Category: Trees

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East Coast Sunset?

Welllll . . . sort of. The sun seemed to be setting in the northwest last night and by shooting north along the beach I got some reflected light in sky and lots of shadows from the rainforest trees on the beach. 🙂 Late afternoon is nice light anywhere and the sky is nice, even in the second shot where I shot due east over the Atlantic! But I probably won’t try that again here. It was not like Tambor Bay beach that curves and you can get both sunset and sunrise there if in the right places. 🙂 And here – I’m just a retired old man playing with my camera! 🙂

Shooting North
Shooting East

¡Pura Vida!

My Sunrises/Sunsets GALLERY.

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Learning How Small I Am . . .

“Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you are.”

— Felix Baumgartner

One of my many joys of traveling across Costa Rica is occasionally getting to fly in the small planes for 20 to 40 minute flights and seeing this beautiful country from above and yes, learning how small I am as I look down! 🙂 I have so many photos from the plane this morning that it was hard to pare them down to just these 5 shots. I will use some of the other shots in the eventual photo gallery of this trip. We stopped in Tortuguero on our way to Limon. Enjoy the thrill of flying with me . . .

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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). 🙂

Great-tailed Grackle Young Male, Atenas
Great-tailed Grackle Young Male, Atenas

 “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.

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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! 🙂

Orange-chinned Parakeets stop over on their way to their roosting tree up the hill.
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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!

Anthurium Leaf

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 . . .

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“The Best Art”

“Land really is the best art.”

—Andy Warhol
  • Land as Art
  • Land as Art
  • Land as Art
  • Land as Art
The Hills Surrounding, Atenas, Costa Rica from my terrace.

“We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.”

– John Muir

¡Pura Vida!

The four photos today were made on the last two mornings, 2-each, from my terrace of some of the hills surrounding Atenas Pueblo in Alajuela Province, Costa Rica. You can see more of my Terrace Vistas in that linked gallery or go for all the many different CR Vistas. 🙂

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Imagining Shapes in the Garden

Earthquake Tremors

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) 🙂

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My Magical Tree’s Gone

One of the most recognized trees in the tropics of Central and South America is the Cecropia Tree or Guarumo in Central American vernacular. During my first year in this house (2015) I planted one not a lot taller than me. (Photo at right.) As one of the fastest growing trees it is now about twice the height of my house. I called it “magical” because in the early years it attracted so many different kinds of birds including toucans along with the resident squirrels and symbiotic ants.

The Cecropia is the Center tree or left of the big palm. Most limbs now above the house.

But now the tree has grown so much that I’ve lost my magic! 🙁 Most of the limbs, leaves and flowers are now above the house! (Above photo.) That means the birds now land in the tree above my sight-line and I would have to climb up the steep hill above my house to see any birds that perch in it. 🙁 See photos below for the Terrace Views, then and now:

  • First years from Terrace.
  • Now from Terrace.
What was my “Bird Gallery” has grown above the house! 🙂

So with this post I’m saying goodbye to the easy magic of my Guarumo or Cecropia tree by sharing photos of birds photographed in it over the past years. Apologies if you remember a similar post back in 2019 on the birds in this tree, but this one is bigger and a sort of finale! 🙂

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Mid-Morning Flutters

After breakfast, Spanish Class, and some reading I decided to walk through my garden with the camera at a little after 9 AM. For a long time the birds have been scarce and the butterflies up and down, but in about 20 minutes this morning I photographed 2 birds and 7 different butterflies all fluttering through my gardens and trying to avoid me and my camera. All nine photos are in a slide show at the bottom of the post with the featured photo at top being a Southern Broken-Dash Skipper and the photo below a Yellow-rimmed Skipper. The garden was alive this morning! 🙂

Yellow-rimmed Skipper
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REVISED BOOK: Bosque del Cabo

When I saw what the photos looked like printed on plain paper, I decided that I could not let my photos go out looking that bad. The other book is no longer available in my Bookstore, replaced by this more expensive book printed on Premium Lustre Gloss Photo Paper for a totally different visual experience! Generally the public does not buy any of my photo books, but rather I order them to give to the lodges or to individuals as gifts. But just in case someone orders one, I want my simple photos to look their best! 🙂 And yes, you pay for it! 🙂

You may see a Free Preview of every page at this address or by clicking the cover image below: https://www.blurb.com/b/10815951-bosque-del-cabo

Click book cover above for Free Preview.

¡Pura Vida!