charliedoggett.net
A few of the things I found to have interesting shape or color in the forests and gardens beyond the flowers at Xandari.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
~William Shakespeare
See also my gallery Flora and Forest.
All photos made by Charlie Doggett at:
¡Pura Vida!
Xandari has one of the best flower gardens of many in Costa Rica and I would be hard-pressed to name any one as THE best – but this one does a great job and here you can browse through about 40 species blooming there this month (that changes month to month!) and I will do a separate post of “other plants,” seeds, fruit and even interesting leaves! So much beauty in any garden! As always, click an image to enlarge it or in this format to start a manual slide show.
Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.
– Luther Burbank
I will be starting work on my Xandari 2019 Trip Gallery today but give me a week to complete it – lots of photos! 🙂 In the meantime, check out my other trip galleries which I egotistically consider amazing! 🙂 OR specifically . . . the Xandari 2018 Trip Gallery where I showed more of the architecture & Art than this year. It is one of my favorite hotels!
And/or check out my other flower photos in the gallery Flora and Forest.
¡Pura Vida!
Three or four of these I’ve shown, but most I have waited to put all together for this particular trip all together, 22 species with both male & female of Hoffman’s Woodpecker and a second male which was so different, making 24 photos here. I will put even more photos of most species in the gallery.
Click Image to See Larger
~Aristotle
¡Pura Vida!
The combination of some of the biggest and best flower gardens anywhere with the right time of year for butterflies in Costa Rica means that Xandari has thousands of flying flowers now! 🙂 Like hummingbirds, most are very difficult to photograph, but here are ten I managed to capture, or the ones who stopped at a flower – some seem to never stop! 🙂
And to see more of my butterfly photos, go to my Butterfly Gallery where you can also order prints or wall art of any of the photos in my gallery.
This is my last day at Xandari, leaving tomorrow morning, but I will be sharing more photos here over the next few days including a nice collection of birds and of course creating a trip gallery soon. Stay tuned for more Xandari Magic!
Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.
~Drew Barrymore
¡Pura Vida!
The staff had already done so much for me to make my birthday special, but I couldn’t finish dinner without them bringing out a birthday cake and a rendition of Feliz Cumpleaños sung more by another guest than by the waiters. Fun! And now it is finally over! One more birthday! The 79th! Not sure how I can top this for the big 8 – 0! Got a year to decide!
The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.
~Madeleine L’Engle
For a very special birthday I say THANK YOU to
¡Pura Vida!
Last night before dinner we were treated with a double rainbow! This morning the maids brought me a new bouquet of flowers with a “Feliz Cumpleaños!” greeting. And I have already enjoyed 4 fresh strawberries dipped in chocolate for my birthday! Plus the staff sang Happy Birthday in English to me at breakfast!
AND . . . this was my guided bird-hike morning with the most interesting birds being the mother & juvenile Crested Caracara (rare find) who landed in the same tree as the Yellow-headed Caracara did the other day! 🙂
“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”
―
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Nature is what we see – the hill, the afternoon, squirrel, eclipse, the bumblebee. Nay, nature is heaven. Nature is what we hear…
~Emily Dickinson
Above is this morning’s photo of a Variegated Squirrel at Xandari Nature Resort (link to their website) or see my photos of last year’s visit here.
¡Pura Vida!
I could be talking about the beautiful vistas from the large terrace outside my spacious room or maybe call this post “The Magical Trees by My Terrace” for all the birds they attract! Below is a slideshow of 9 birds I photographed today from my terrace – better than what I got on my hikes! 🙂 Also included is another slide show of the actual terrace.
“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.”
— Pedro Calderon de la Barca
¡Pura Vida!
The only problem – he is not an eagle! On my first walk at Xandari for more than 2 hours up and down the hills through the jungle here I got a photo of the above bird perched on a dead tree and personally thought it was some kind of hawk. But when I got back an American woman and my Tico bellman both just knew it was an eagle. Well, there are 3 types of eagles in Costa Rica, all three rare and I quickly eliminated them with my bird book. An internet search got me to the right ID which I should have known, though all I’ve seen before now have been on big rivers. It is a Yellow-headed Caracara, (link to eBird description) a fairly common bird in Costa Rica and south through much of South America. See more of my photos of them in my gallery. He is beautiful and you can see why non-birders would think him an eagle. A couple of shots from my hike today with more photos in the coming days. Too tired tonight!
“Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing.”
~Richard Rohr
¡Pura Vida!
Sorry guys! But it sort of looks like what we used to call a “Flying Saucer” in the States when UFOs were a big thing there! 🙂
This is just my occasional UPDATE on the progress on the REMODELING OF CENTRAL PARK ATENAS – excruciatingly slow to me! This big round metal thing will be the “Kiosk” or Band Shell or Stage in the center of the park. (See link to pictures of it at bottom of post.) It will be great for “Theater in the Round.”
They still have to redo the landscaping and add new benches, picnic tables and some recreation items. Maybe the landscaping has started with the cutting down of several big trees. Hard to tell. And the underside of that kiosk roof is going to have artwork added, so still a ways to go there too. Here’s shots of 3 stages of the kiosk in the last 4 days – faster than usual progress:
All images are cell phone photos by Charlie Doggett.
The city has a Facebook Page presenting the remodeling with architect drawings of how they expect it to look. Nice! The vision of an architect! AND BEST VIEWED AS A MANUAL SLIDESHOW! Click on a picture, then the right or left arrows.
¡Pura Vida!