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There may not be anything in my garden I haven’t already shared but I keep trying for some “New Looks” as I walk through it daily.
See My Garden Gallery or the bigger Flora & Forest Gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
Costa Rica’s President Alvarado talks with President-elect Biden about the urgency of both the Pandemic and Climate Change. A Tico Times article. Thankfully we prioritize the important things here!
¡Pura Vida!
On the bird walk Sunday with my big camera I got a few nice flowers to share with the last one an Anthurium in my garden which I also show.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
– Audrey Hepburn
See also my Flora & Forests of Costa Rica Gallery.
The Hurricane Iota rains started yesterday afternoon in Atenas which we expect to continue day and night for 3 or 4 days, but at least no big winds here. The now Category 4 Hurricane is slamming into Nicaragua and Honduras and could go straight through to the Pacific Coast and little El Salvador and/or turn north for Mexico & the U.S. For English weather updates on conditions here in Costa Rica, see TicoTimes.
¡Pura Vida!
Mountains – Mist, fog, cloud – Shrouding
Merriam-Webster defines “bewitching” as “powerfully or seductively attractive or charming” which well-describes the effect of over 900 species of birds in Costa Rica on me, along with my love of alliterations! 🙂
I usually photograph more birds than this at Xandari, but with rain and fog blanketing that mountain most of the time this past weekend, I got usable photos of only 9 species, but as indicated yesterday, I made up the difference with butterflies and flowers! 🙂 I’m never without something to photograph at Xandari! 🙂
No new species this time, but as always, I love trying to get a different view, perspective, or activity of a bird to make my bird galleries more interesting. CLICK image to enlarge.
Meet some of the Xandari family . . .
¡Pura Vida!
I return to my home in Atenas today but will have more posts about this weekend trip to Xandari and a gallery of the best photos from the weekend posted by the end of the week. In the meantime you might be interested in some of my other Costa Rica Travel galleries at CR Trips. Some of my Tico friends tell me that I’ve seen more of their home country than they have. I love it all!
🙂
The subtitle of my newest travel book is “When you look through the eyes of a child” describing how I tried to present this photo-travel book on Maquenque Eco-Lodge and Reserve. Yes – it is in Spanish this time but for you English-only people, don’t worry! All the photo captions are in both languages and the poem from which I got the subtitle is also in both languages, and here it is in English:
“Everything seemed possible,
when I looked through the eyes of a child.
And every once in a while;
I remember,
I still have the chance to be that wild.”
― Nikki Rowe
It’s a photo book with 141 photos, including photos of the 61 species of birds I got this visit. THE ELECTRONIC PREVIEW IS FREE, so go to this link or click the cover image below and you can see all 92 pages of the book for free! Of course full-screen is best for photos! 🙂
https://www.blurb.com/b/10228384-maquenque-m-gico
Or just for the downloadable photos, go to my “Trip Gallery” titled:
2020 June 30–July 6- Maquenque Eco-Lodge & Reserve
¡Pura Vida!
“Nature as Art” was the name of my little photo business for a few years in Nashville and I was reminded of that theme during my week at Maquenque with lots of “little things” I photographed and enjoyed just seeing! 🙂
As much as I love most art, no artist can compete with the creative handiwork of God in Nature!
All art is but imitation of nature.
~Seneca the Younger
For more of Maquenque “Nature as Art” see these galleries:
or
¡Pura Vida!
My last bird post from Maquenque is two of the largest and most frequently seen groups of birds – Flycatchers and the more colorful Tanagers. Enjoy! And to see all of the bird species I saw on this trip to Maquenque, go to the Maquenque 2020 BIRDS Gallery or better yet, see all my June-July 2020 Maquenque Photos! 🙂
Below, please CLICK an image to enlarge.
See my Maquenque Birds 2020 Gallery from this trip with 61 species!
See also my Costa Rica Birds Gallery. 343 species!
And for more about the place: Maquenque Eco-Lodge & Reserve Website.
Or my travel gallery Maquenque Eco-Lodge July 2020 Visit.
And a new website: Visit Boca Tapada with info on all the lodges there.
And now I’ll get back to photos and reports about life here in Atenas, Costa Rica where everyday life is far from boring! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
I got all three of the Saltators found in this part of the country with only one other species (Streaked Saltator) found only in the southwest corner of Costa Rica around the Osa Peninsula and the only one I’ve not photographed.
Plus I got 4 of the many types of “blackbirds” here. And if you didn’t see the post about a Oropendola mother raising a blackbird, you might want to read A BLM Example in Nature. CLICK image to enlarge.
See my Maquenque Birds 2020 Gallery from this trip with 61 species!
See also my Costa Rica Birds Gallery.
And for more about the place: Maquenque Eco-Lodge & Reserve Website.
Or my travel gallery Maquenque Eco-Lodge July 2020 Visit
¡Pura Vida!
“Big” is somewhat relative, but just another way to group my bird photos from a week at Maquenque Eco-Lodge and Reserve. I used two photos of the common Turkey Vulture to show the easiest way to tell the difference in him and the Black Vulture – the white on the underside of the Turkey Vulture goes all the way across and the white on bottom of Black Vulture is only on the tips of the wings. The Red and Gray Heads are another way, but not always clearly visible and as seen here the red is not always very obvious.
And the Featured Image is a Laughing Falcon, one of my favorite big bird, just hard to get close to for a great photo, but I have a few times as you can see in my CR Birds Gallery.
CLICK image to enlarge.
See my Maquenque Birds 2020 Gallery from this trip with 61 species!
See also my Costa Rica Birds Gallery.
And for about the place, Maquenque Eco-Lodge & Reserve Website.
Or my travel gallery Maquenque Eco-Lodge July 2020 Visit
¡Pura Vida!
There are two species of Oropendolas common in Cost Rica and at Maquenque, the Montezuma Oropendola (3 photos here) and the less common Chestnut-headed Oropendola (1 photo here). There are two more Oropendolas in Central America, both in Panama with the Crested Oropendola occasionally coming over the border into southern Costa Rica and the Black Oropendola is found only further in southern Panama. Male & female appear the same in all Oropendolas.
This week at Maquenque I observed a mother Montezuma Oropendola feeding a baby or juvenile blackbird (either a Melodious Blackbird or a Giant Cowbird if the eye is red like some said). It was interesting to watch and the pair are in one photo below and I featured them in a post while I was there titled A BLM Example in Nature.
CLICK an image to enlarge or start a manual slide show.
See my Maquenque Birds 2020 Gallery from this trip with 61 species!
See also my Costa Rica Birds Gallery.
And for about the place, Maquenque Eco-Lodge & Reserve Website.
Or my travel gallery Maquenque Eco-Lodge July 2020 Visit
¡Pura Vida!
