Backyard Bird Count! Ready… Set…

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Backyard bird count 2015, counting birds, Egrets, Herons, magnificent frigate

OK; Not everyone can peer outside and see hundreds of Magnificent Frigates, one of 70 or more species that decorate the landscape around Casa Loca.  Whether you know our feathered neighbors by name or just refer to them as little brown birds, they are our neighbors, and we should acknowledge their presence in our lives.

Take half an hour or half a day or an entire day or the entire period (February 13 – 16) of this bird count, and share your  inventory with the world!  Learn more HERE: THE GREAT BACKYARD BIRD COUNT 2015.

Magnificent Frigate – “Don’t you think I’m sexy?”

I’m not quite sure how to count all of the birds in my back yard, so excuse me please, while I go back to counting the birds!

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How many birds?

How many birds?

Awakenings on the River

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Cocoi heron, dawn, daylight, Egrets, Frigate birds, herons in ecuador, wordpress daily challenge out my backdoor, wordpress writing challenge great expectations

The Daily Post tossed out a challenge with four options this week; I selected this one: “Take a draft post that you didn’t published because it didn’t turn out as you expected. Change the story, revise it, and publish.”

I found two posts in drafts; one recent post from April 3rd  stalled because of slow internet and low battery:

“…In today’s WP post, Kristin nudges us to, ‘Look out your back window or door — describe what you see, as if you were trying to convey the scene to someone from another country or planet.’

Most sources say that this song was written for Fogerty’s 3-year old son and was inspired a Dr. Seuss book.  I’m quite pleased to introduce you to this cast of characters out my own backdoor!

 

Reaching back to a post from January 2013, I can finally release these birds from their cyber cages.  May they soar from my back door round the world and lighten your day!

Look Up!!!

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Communicating with Nature, Egrets, Flying Birds, Herons, Howler Monkeys, Jaguar stories, Let's Be Wild Look Up, Mangroves, Moon, Paulo Coelho, The Valkyries Quote, Tree Art

From The Valkyries:

“…Paulo said, “I want you to pay close attention to the people who pass by.”

She did as Paulo had asked.  In the next half hour, only five people passed by.

“What did you see?”

She described the people in detail – their clothing, approximate age, what they were carrying.  But apparently that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.  He insisted on more, trying to get a better answer, but couldn’t do so.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to tell you what it was that I wanted you to notice:  All the people who passed by in the street were looking down.”

They waited for some time before another person walked by.  Paulo was right.

“Gene asked you to look to the horizon.  Try that.”

“What do you mean?”

“All of us create a kind of ‘magic space’ around us.  Usually it’s a circle with about a fifteen-foot radius, and we pay attention to what goes on within it.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s people, tables, telephones, or windows;  we try to maintain control over that small world that we, ourselves, create.”

The Valkyries – Paulo Coelho
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Let’s Be Wild prompts us to “Look Up” this week.  Photographers and artists often look way beyond that 15-foot circle mentioned in Paulo Coelho’s book, The Valkyries.     Sometimes we are rewarded with refreshing surprises, like these young boys scampering in the ‘jobo’ tree in search of ripe plum-sized fruits.
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Who, Me? Passionate about Nature?!

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Birds of Manabi Ecuador, Cocoi heron, Egrets, frigate, Living in Harmony, Mangrove Destruction, Pelicans, This Man's Journey, Weekly Image of Life: Passion

5 a.m. Playa San Miguel Costa Rica

“The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour, and for a moment, something awakens which slumbers the rest of the day and night…   (Thoreau/Walden)

Dawn – Republic of Panama – Balboa

…it matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes of man.. morning is when I am awake, and there is a dawn in me.” (Thoreau/Walden)

Black Crowned Night Heron and Green Kingfisher

This morning I awakened to the blissful stillness of life on the river,  just minutes of latitude south of the equator.   The rat-tat-tattling of a lucky kingfisher announced his score on an early-morning breakfast just beyond the deck of the house!  Crickets chirped,  herons squawked, faraway ibis whimpered and even-further-away ocean waves crashed with the ebbing tide.  Humpback whales surely cruised the deeper waters in the distance.

My neighbors the birds

  This Man’s Journey/The Island Traveler asks this week,  “What makes you feel alive? What inspires you and keeps you motivated?”

When home on the river, I awaken  with a profound awareness of nature .  

Croaking Ground Doves

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Vermilion flycatchers, wrens and finches serenade from the garden landscape while flocks of seagulls, pelicans, ibis, comorants and frigates add a cacophony of ecstatic joy from the river.

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A pair of croaking ground doves add their unique melody to the morning’s serenade.  All sounds of modern man are removed, and I ponder that I could be awakening a thousand years in the past – or a thousand in the future.