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Neither the AI nor I could positively identify this tiny little Skipper, but it is another encouraging sign that the wind was slowing down a week ago when photographed and soon I will be seeing many more species, though it will probably be May before a lot of them! 🙂 This one was maybe the size of my thumbnail, which is too small for any of the Longtails he looks a like and I just chose to not identify.
¡Pura Vida!
I apologize to the more than 500 subscribers of my blog “Retired in Costa Rica,” for no email notices now for maybe two weeks. Various tech help support have tried different things and this post is a trial for them to see if it triggers the automatic email notice of each post.
You can see the missed daily email posts for the past few weeks online at: https://www.charliedoggett.net/blog/
“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.” ~Mother Teresa
She is emphasizing that simple acts of kindness, like smiling, are profound expressions of love, making it a meaningful gift to others.
Thus I try to smile at everyone I pass as I walk to town or anywhere else. AND, as is the local custom here, if we make eye contact, I always say “¡Buenos dias!” or if in the afternoon, “¡Buenos tardes!” And occasionally a grumpy man or teen will grudgingly say just “Buenos” back to me, while the vast majority here smile and say “Buenos dias” back to me. 🙂
Smiling is not trivial; it’s a powerful, loving gesture that connects people and starts something beautiful.
¡Pura Vida!
🙂
One of the most seen butterflies all over Costa Rica is this Banded Peacock, Anartia fatima (my gallery link) photographed here along one of the roads/streets in Punta Leona Resort, Puntarenas, Costa Rica.
¡Pura Vida!
My one photo today through the very slow internet here is probably my favorite from the 6:15 am birding hike today.
The bird was eating banana plant flowers and interestingly at breakfast this morning a monkey got in and stole a banana of a man’s plate. 🙂
Tomorrow I will share one butterfly shot from the 9:30 am butterfly hike, during which I was not feeling great and will definitely slow down the rest of my time here! By 10 it is almost unbearably hot & humid and I was exhausted, coming back to the room for a nap and then this afternoon another nap. 🙂 I guess I’m an older man than I want to admit. 🙂
Tonight will be the hotel’s “special” Christmas Dinner. Tomorrow I will focus on the beach on Christmas Day with shore birds early morning, maybe a tidepool effort at low tide, and maybe a sunset reflection on the ocean, since the sun sets here now behind the land with the coast at an angle. 🙂 The better sunset place here is at Villa Coleta up the hills from Punta Leona.
Merry Christmas to all the faithful readers!
¡Pura Vida!
I got here in more time than usual because of heavy traffic, maybe the many San Jose residents who escape to the coast for Christmas. 🙂 And as always the coast is hotter than the mild climate of Atenas! Fortunately my room was ready ahead of the official check-in time and I went straight to it in what they call the “Selvamar” section of rooms with each pathway of rooms named after a Latin American country. I’m in the Cuba section and love the room with a small outside patio and everything here is surrounded by tall trees, thus tonight’s photo from my room.
I may share photos of my room and the Selvamar rooms area later which is all nestled into the forest surrounded by many tall trees. I think it is the best place to stay for a short visit to Punta Leona and I will tell about other lodging later.
I organized my room and then did a lot of walking and got hot and tired, so I utilized their free shuttle buses to get back to my room. 🙂
Tomorrow morning before breakfast, I take the morning bird walk and then after breakfast the butterfly tour! 🙂 My only other tour is a sloth walk on Thursday. The last time here I also went to Carara NP for birds but decided not to this time, nor the nearby Tarcoles River morning bird boat tour. Instead, I will explore the tidepools and the gigantic trees trail here instead. And later I will write an evaluation of Punta Leona (their website link) telling what I like and what I don’t like about it, but for now just sharing photos and maybe only one photo a day since the internet is a little slow here. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
I’m spending my Christmas or the next 5 days on the closest beach to where I live, Punta Leona, Jaco, Puntarenas Province in a protected transitional forest with lots of birds including the Scarlet Macaw, monkeys and other wildlife, plus two beautiful beaches for walking, birds, tidepools, sunsets, etc. I do not swim in the ocean anymore for multiple reasons.
My only other time at Punta Leona was in 2019 (trip gallery link) at a different time of year (March) and I’m hoping for better sunset photos in December than I got then. Plus I plan to explore the tide pools between the two beaches this time (new to me) and spend more time on the forest trail of “gigantes” or giant trees over 55 meters tall, enjoy the butterfly house and the Macaw nesting boxes. Punta Leona Posts will start tonight. Below this introductory photo is a gallery of my beach photos from 2019 . . .
To live in a green world, absorbing both the oxygen and the green spirit is one of the greatest blessings of living in Costa Rica. I randomly picked these photos as representative of this spirit, though many others could have represented it just as well . . .
This is a stately-looking bird I think, maybe more so than the Great Kiskadee, though similar. See more images of him in my gallery: Boat-billed Flycatcher, Megarynchus pitangua.
¡Pura Vida!
A week or so ago I got some fairly good and close shots of a Keel-billed Toucan (my gallery link) in a Nance Tree, but this one Tuesday was maybe 40 meters uphill from me in one of K’s Trees was mostly behind leaves and limbs. But it is still fun to try and capture photos of any colorful toucan, whatever the situation! 🙂 The feature photo is the only shot where I got almost all of his full body and beak, while the other two shots show him hiding during the 3 to 4 minutes he was in the tree at around 4pm. 🙂
