I’ve been back from Villa Caletas for a couple of days and my most obvious wildlife observation has been the butterflies, some repeats here from earlier posts but the Yellow-rimmed Skipper is a new one for my gallery and blog. There are soooo many different skippers! 🙂
Remember to CLICK an image to see it enlarged plus see the link to my butterfly gallery below the images.
For friends in Costa Rica, I have found that the best book for identifying butterflies (though still not 100%) is A Swift Guide to the Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffrey Glassberg. I’ve been using the first edition but just ordered the Second Edition which is improved and for those who prefer electronics, it is available in a Kindle Edition. I’m still a little partial to paper wildlife guides, though I do use Merlin on my phone for birds!
For just Costa Rica Butterflies there is a little less extensive book by Carrol Henderson titled Butterflies, Moths, and Other Invertebrates of Costa Ricawhich is also available in an electronic Kindle Edition. It is good for the most common butterflies & moths here and okay for maybe most people, but I like having many more butterflies to choose from in the Swift Guide, though I actually use both books. Because it is also more work digging through more choices! 🙂
“Guarumo” is the Spanish name Ticos call a Cecropia Tree (English name) and about 4 years ago I asked my gardeners to plant one in my front yard because I had heard that they attract toucans for the easy perches and the food of the flowers. I would be patient, not really knowing how fast they grow!
In just 4 years it is the tallest tree in my yard, more than twice the height of my little house and my favorite “Bird Gallery”or place for birds to land so I can photograph them because it is such an open tree with a limited number of large leaves. See in the tree photos below what it looked like when we planted it and how big it has grown.
No telling how many birds I miss that land in the top of the tree! 🙂 But the lower limbs are what I watch while eating breakfast every morning and where I photographed from my terrace the birds in the birds photos below, including two kinds of toucans! I love nature’s gallery of birds that helps me grow my own photo gallery of birds! ¡Pura Vida!
Birds in Tree
CLICK photo to enlarge or start manual slideshow.
Yellow-bellied Elaenia
White-winged Dove
Rufous-naped Wren
Fiery-billed Aracari
Palm Tanager
Yellow Warbler
Gray-headed Caracara
Squirrel Cuckoo
Clay-colored Thrush
Keel-billed Toucan
Montezuma Oropendola
Gray-headed Caracara
Fiery-billed Aracari
Great Kiskadee
Fiery-billed Aracari
Rufous-naped Wren
Gartered Trogon
Melodious Blackbird
The Tree
CLICK photo to enlarge or start manual slideshow.
Gardener Trims Limbs from House
Open Limbs, Few Leaves
Top When First Planted
Easy to See & Photograph Birds
A Skinny Little Tree When Planted
The Tallest Tree at End of House
“Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish.”
I have not been having many interesting or colorful birds at breakfast for awhile, with many rufous-naped wrens & clay-colored thrush! And it seems like maybe a year since I’ve seen one of the Blue-crowned Motmots now renamed to be Lesson’s Motmot (wish they wouldn’t do that!). But yesterday at breakfast, early for me, about 6:20-6:30 I had a motmot visit. This one Lesson’s Motmot flew into the Nance Tree looking for Nance Berries I assume, staying there 3 or 4 minutes, occasionally flying to the ground and briefly foraging, maybe for fallen berries or an insect. Then he was gone. If I spent more time on my terrace I would undoubtedly see more birds! i.e. Two different neighbors have seen Crested Caracaras in the cow pasture in front of my house and I haven’t. Too much time on my computer?! 🙂 Well, I focus more on birds on my monthly trip and that is when I photograph the most. But it is nice to know that I still have a large variety of birds near my house!
Lesson’s Motmot
Lesson’s Motmot
Lesson’s Motmot
Lesson’s Motmot
Lesson’s Motmot
Note that this one has both pendants on the end of his tail which is almost unusual now as most seem to catch then on a tree or something and tear one or both off as you can see in my gallery.
See some of my other Lesson’s Motmotsphotos (better photos!) as a sub gallery of my bigger Costa Rica Birds Gallery where you can find other sub galleries for 3 other types of motmots:
These 3 can be seen in the right parts of Costa Rica, though the Lesson’s is most common and most widely distributed and favors the Pacific side of CR.
“Wake up with the birds and go to sleep with the stars.”
― Marty Rubin
For the second time in 4 years living in Costa Rica I am enduring the disgrace of a robbery that simple precautions could have prevented. You may remember that the first one was during my first year here and I went with the local community band to photograph them marching in the Puntarenas Carnival Parade leaving my camera bag by my chair in a sidewalk cafe afterwards to experience its disappearance! Someone said that I paid my “Gringo Tax” by not protecting my bag in a very crowded place. Well, I’m paying it a second time this week.
1. I always leave my phone & Kindle on kitchen counter when home (or did)
It is the center of my house and I can hear the phone ring from there while anywhere else in my little house. And the Kindle is always there for me to put on the meal tray and take out on the terrace to eat every meal, my main dining companion! So a very convenient location. PROBLEM: In the center of the house those popular electronics can be seen by anyone “casing” my house from any of the windows except my bedroom and the bathroom. So a thief looking for an easy grab has found it with a quick glance into my house from driveway or anywhere else. So I will no longer leave them there.
In the photo I was in the office in that desk chair within 10 to 12 feet of the kitchen counter when items were lifted, plus my sunglasses are on that hall shelf near the door
2. I have not been locking my doors, seeing no reason.
About 8 pm I got up from my desk and went to the bathroom which is next to my outside door. I found the outside door was standing open and was puzzled with no wind yet to blow it open and I was sure I had closed it well. As I go back by the kitchen counter I discover the two electronic items missing and now know that I have been robbed silently within 10 feet of where I was sitting with my computer. At least my cameras were in that room with me and not touched nor the laptop computer! The door stays locked now!
3. Later I discover my “cool” reflective sunglasses missing also
Well, they make me feel younger if not look younger and they work and are cheap at only one mil, about $1.75. The photo is of the replacement pair I got yesterday after replacing my cell phone. And as soon as I discovered these missing, I knew it was a young man who walked in and took the 3 items quietly while I worked on my computer enriching my photo gallery with some 1998 Kenya Safari photos! 🙂 These are the kind of sunglasses young men in Costa Rica love to wear! Hope he enjoys them!
4. Further indignity – he/they tossed my Kindle!
Yep! the next morning my neighbor Jorge was out walking before me and he found my Kindle tossed in the drainage ditch near our gate. They evidently decided they could not get much if any money for a very worn, 5 year old small Kindle that can be purchased new for $49 and as leaving our property they just tossed it in the ditch. Glad it did not rain that night which would have ruined it for sure. But I was ready to replace it anyway. They say the battery lasts 3 to 5 years and you don’t get new batteries but just a new Kindle, so at 5 years it is about gone anyway. But still! Stealing it and then throwing it away!? My baby! I’m incensed! 🙂
5. I reported and learned it was 3 young men who hit another house also that night and got away when discovered
I reported the theft to my landlord and the Roca Verde Homeowners Association and front gate guards who reported it to the police. And like some Americans, some of the Ticos here immediately blamed it on Nicaraguans (foreigners) rather than admit there is evil in all of us.
And life goes on despite the indignities we somehow must put up with occasionally! I am actually looking forward to a new Kindle that will be a little bit larger (1 inch) for my old eyes! 🙂 And I’m healthier now because I forgave whoever stole my phone and pray that they will be relieved of their poverty soon! Poverty is the real evil we need to focus on! ¡Pura Vida!
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
~Matthew 6:14-15
Trying out my new cell phone camera on my vista. Hope it is as good as the old one. Hard to tell here.
“There’s no place like home” for garden and butterfly photos, well . . . some of the time. 4 simple shots right out my door, one morning. Click to see larger.
I love walking by the gardens of my neighbors Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
Lots of flowers are always blooming, like this Bougainvillea Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
This morning a toucan flew into that top tree Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
I got as close as I could and zoomed in with only my cell phone camera Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
Yellow-throated Toucan I then cropped in further at home and mainly have just a silhouette, oh well. My 300mm lens would have done better, but always hard as they usually stay high in the trees. Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
A view of central Atenas from above a different house than I’ve shown before (125). Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
And another neighbor house on top of hill I don’t think I’ve shown before. Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
Before I moved to Costa Rica, I said that I would never live in a rich gated community, so I need to be careful about using that word “never” since after 4 months of searching for a rental house I could afford that also met my needs, this is where I found it! And since most of these big mansions have “casitas” (“little houses” like mine) that they rent out or use for “mother-in-law cottages” or servants, I am certainly not alone living among the rich as a renter and 40% of the owners here are Ticos, so not just all foreigners. Plus it is the only really nice development like this within easy walking distance of Central Atenas; in fact most realtors say Roca Verde is in “Central Atenas” (loosely defined).
With the Atenas public water system having many shutdown problems and unfulfilled promises from politicians, we are fortunate to have our own water system within Roca Verde that is almost never down, and if that is not enough, my landlord has his own private well and pump right here on our lot! 🙂 That is a bigger deal here than it may sound! I always have good water and good pressure.
My landlord is one of the best and even though he has this property for sale, it hasn’t sold yet and that can take years here! A German man visited 2 days ago as a prospective buyer and assured me I could continue renting at the same price if he becomes my new landlord. I am not worried. My landlord, Jean-Luc, was also the developer of all of Roca Verde and with his partner in charge of the development maintenance, etc. until this year when a new homeowners’ association took over and they seem to be doing a good job so far and have even increased the security of the property. If you drive in the front gate to visit me, expect to show your ID and have your trunk inspected upon leaving and they may even call me to verify that you are really coming to see me. Interesting.
I think I have already shared reasons for choosing the “Central Valley” as my place to live, like medical and shopping proximity, plus from here I can easily travel on my many adventures to parks and forests all over Costa Rica and further into Central America. And it will be easy to expand my travels into South America later. As “the next best place to heaven,” Costa Rica is the perfect place for me to live the final years of my life before the real heaven. ¡Perfecto!
Red Passion Flower This is same family as the more common purple passion flower which we also have here in Costa Rica. Several neighbors have this red variety, and like the purple one is also a vine that can take over other plants. Atenas, Costa Rica
See my photo gallery, FLORA & FOREST for many more tropical flowers here.
Atenas as seen from higher up the hill from me in the morning fog.
This nice photo was made by Tom & Jessica, here for a couple of months on their trip around the world.
See their blog http://www.worldwidewaftage.com/Like most places you pay more for better view!
Of course they zoomed in on the church with camera – they aren’t this close!
Atenas, Costa Rica
Maybe call my view toward town “more natural” with more trees than even houses & no church.
I am barely on the side of a little hill while the other view is from twice as high & zoomed more!
Atenas, Costa Rica
BLOG STATS
I have now written more than 1,000 posts that have received more than 100.000 pageviews online from more than 20 countries. I guess there is a lot of random viewing of blogs by some people. 🙂
Can you see it? In the fork of the guarumo tree on the distant hill. Red-orange. It is a spot of color I see every time I walk out on my terrace and it brings a smile. It is an African Tulip Tree I’m glad a neighbor planted! Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
It is a tree like this one by our front gate in Roca Verde, African Tulip Tree, native of Africa and brought here as an ornamental tree for yards that adds new color to the many natural colors here. Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
And a little closer.
The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.
