lane behind our Roca Verde development and along the stream by that cow pasture in front of my house. It is called Calle Nueva which would be simply “New Street” in English and the 2018 blog post was titled  Finishing the country road walk today . . .   Then later I added a photo gallery: Walking Calle Nueva Atenas 2018.    Same photos!

Yesterday I walked part of the road more slowly than I did with young man Jason Quesada back then. It was with another older person who is a birder from Canada! Totally different! We saw more than 15 species of birds just behind where I live and here are a few photos of some of them! Even got one lifer on this walk of about 2 hours, the Black-crowned Tityra, both male & female! CLICK A PHOTO TO ENLARGE.

And apologies for several washed out pictures with white sky. That was because I was not paying attention to details and accidentally turned the dial to “Manual” without setting the manual settings and wasn’t looking at the images on screen! Ugh! Sloppy old man!

Birds on Calle Nueva

 

Interesting Flowers on Walk

 

 

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Mountain Farm Vista on Calle Nueva.

 

Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong.

~John Denver

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Gray & Yellow Mornings

Gray-crowned Yellowthroat

Both yesterday and today I went out around my house looking for birds about 6:20 to 6:40 AM, before breakfast. Both mornings I found birds with gray heads and yellow fronts! Yesterday (before going to Bosque Municipal) I got distant shots of the above Gray-crowned Yellowthroat (link is to Cornell’s “Neo-Tropical Birds”) seen in the cow pasture across the street from my house, my first of this species here, though I got better photos at Curi-Cancha Reserve, Monteverde last year, also in a meadow. Check ’em out!

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Gray-crowned Yellowthroat (different photo) in cow pasture in front of my house.

Gray-capped Flycatcher

A more common or more frequently seen-by-me-bird is this common flycatcher which has gray & yellow coloring like the above but is much larger. To learn more about him from Cornell’s “Neo-Tropical Birds,” click this name link, Gray-capped Flycatcher or go see my Gray-capped Flycatcher Photo Gallery (better photos than this). There are around 50 different species of birds here labeled some kind of “Flycatcher,” so a lot of variety! And yes, they do eat flies and other insects!    🙂

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Gray-capped Flycatcher, in my garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica

 

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

― Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds

¡Pura Vida!

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Bosque Municipal Atenas

Central Park is not the only park in Atenas! We have a sports park in front of the elementary school, a public soccer field separately down the street and a public swimming pool! I have shown much of the sports park and mentioned the others, but the most important one for me is one I had never entered until today – Bosque Municipal Atenas – Atenas Municipal Forest.

20200206_064512-A-WEBMy friend from British Columbia wanted to go and I always have, so we went together to our “nature park” or forest for birds this morning. It is five miles west on Ruta 3 at Vista Linda or the edge of Barrio Jesus, on the right-hand side of the highway with multiple signs and two entrances. The main entrance is near the second sign or further up the mountain at the big community soccer field across the highway from Vista Linda Restaurant & Bar. Just walk around to the other side of the soccer field. Our first taxi driver knew nothing about it but was glad for the $13 one-way taxi drive!   🙂   The taxi that picked us up was very familiar with it, meaning that some people are into nature and others are not!   🙂

Well, we went for birds, especially the Long-tailed Manakin that definitely lives there and we heard their songs many times (toledo, toledo, toledo) but never was close enough to one for a photo. In fact the above Keel-billed Toucan is the only decent bird photo I got with efforts at some tiny birds and a blurry Woodcreeper. Maybe next time!  🙂   BUT, we saw lots of butterflies and below are 5 species I got shots of, some are new species for me.

5 Butterfly Species

Trail-head Signs

I did not get shots of the two highway signs – sorry!

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One of many huge old trees in this dense forest.

See my Butterfly Gallery (nearly 100 species!) or other parts of Atenas in my Atenas Gallery.   Or just go for ALL!   🙂

And though I didn’t photograph any here, I have a gallery of my Long-tailed Manakin shots.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.    ~Henry David Thoreau

¡Pura Vida!

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Costa Rica by Bus

Someone recently asked me about getting around the country by bus and I think I referred them to the Bus Schedule website which lists all of the option when you type in the “From” and “To” spaces on that website with all bus companies included.

Well, I forgot about an even better help beyond schedules, the Facebook Group Page Costa Rica by Bus on which you can post a question (may have to join group first) and some of the many people who travel by bus will share their experiences and advice. And of course they also recommend the bus schedule site above. And by the way, that bus in photo above is the one I took to Turrialba.

I plan to go to a birding lodge near San Isidro del General in May, so anticipate my report on that bus experience then. I use the bus almost weekly to go from Atenas to Alajuela for many different reasons and have gone to San Jose by bus many times. Some of my other bus adventures have been (with links to photo galleries):

All of this was to simply say that you can travel on a “shoestring budget” and see a lot of Costa Rica whether you live here or visiting. Buses are cheap here! That is the way most Ticos travel! And you can do it without the Spanish language, though much easier and a richer experience if you speak at least a little Spanish.

Now, as a retiree who has made seeing all of Costa Rica my main activity, I do not do everything the budget-way and love to go the longer distances on Sansa Airlines or to places less than 3 hours from Atenas by my favorite driver here in Atenas, but I do not have a car and have basically quit renting cars because of the high insurance cost, thus seeing Costa Rica by bus is one option I still use when I consider it the most practical way. The next bus report comes in May!   🙂

“Live with no excuses and travel with no regrets”    ~ Oscar Wilde

I just realized that I did a similar post in 2017, Seeing Costa Rica by Bus   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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02-02-2020

Just had to write this unique date down! It is one of the few dates that works for both Americans who write the month first and all the rest of the world who write the day first! Plus it just looks cool! All those twos and zeros! Say it like this:  “O-two O-two, two-O two-O”     🙂

POSTSCRIPT: Larry Yarborough wrote in the comments below what I did not know about this unique date:

FROM AXIOS:

Today’s date is a rare eight-digit palindrome (reads same, forward and backward), 02/02/2020 — the only one of its kind this century:
Aziz Inan, a University of Portland (Ore.) professor who has a website chronicling 500 years’ worth of palindromes, tells the Post about today’s rare configuration — where both MM/DD/YEAR and DD/MM/YEAR are palindromes.

“The previous eight-digit palindrome like this was 11/11/1111, 909 years ago. We’ll only have to wait another 101 years for 12/12/2121.”
? P.S. Today is “the 33rd day of the year, which is followed by 333 more days.”     ~Thanks to Larry Yarborough for sharing this Axios Post!

The feature photo is of the cow pasture and tree line along a little stream across from my house. This morning at 6 I decided to walk over along that tree line with my camera looking for morning birds – nada! Not a one! As has been the case the other times I tried that very “birdy-looking” area. The water in the stream is quite polluted (gray water from houses nearby) which may be the reason for no birds or it was windy this morning, though that time of year. And I’ve never heard of cows scaring birds! But not one bird over there! (Maybe snakes?) I do better just sitting on my terrace! Though walking uphill like I did yesterday is even better! I will do that more often!

The dove below was on the power line in front of my house and the shot of something burning nearby was the only photo I made from the cow pasture. Sugar cane farmers are burning the remains of their fields after the harvest this month or occasionally someone burns trash, though they are not suppose to in the dry season!  🙂   ¡Pura vida!

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White-winged Dove on power line in front of my house looking at the cow pasture.
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Someone burning something nearby, as seen from the cow pasture.

 

Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.    ~Khalil Gibran

 

¡Pura Vida!

02-02-2020