My Bird Count Today

Today is “Global Big Day” of counting birds where you live to help science better see what is happening to the health of our planet. I was out from 5:30 AM to 7:15 AM along the border between our housing project, Roca Verde, and the adjacent farms on the border-line gravel road called Calle Nueva (literally “New Street”) that serves as one emergency evacuation road from Atenas along with being a great nature walk and road for bicycles.

I’ve had better days and worse days of birding on that road, so maybe “average” is what the scientists want!   🙂   I observed at least 60 birds of more than 12 species, which is the number of species I photographed. I only report on eBird what I get photos of, which is not the typical eBird user, but I feel more confident with my reports because of that and eBird has volunteer “checkers” to make sure I labeled a bird correctly. Of my 60 seen, 30 were one flock of parakeets!   🙂

It was overcast or cloudy almost the whole time I was out, meaning poor light and white skies as terrible backgrounds most of the time! Only one photo has even a semblance of a blue sky. That’s life! There were no “lifers” or first-time birds for me, though my first time in Roca Verde to see and photograph the Rufous-capped Warbler, and the photo included here is of him “warbling!”   🙂   The name link is to my gallery with shots of this bird from 4 other locations in Costa Rica and some are better shots. And then maybe a first for me at Roca Verde is the juvenile or “immature” Yellow-faced Grassquit which at that age does not have the bright yellow on his face.

Here’s my mostly weak photos against drab skies, but they show you what I saw today:

9 May 2020 Birds

On March 29 I got 19 species of birds on this same walk on Calle Nueva.

See all of my BIRDS galleries or go for just Costa Rica Birds.

¡Pura Vida!

Emergency Appeal for “Giving Tuesday”

Hogar de Vida (Home of Life), a Christian children’s home for abused and orphaned young children here in Atenas gains much of its budget each year from the visit of “mission teams” who pay to come work with and for the children year around with most coming during the northern summer months (now). The Coronavirus has stopped all team visits this year through at least August with the borders closed and groups afraid to travel, thus there is a financial emergency at both the home here in Atenas, Costa Rica and the similar home in Guatemala. Go to this link and consider giving online to help the children here in Costa Rica or the ones in Guatemala if you choose:

COVID19 EMERGENCY APPEAL

For Hogar de Vida

And God Bless You!

¡Pura Vida!

What to do with gift bananas?

My gardeners made a special trip over today with three new plants to freshen up three pots, two outside and one inside. I may show them later, but after completing the job they gifted me with a bunch of bananas (probably from one of the yards they service) and I had just bought some yesterday! So – extra bananas!

I keep them in the frig because earlier I had bats eating my bananas in a fruit bowl on the counter, so they will keep – but I still need to eat them more frequently this week. Thus I had a banana split after my spaghetti dinner tonight! Small dips of different kinds of ice cream: Fig, Rum-Raisin, and Chocolate Mint with chocolate syrup and two cherries on top! Betcha you never had that combination! Pretty good!   🙂

Yeah, in Central American Banana Republics we eat a lot of those!   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

 

Read The Washington Post stories that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize   Especially the one explaining climate change!

 

May Day Morning Walk

On this cloudy morning I walk up the hill above my house and back at less than an hour with these colorful photos even without sunshine. Nature is everywhere and my favorite way to celebrate “May Day” or May 1.

May, more than any other month of the year, wants us to feel most alive.

~Fennel Hudson

May Day Birds

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May Day Flowers

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May Day Vistas

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I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.

~Henry David Thoreau

¡Pura Vida!

WILDFLOWERS – Tennessee & Costa Rica

Okay, yesterday I compared waterfalls so today as I finished my last gallery in the Pre-Costa Rica TENNESSEE Photos gallery, I must do the same with wildflowers. The last gallery for the state of Tennessee is simply Tennessee WILDFLOWERS and again I tried to pick just one photo from each of about 150 species of wildflowers for this gallery with more variety or multiple images in the location galleries where they first appear. The wildflowers were another of the many elements of nature that I enjoyed during my 37 years in Tennessee with an amazing variety!

Shot with Velvia Film
Tennessee Coneflower  —  Growing across from my Nashville row house in the Bicentennial Capital Mall State Park where I spent many hours with nature.

And the featured photo at top is on a huge Magnolia tree in the same park near my house. The beauty of nature is everywhere!

-o-

Similarly I have enjoyed the beautiful tropical wildflowers (most of my garden is wildflowers). See my Costa Rica through regional flower galleries in my big gallery of flowers I call FLORA & FOREST Costa Rica. Click and enjoy! I’ve only been here 5 and a half years, but spend most of my time with nature now! Just one of the many reasons I love being Retired in Costa Rica!

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Growing in a ditch along my street uphill from my house. Pura vida!

 

“Do you know why wildflowers are the most beautiful blossoms of all, my son?”

Dain shook his little head.

Soft waxen curls blew forward in the breeze as she lifted her storm-gray eyes to gaze out over the sea of petals. “Wildflowers are the loveliest of all because they grow in uncultivated soil, in those hard, rugged places where no one expects them to flourish. They are resilient in ways a garden bloom could never be. People are the same, son—the most exquisite souls are those who survive where others cannot. They root themselves, along with their companions, wherever they are, and they thrive.”

Micheline Ryckman, The Maiden Ship

 

¡Pura vida!

Poanes monticola?

Not Spanish, but the technical name for the new butterfly or skipper I discovered today in my garden with the book’s common name of “Evergreen Poan” as closest match in A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America.

Below are my photos from a walk in the garden this morning and here are some websites that tell you more about this particular species and they say it is only in Mexico, but I think it may be the same or a close cousin!   🙂   And the only ones I find with the “frosting” on the wings are this and a Zebulon which is not as good a match. Mine seems to have longer antennae than the ones on these sites, but otherwise almost the same:     –   Naturalista    –   iNaturlist   –   Wikipedia (Poanes in general)   –   enciclovida   – Not much info out there with most of these sites using the same info and photos!  Hmmmm.  If you think you know the identification, please let me know!

My New Skipper-Butterfly

Check out my Butterfly Gallery

¡Pura Vida!

What is it?

Sidewalk graffiti? Gang tag? Logo? Coat of Arms?  —  Something else interesting, like the flowers that I see on my walks. You see so much when you walk! Why would I ever want a car again?  🙂

¡Pura Vida!

 

 

NOTICE: Authorities have stated that borders will remain closed until May 15, 2020. We will wait on the Decree that regulates this to determine what other measures are impacted by this new date.

Sorry tourists! You will have to wait until at least May 15 or longer if the border closing is extended more.

BUT COSTA RICA IS ON THE DOWNHILL SIDE OF ITS COVID19 CASES CURVE! All the efforts of social distancing, hand-washing and business and event closings has paid off in a big way! And no stupid Republicans here to demonstrate against health protections!   🙂   We work together here! Read on . . .

TICO TIMES ARTICLES:

Costa Rica adds fewest number of known COVID-19 cases in more than a month

Costa Rica extends coronavirus border restrictions until May 15

Migrants traveling to U.S., stranded in the Panamanian jungle, now face COVID-19

Rincón de la Vieja Volcano registers moderate eruption   (One I visited last year. See article for video of eruption.)

Mini-Art in my Garden

All art is but imitation of nature.

Seneca the Younger
No new flower or wildlife in these photos, but each one is a new expression of “nature as art” as I walked through my garden Sunday with camera in hand. I love doing this occasionally and though maybe the same subjects, the art is different each time!

And that Yigüirro is singing his heart out every day now “calling the rains in” which happens every April in anticipation of the May rains or the beginning of the rainy season, our winter here. That is why he is the national bird of Costa Rica.

See my FLORA & FOREST Gallery for more flowers or Birds Gallery or Butterfly Gallery. 

¡Pura Vida!

🙂

 

Foggy Horizon

“The fog is a chest, a magical chest! What wonders are hidden in it, the only way to see them is to dive into the fog!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

Photo of foggy horizon from my house in Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica, April 2020.

¡Pura Vida!

From Bandanna to Homemade Mask

A week ago I showed you how I looked like a cowboy bank robber in my bandanna which I’ve been wearing when out in the public for “necessities” like groceries, etc. Well, an enterprising local Tica seamstress, whom I’ve used for other purposes, is now making masks according to an online medically-approved pattern and a bunch of us in Roca Verde got some at only mil quinientos colones each or about $2.60 each in dollars. Washable and with a choice of several colors and fabric designs!   🙂   Those white medical masks are simply not available here.

Costa Ricans are a “can do” people and this local seamstress rose to the occasion! I hope it will help her little local business. And you may ask, “Why are you going to so much trouble when Costa Rica has only 500 cases of COVID19 and only 2 cases in Atenas?” Well, duh? It is because we as a country and a town are taking all the medically recommended precautions and have basically “shut down” everything that we are not ravaged by the pandemic like the U.S and we did it early. The government here is helping the businesses and tourism hurt by this and in another couple of months (hopefully) we just might be back to “normal” without thousands of people dead like in some other countries.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

~Benjamin Franklin

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¡Pura Vida!