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| Nesting Inca Dove On palm frond of small palm in my yard, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Honestly I don’t see how it can last very long with all the heavy winds we have been having, but birds can be tenacious! We will see. I have much more stable trees you could have used!
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| Flowering “Mother-in-law Tongue” plant In my neighbor’s yard Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Flowering “Mother-in-law Tongue” plant In my neighbor’s yard Atenas, Costa Rica |
My plant like this is in a pot in my bathroom, so I guess it is not as likely to bloom as these that are outside getting sunshine and rain. Interesting! My first time to ever see this plant bloom. I did not know that they had flowers!
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| The Greenest & Happiest Country! |
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| Lineated Woodpecker In my garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica I was thrilled that he was just 2 meters off my deck! AND in the open! (for less than a minute!) I have several shots of this species, but this is best! One at Rancho Naturalista was previous best. And I had a Fair Shot in Panama |
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| Lineated Woodpecker In tree in my garden, Atenas, Costa Rica This “Peek-a-boo” sighting behind leaves is often all I get. Still makes me happy! |
See my photo gallery of Birds photos made since I moved to Costa Rica. This gallery shows you my number one motivation for moving to and retiring in Costa Rica. I love the birds here!
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| I called it “Walking Grass,” but really it’s a green Walking Stick insect My Terrace, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
I’ve seen several of these all over Costa Rica but so far all have been brown more like a stick. But this one is green and all the websites indicate it is the same bug! 🙂 Cool!
SUPER BOWL CHAMPION IN COSTA RICA
Did you know that Tom Brady has a house in Costa Rica?
http://www.liveincostarica.com/blog/2017/02/costa-rica-has-a-super-bowl-champion.htmlhttp://www.liveincostarica.com/blog/2017/02/costa-rica-has-a-super-bowl-champion.html
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| Tom and Giselle are in the small Pacific coast town of Santa Teresa. Neighbors have included Leonardo DeCaprio, Robert Plant, Matthew McConaughey and Liam Hemsworth, to name a few. |
They are not the kind of expats I run into in the Atenas supermercados, but you might if you lived in Santa Teresa. 🙂
Tomorrow I’m headed to downtown San Jose for two days to make photos in the “Concrete Jungle” of Costa Rica and hoping for a lot of nice photos (of something other than birds!). . It will be totally different from my other trips! 🙂
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| Walking out my back door is always refreshing! Atenas, Costa Rica |
If you are tired of my garden shots, day after tomorrow (Thursday) I go to San Jose for a series of city shots that will be different! 🙂
Photo Gallery of My Home Garden
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| Close-up of an open bloom, Flamevine or TriquiTraque in Costa Rica In my garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica My favorite shot so far. |
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| At first the blooms are “capsules” or little tubes before opening up. My TriquiTraque in Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| TriquiTraque looks best when massed on a wall like I have in my garden. Atenas, Costa Rica |
There is not much online about this flower in the way of information. As “Flamevine” the best I could find was at the University of Florida website. When I Google triquitraque it is my blog that comes up in addition to a lot of photos by different people. So I can’t tell you much about them. I did find this page article in a botanical gardens book which is kind of scientific. And I think I have already noted that in Spanish dictionaries triquitraque means “clattering noise” or a “string of firecrackers.”
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| Walking home from town I passed this children’s soccer game in the Recreation Park. I was surprised that they had artificial turf! Just for “official” games in the dry season, I guess. Not there other days. |
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| The brilliant orange flowers of Triquitraque or Flame Vine is a great contrast to the blue Plumbago flowers. I saturated the color so they’re not really this red, but are a deeper orange than next untouched photos. |
If I remember correctly they will bloom 2 to maybe 3 months, February-April. I had hoped for year around blooms like some of my other plants, but this gives me something special for this time of year. And this year they cover more of my stark concrete wall, which is what I wanted! 🙂 ¡Me gusta!
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| In the alley/back street to the back entrance of the public clinic of Atenas is this graffiti + the next photos |
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| To the right of the above 3-pix panorama is this painting. |
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| And around the corner on the cross alley seen when you walk out the door. |
There is a lot of this kind of graffiti or “public art” in Atenas. I don’t know the origin or if someone is helping to keep kids out of trouble, or art class projects, “professional artists,” or what? But it is interesting for a small rural town and does add a lot of color to the community. If you go to the front door of the clinic you might not see these, but this door is more convenient for most of us walkers which is most of the patients!
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| Heliconia & Blue Plumbago My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Red Ginger among the Maraca Plants My Home Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| “Parrot Flower” or a type of Heliconia |
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| Fern My Home Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
See also my photo gallery of Flora & Forests