Tag: Roca Verde

Posted on

Gray & Yellow Mornings

Gray-crowned Yellowthroat

Both yesterday and today I went out around my house looking for birds about 6:20 to 6:40 AM, before breakfast. Both mornings I found birds with gray heads and yellow fronts! Yesterday (before going to Bosque Municipal) I got distant shots of the above Gray-crowned Yellowthroat (link is to Cornell’s “Neo-Tropical Birds”) seen in the cow pasture across the street from my house, my first of this species here, though I got better photos at Curi-Cancha Reserve, Monteverde last year, also in a meadow. Check ’em out!

IMG_0679-A-WEB
Gray-crowned Yellowthroat (different photo) in cow pasture in front of my house.

Gray-capped Flycatcher

A more common or more frequently seen-by-me-bird is this common flycatcher which has gray & yellow coloring like the above but is much larger. To learn more about him from Cornell’s “Neo-Tropical Birds,” click this name link, Gray-capped Flycatcher or go see my Gray-capped Flycatcher Photo Gallery (better photos than this). There are around 50 different species of birds here labeled some kind of “Flycatcher,” so a lot of variety! And yes, they do eat flies and other insects!    🙂

IMG_0853-A-WEB
Gray-capped Flycatcher, in my garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica

 

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

― Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

White-winged Dove Watching

This bird was watching me eat breakfast yesterday morning on my terrace. Learn more about the White-winged Dove on Cornell’s “All About Birds” website. One of many that frequent my garden.

“Birds are the eyes of Heaven.”
― Suzy Kassem

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

02-02-2020

Just had to write this unique date down! It is one of the few dates that works for both Americans who write the month first and all the rest of the world who write the day first! Plus it just looks cool! All those twos and zeros! Say it like this:  “O-two O-two, two-O two-O”     🙂

POSTSCRIPT: Larry Yarborough wrote in the comments below what I did not know about this unique date:

FROM AXIOS:

Today’s date is a rare eight-digit palindrome (reads same, forward and backward), 02/02/2020 — the only one of its kind this century:
Aziz Inan, a University of Portland (Ore.) professor who has a website chronicling 500 years’ worth of palindromes, tells the Post about today’s rare configuration — where both MM/DD/YEAR and DD/MM/YEAR are palindromes.

“The previous eight-digit palindrome like this was 11/11/1111, 909 years ago. We’ll only have to wait another 101 years for 12/12/2121.”
? P.S. Today is “the 33rd day of the year, which is followed by 333 more days.”     ~Thanks to Larry Yarborough for sharing this Axios Post!

The feature photo is of the cow pasture and tree line along a little stream across from my house. This morning at 6 I decided to walk over along that tree line with my camera looking for morning birds – nada! Not a one! As has been the case the other times I tried that very “birdy-looking” area. The water in the stream is quite polluted (gray water from houses nearby) which may be the reason for no birds or it was windy this morning, though that time of year. And I’ve never heard of cows scaring birds! But not one bird over there! (Maybe snakes?) I do better just sitting on my terrace! Though walking uphill like I did yesterday is even better! I will do that more often!

The dove below was on the power line in front of my house and the shot of something burning nearby was the only photo I made from the cow pasture. Sugar cane farmers are burning the remains of their fields after the harvest this month or occasionally someone burns trash, though they are not suppose to in the dry season!  🙂   ¡Pura vida!

IMG_0625-A-WEB
White-winged Dove on power line in front of my house looking at the cow pasture.
IMG_0629 -A-WEB
Someone burning something nearby, as seen from the cow pasture.

 

Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.    ~Khalil Gibran

 

¡Pura Vida!

02-02-2020

Posted on

Morning Bird Walk

Glad to get back to nature posts after all the other stuff I’ve been posting the last week! And the featured photo above is a Passion Flower growing on a neighbor’s wall along the street uphill above my house.

In my Roca Verde neighborhood, and most neighborhoods across Costa Rica, we have “Snow Birds” or “winter residents” who come to visit or live here during the very cold months up north (Dec-Apr). One of those couples I met for the first time last year always stay in Roca Verde, just a few doors up the hill from me – she is a birder and he a relaxer.  🙂   They are from British Columbia, Canada.

Yesterday she showed me all birds she had photographed in Atenas in just one week, most right here in our neighborhood! Thus I was shamed into birding more in my own neighborhood and later some other places in Atenas – but it means getting up at 5:30 in the morning which I have not been doing much here. Mixed emotions!

I live adjacent to these farming hills seen from street above my house.

This morning I spent just one hour, mostly between 6 & 7 and saw about 20 species of birds, photographing about 15 of them! ALL WITHIN 300 METERS OF MY HOUSE!  For you Americans, that’s just 3 blocks, and all along the street in front of my house, up the hill. Of course I ran into Margaret who get out every morning early for birds and we birded together much of the time. I will not do it every day like her, but hopefully more often now!

By 7 there are not a lot of birds to see. It is the magical hour after sunrise and the last hour before sunset that give the most birds! (Same thing on my trips!) And some of these birds from today have not come to my house or I haven’t seen them in my garden yet.  CLICK AN IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT . . .

This Morning’s Birds

Catholic Church in Central Atenas is also seen from the street above my house, though not as close as this seems through my 60 mm lens!   🙂

 

I like where I live!   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

My Windows – My World

As Frank Lloyd Wright said,

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”

And as he created his magnificent houses always integrated with nature – I have tried to create views through all my windows & doors that bring nature in and take me out! I love traveling in the nature places of Costa Rica, but living in nature day to day keeps me going! The luckiest guy in the world!

Look through My Pura Vida Windows on life!

Terrace – My Biggest Window

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Garden Door View

This garden greets me upon every departure and arrival!   🙂

 

Living Room Window

A Strangler Fig Tree – shades from afternoon sun.

 

Kitchen Window

Kitchen view garden.

 

Laundry Room Window

Slope with interesting tree!

 

Office-Guest Room Window

I planted a row of palms for privacy from street

 

Bedroom Window

Pot plant in front of the outside palms.

 

“Dormer windows” above my bed in the jungle!

 

Bathroom Windows

Above sink & toilet – my beautiful hill!

 

I shower in the jungle!

I am Rich in Nature!

 

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.     ~Socrates

 

For the wealth of nature surrounding me in Costa Rica, see my photo galleries:  “Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA.”

See why I love it here!

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Morning Intruder

Yesterday morning I had an intruder in my house during breakfast. The sliding glass doors to my terrace stay open all day when I’m here but I close the sliding screen doors except for during breakfast when I’m in and out a lot for coffee, etc. Yesterday for the first time a juvenile Chachalaca just like these two photos made earlier flew right by my breakfast table and into the house. (A youngster exploring!)

I went inside and hollered at him which just scared him further back into my bedroom. I then opened the other door, a regular door into my garden (for multiple exit options), then walked calmly into my bedroom to the opposite side as he went under the bed and back out the other side away from me, then immediately flying back outside through the big door.

Kind of amusing. He of course was afraid of me and the house, just a kid exploring! The only other bird to fly in has been a little Rufous-naped Wren inside my house which I made photos of then. This time I just wanted the chicken-sized bird OUT!   🙂

IMG_3245-A-WEB
He looked just like this flying through my house.

 

IMG_4919-A-WEB
Another juvenile in my garden earlier like the one who visited yesterday.  We have many families of these birds in Roca Verde. Fortunately none nest near me.

 

See my photo gallery of Gray-headed Chachalacas or my total BIRDS gallery.  🙂

 

I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful — an endless prospect of magic and wonder.

–Ansel Adams

 

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Thanksgiving Dinner at Neighbor’s

At Margaret & Dario’s house on top of one of the Roca Verde hills with the assistance of Susan and Fred, 26 of us had a huge American-style Thanksgiving dinner with Turkey, Ham and Beef Brisket along with more vegetables and salads than I can list after gourmet appetizers and Champagne, followed by a course of exotic cheeses and then deserts. Each of us brought a dish of something and a bottle of wine. It was a feast fit for a king and even though I only ate breakfast beforehand, I feel stuffed (Thursday night after dinner) while I write this.

Thanksgiving is not a Tico holiday, but the Ticos who came sure enjoyed it!  🙂  Margaret and Susan are the high-energy, highly organized leaders of the Roca Verde neighborhood and put this together.

SORRY MY CELLPHONE PHOTOS ARE NOT GOOD which I will blame on the lighting and I didn’t even try to get the group photo by the pool because it was dark, raining and the light worse. But we had a lot of fun with a great meal and I have two new couples-friends!

Margaret’s Group Photo on Facebook.

20191128_165226-A-WEB20191128_165235-A-WEB20191128_165240-A-WEB

“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.”

~Psalm 9:1

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Bienvenidos!

Welcome! is the translation for you English-only-speakers and one of the new Tico residents of Roca Verde decided that since he lives in the first house inside Roca Verde main gate he would contribute to the neighborhood with this nice welcome sign at 101 Roca Verde just across a little valley from my house at 105 (and he too overlooks the cow pasture). I can’t remember, but don’t think I have shown his welcome sign on the blog yet.

20191110_101600-a-WEB

Also inside the main gate (before his sign and at edge of the cow pasture) is the above lovely shaped tree that just lost its leaves and is renewing them now in our sort of a Spring. Walking to town this morning I walked by the tree that I have always liked the shape of and decided on a cell phone photo – above. Then I saw a Lineated Woodpecker in it that soon flew to two of the other trees as I tried to make a photo (below), but I need my big camera for birds! No good photo, but you can see what else is welcoming you inside the Roca Verde gate.    🙂    Bienvenidos!

20191110_101753-A-WEB
Lineated Woodpecker, Roca Verde Entrance
20191110_101656-A-WEB
Lineated Woodpecker, Roca Verde Entrance

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.”
— Kahlil Gibran

Better photos tomorrow from Arenal Observatory!

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

Yes – I wake up each morning to the crowing of multiple roosters in the neighborhood, though so used to it that I hardly notice now.

This one is across the street from our Roca Verde Entrance Gate (about 2 blocks away) plus we have two roosters at the gate along with chickens that give our guards some eggs.

I know of no one inside Roca Verde with chickens but many of the homes in our adjacent neighborhood of Boquerón outside our gate have chickens. The roosters will not allow me to get close enough for a good photo with my cell phone which is all I have when walking through Boquerón, thus these grainy shots I cropped in tight. Fun color in the ‘hood!

20190907_102313-A-WEB
Rooster across the street from Roca Verde Entrance Gate – one of many!

The children’s nursery rhyme use of “Cock-A-Doodle-Doo” to describe a rooster crowing started in 1606 in this archaic poem says “the Web”:

“Cock a Doodle Doo”
Original Version

Cock a doodle do!
What is my dame to do?
Till master’s found his fiddling-stick,
She’ll dance without her shoe.

Cock a doodle do!
My dame has found her shoe,
And master’s found his fiddling-stick,
Sing cock a doodle do!

Cock a doodle do!
My dame will dance with you,
While master fiddles his fiddling-stick,
And knows not what to do!

https://allnurseryrhymes.com/cock-a-doodle-doo/

🙂

  Or see the Wikipedia Version of Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

And for more of my culture photography: My Atenas galleries or the People, Fiestas & Arts galleries – photos from where I live.

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Zooming in on Color

I usually use my 600mm zoom lens to zoom in on a bird far away, but with no birds around this morning I was attracted by the bright red or red-orange blooms of the African Tulip Tree on the hill above me. Here’s 3 levels of zooming, 2 with my cell phone and one with the Canon camera and 600mm lens.

20190818_101723-B-WEB
Sort of how it looks to the naked eye from my terrace through the Cecropia Tree.
20190818_101717-A-WEB
Zooming in with the cell phone camera doesn’t help much!
IMG_7494-A-WEB
While zooming in with the 600mm lens give a better idea of the African Tulip Tree. This still doesn’t show the flowers like the “Close-up” of one at gate linked below.

This is not a native tree to Costa Rica but an import from Africa that grows very well here and adds a lot of color. There is another one by the entrance gate to our development. Read about them at Wikipedia,  or  Pacific Horticulture Society,  or  the Gardening Know How website among many other online articles on this interesting tree which evidently will grow in the warmer climates of the southern states. .

And in my Flora & Forest gallery:

A better shot 3 years ago of neighbor’s tree

Close-up of the one at front gate

Distant shot of tree at gate

Or see Three Other Blog Posts on the African Tulip Tree – I must like it to write about it so much!   🙂

 

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness – ignorance, credulity – helps your enjoyment of these things.

~Walt Whitman

🙂

¡Pura Vida!