Category: Plants

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Maquenque Lodge Tonight

Today I will travel for about 4 hours to one of my favorite lodges and best birding place, Maquenque Eco Lodge (their link) near the Nicaragua border in Boca Tapada, San Carlos Canton, Alajuela Province, almost directly north of where I live in the center of the country. It will be my 6th trip there and 3rd time to celebrate my birthday there, which is July 4 and this year number 86! 🙂

3 years ago I planted an Avocado Tree there to help the endangered Green Macaws at Maquenque.

I may or may not do a post tonight from there, but otherwise a daily post from Maquenque reporting on my nature finds there for the next 5 days and as always a few more days after a trip. This will be my 6th time at Maquenque with, of course, lots of photos and a “Trip Gallery” from every visit there . . .

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Bitter Melon?

The question mark is because this strange, edible, vine-growing vegetable has a long list of “Common Names” around the world with “Pepino Cimarrón” the most used one here in Costa Rica says iNaturalist, though they refer people to Wikipedia for more information on the scientific name of Momordica charantia (linked to Wikipedia article). And somewhere you will hear about “Balsam Apple as similar (that’s what Google-Lens called it), but that is a different species in the same family, which by the way, includes cucumbers! 🙂

I photographed this less than a half-block from the front gate of Residencial Roca Verde on my Sunday morning walk to El Fogon for breakfast. It was on a vine growing on a barbed wire fence of a vacant lot in Barrio Boquerón. They originate from Asia and Africa and were brought here in the 1800’s where they grew well in the tropical climate. Some are farmed, but this one was growing wild. They are eaten as a vegetable and used as natural medicines, especially the leaves of the vine. And only God could design a bright orange vegetable with bright red seeds! 🙂 Read more on Wikipedia.

Bitter Melon, Pepino Cimarrón, Momordica charantia,
growing wild on a fence in Barrio Boquerón, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

And the next morning I saw something a little different at the same location . . .

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Tiger Flower

One reason Xandari has so many butterflies is they have a huge variety of flowers in their many gardens, one of the best I’ve visited all over Costa Rica. I’m working on the Flower Sub-gallery of this Trip Gallery and it looks like now it will have 35 species of flowers identified! 🙂 Here is just one, the Tiger Flower – Tigridia pavonia (Wikipedia link) with many names and stories about some of the varieties in Middle America.

Tiger Flower, Xandari Costa Rica, Alajuela

¡Pura Vida!

And see my many flower photos in the Flora & Forest Galleries! 🙂

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Lunch Art Show in the Rain

As I sat in Xandari dining balcony overlooking the grounds and a fogged out Central Alajuela, waiting for my Nachos & Lemonade, I experienced a Wet Art Show of my own category of “Leaves & Nature Things.” After the introductory photo for the emailed blog post there are 2 short galleries of horizontals and verticals of the beautiful Nature Art I enjoyed before my nachos! 🙂 Enjoy!

Nature as Art, Xandari Costa Rica
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2 Strange Moths at the End of May

On the 29th & 30th of May two unusual moths showed up at my house, one inside and one outside in the garden. The featured photo is one I’ve had before in my garden and seen on a trip to a South Pacific Rainforest. Once called “Giant Butterfly Moth,” it is now called the disgusting name of “Screwworm” – Telchin atymnius (linked to my gallery). It is more beautiful when the wings are open with more white and a big orange patch (see the above linked gallery for that).

Screwworm – Telchin atymnius, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

-o-

And the other one, seen inside my house on the kitchen floor, was comparatively tiny, identified on iNaturalist as a Packard’s Eusarca Moth – Eusarca packardaria, linked to Wikipedia which says it is in North America, but being in the middle of North & South America, we often get species from both sides. Though I am the first to report one on iNaturalist Costa Rica, so it might get re-labeled as something else, though this was the ID of iNaturalist AI and I think a good match.

Packard’s Eusarca Moth – Eusarca packardaria, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Canivet’s Emerald & Porterweed

This Canivet’s Emerald (my gallery link) is one of the 3 hummingbirds in my garden, with Blue-vented being the other one secondary to the Rufous-tailed who thinks he owns the garden and when I fill the feeders, hogs them and chases off other hummingbirds (the Canivet’s & Blue-vented), but these other two have easier access to my large number of Porter Weeds, officially called Blue Porterweed, Stachytarpheta jamaicensis (Wikipedia link). They are in the verbena family and are the most popular flower here for both hummingbirds and butterflies. And they are not all blue! 🙂

Canivet’s Emerald, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Blue Porterweed, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica And yeah, they’re not all blue but that’s the name in English! Or Cola del Toro en español

¡Pura Vida!

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Light & Shadow + Pause 5 Class Notes

The theme of today’s online class was “Light & Shadow” and you can see my class notes and comments at Pause 5: Light & Shadow. (linked to my notes) Still not excited about the class, but this was a good photo-activity! 🙂

So I went outside at about 3pm yesterday (not the best time for long shadows, but okay). Here are a few of my shots in a gallery that won’t work in the email, so one pix for the email and then go to the online post for the gallery . . .

Every forest is light & shadow! This one across the cow pasture by the stream.
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Yellow-faced Grassquit

Looks over the grass (where they feed) from a neighbor’s fence. See more of this interesting bird in my Yellow-faced Grassquit Gallery. They are plentiful in the cow pasture across the street. Grass seeds are their favorite food.

Yellow-faced Grassquit, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Minding the Flowerpots

And that would be “cuidando las macetas” in Spanish! The motivation for this little job was the large flower pot of potted palms at the entrance of my terrace had grown so much (in maybe 10 years) that the growing roots broke the terracotta pot. I had the gardeners plant those palms along the southside palm row for a thicker screen from the street and bought a new smaller pot with smaller palms to still visually separate my outdoor dining table from the driveway to the top of the hill. And while at the Vivero (plant nursery) I got two small red anthuriums for the old white pot that has seen many different flower over about 9 years and the one in it last week had become ugly!

Next project is to paint the Frog Pot and two other terracotta pots, after sanding. Always something that needs to be done! 🙂

Entering the terrace from the driveway, the potted palms sort of shield the dining table, even this smaller bunch of palms.
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Noticing Little Things in Nature . . .

“Nature never hurries. Atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Budding Flower of the Cecropia Tree, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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