Category: Trees

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Pruned My Yellow Bells Again

To maintain a vista from my terrace I have to top or prune off the top of both my Yellow Bells Tree and my Nance Tree about once a year.

I asked the gardener to write down the official name in Spanish which is “Arbole de vainillo” (Costa Rica only name – click for español description and other Spanish names by country). I just discovered that the Latin name Tecoma stans  (click for English description) also has multiple English names listed in this order on Wikipedia: Yellow Trumpetbush, Yellow Bells (which I have been calling it because of the yellow bell-shaped flowers), Yellow Elder, and Ginger-Thomas. It is the official flower of the United States Virgin Islands and the floral emblem of The Bahamas, both using different names!

Topped the Yellow Bell & Nance Trees to preserve my vista.   🙂

And is very popular all over Costa Rica as a garden tree bringing 2-4 months of yellow flowers every year. You can see more photos of my trees blooming in my photo gallery named:  My Home Gardens.

 

“In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends.”
~Okakura Kakuzo
¡Pura Vida!
See my photo galleries  Flora & Forest  and  Vistas for more of life here!

Trip Gallery

And the trip gallery is finished for my week-ago trip at:

October & November Adventures

Coming in October: A visit to Rincón de la Vieja National Park & Hacienda Guachipelin, a volcano park lodge, this one in the north of Guanacaste, above Liberia (a new area for me)  and another hotel that promises a great birding experience. I continue to try new places while occasionally repeating favorites like a redo of Arenal Observatory (another volcano birding lodge) coming in November. In Costa Rica – the adventures never end!
¡Pura Vida!
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Hotel Grounds – Cristal Ballena

Included are shots from their “Rainforest Trail” which is a fairly dense forest with a lot of old growth big trees which is refreshing but difficult to photograph birds in because of all the limbs and leaves!   🙂

I did not show my room this time but the rooms are on the hill just above the restaurant and pool seen at top of feature photo above or in the pool photo below at upper left. Rooms 10-14 look directly over the ocean and sunsets, while other rooms like mine have garden views with partial ocean views. (My room views are seen in gallery Day Vistas.) I got more birds from my garden view but the premium rooms have better sunset views (cost more) and with clouds & rain every afternoon in rainy season there is not much sunset to see. See the hotel website for more information at   https://www.cristal-ballena.com/

Cristal Ballena Hotel, Uvita

CLICK Image to Enlarge

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”
― Lord Byron

For more photos see my Cristal Ballena Trip Gallery

¡Pura Vida!

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Vistas

And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.

~John Muir

Day Vistas

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Sunset Vistas

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All from a week at Cristal Ballena Hotel, Uvita

See also my Ballena Trip Gallery  for ocean & river vistas.

Bonus Article

From the “Live in Costa Rica Blog”   —  What is the best way to do one’s due diligence for retiring or living in Costa Rica?

¡Pura Vida!

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Active Sloth

An oxymoron? Maybe, because they do sleep about 80% of their time and for why you will have to read about sloths on Wikipedia – the animal, not the cardinal sin!   🙂   The one sleeping in a tree near my room at Cristal Ballena Hotel near Uvita, Costa Rica decided to move around about the time I went out to check on him and here’s a portfolio of his activity.   🙂    Click image to enlarge or start slide show:

 

“Live Slow”

Says my Sloth T-shirt

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¡Pura Vida!

 

See also my Sloth (3-toed) Photo Gallery and

This trip gallery:  2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita

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Farewell to these trees . . .

A most relaxing time in nature, that top, end/corner room was mine this week, looking through these trees to the ocean daily – – – and now back to my Cecropia and Fig Trees for the surprises of nature there for awhile. Life is great “Retired in Costa Rica” and . . .

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”

~Aristotle

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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My last shot here.

Trip Gallery:  2019 Banana Azul

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An Adventure of Beauty

“When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes an adventure of beauty.”

-John O’Donohue

One week from today I return to the Costa Rica South Caribbean (Atlantic Coast South of Limón) for my 5th trip there, not counting 3 other visits to the North Caribbean (North of Limón or Tortuguero NP).

I’ve been “mulling over” (That’s a late 1800’s English idiom meaning “to think about” or “to ponder.”) what my photography focus would be this time (see previous focuses below–mainly birds!). I originally thought I was going during Carnival week, but got the dates confused (It’s the last week of October not August) so Carnival is no longer the theme for my photos and ultimately a photo book.  🙂   Here’s my previous South Caribe galleries & books:

Browsing Blurb’s Bookstore travel and art photography books (for ideas) I came across the above quotation by John O’Donohue in a book and decided next week’s destination is such a “gracious” place (both the Hotel Banana Azul and the Caribe) that the friendly, loving, kind graciousness of the place will make it truly an “adventure of beauty!” So now my mind is running in a thousand directions of how I can photograph that gracious beauty!

Of course there’s the beauty of nature as my sunrise photo above from another year depicts. The graciousness of the people there presents opportunities for grand portraits or activity shots. While the graciousness of the sea, or the forest, or the wildlife, or the plants . . . oh my, oh my – the destination becomes so gracious!

Soon I start my next adventure of beauty!  ¡Pura Vida!   🙂

 

I arise today Blessed by all things, Wings of breath, Delight of eyes, Wonder of whisper, Intimacy of touch, Eternity of soul, Urgency of thought, Miracle of health, Embrace of God. May I live this day Compassionate of heart, Clear in word, Gracious in awareness, Courageous in thought, Generous in love.”

~John O’Donohue

¡Pura Vida! 

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Zooming in on Color

I usually use my 600mm zoom lens to zoom in on a bird far away, but with no birds around this morning I was attracted by the bright red or red-orange blooms of the African Tulip Tree on the hill above me. Here’s 3 levels of zooming, 2 with my cell phone and one with the Canon camera and 600mm lens.

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Sort of how it looks to the naked eye from my terrace through the Cecropia Tree.
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Zooming in with the cell phone camera doesn’t help much!
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While zooming in with the 600mm lens give a better idea of the African Tulip Tree. This still doesn’t show the flowers like the “Close-up” of one at gate linked below.

This is not a native tree to Costa Rica but an import from Africa that grows very well here and adds a lot of color. There is another one by the entrance gate to our development. Read about them at Wikipedia,  or  Pacific Horticulture Society,  or  the Gardening Know How website among many other online articles on this interesting tree which evidently will grow in the warmer climates of the southern states. .

And in my Flora & Forest gallery:

A better shot 3 years ago of neighbor’s tree

Close-up of the one at front gate

Distant shot of tree at gate

Or see Three Other Blog Posts on the African Tulip Tree – I must like it to write about it so much!   🙂

 

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness – ignorance, credulity – helps your enjoyment of these things.

~Walt Whitman

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

 

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Guarumo Bird Gallery

“Guarumo” is the Spanish name Ticos call a Cecropia Tree (English name) and about 4 years ago I asked my gardeners to plant one in my front yard because I had heard that they attract toucans for the easy perches and the food of the flowers. I would be patient, not really knowing how fast they grow!

In just 4 years it is the tallest tree in my yard, more than twice the height of my little house and my favorite “Bird Gallery” or place for birds to land so I can photograph them because it is such an open tree with a limited number of large leaves. See in the tree photos below what it looked like when we planted it and how big it has grown.

No telling how many birds I miss that land in the top of the tree!   🙂    But the lower limbs are what I watch while eating breakfast every morning and where I photographed from my terrace the birds in the birds photos below, including two kinds of toucans! I love nature’s gallery of birds that helps me grow my own photo gallery of birds!   ¡Pura Vida!

Birds in Tree

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The Tree

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“Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish.” 

― Munia Khan 

¡Pura Vida!