Scottsdale AZ Organ Symphony

Posted on 2024/11/20 by Gunther

Well…it’s Neil and Connie’s 48th wedding anniversary today and they just got back yesterday from a quick trip out to Scottsdale AZ for a Saint-Saëns Symphony #3 Organ concert by the Scottsdale Philharmonic…and while they were there they went ahead and had their anniversary dinner at one of the restaurants at the Fairmont resort there in Scottsdale.

Last Friday they went to down to the Barbara B Mann auditorium for an Air Supply concert…they were one of her favorite bands back in college days and thereafter. She really liked it…for Neil it was mostly noise but he at least recognized the tune for 2 or 3 songs they played…but it was way louder than he would have preferred. So loud in fact that he turned his hearing aids down to zero and it was still too loud.

They were then off early Saturday morning to the airport here in Fort Myers for a flight first to Charlotte NC and then another 5 hours to the airport in Phoenix…Scottsdale is attached to the north side of Phoenix. Terrible to have to go to Charlotte from FL before heading west…but that’s the American southeast hub so it is what it is. Their original plan was to hit up this oyster house and bar for dinner…but by the time they got to their hotel they were wiped out so skipped it and just went to bed.

Sunday was Mass at a local church and then lunch at In and Out…they had heard that they were supposed to be the epitome of burgers. I gotta tell ya…they were just ok, not really anything to write home about and their fries definitely don’t match up with the ones from the Golden Arches.Then if was off to the concert which was at a local Lutheran church. Here are a shot of the organ pipes and then the orchestra seating section and organ console to it’s right from our seats in the front row of the VIP section (it cost an extra 10 bucks per ticket to be a VIP and since Neil’s ticket was free as a veteran and Connie’s was just $15…they figured another 20 bucks was worth it after flying all the way there for the event. The pipes were maybe 30 feet from their seat and there are more behind the cross to the left of the ones you can see and the louvers to the right side.

They particularly chose their seats so they could watch the organist (who was the organist at the Lutheran church) do his thing.

The concert opened with a double concerto for trumpets, organ, and harpsichord…they weren’t familiar with the Trumpet Concerto for Two Trumpets by Vivaldi it is played on soprano trumpets which like about half size replicas of a normal sized instrument…quite excellent. Next up…the Academic Festival Overture by Brahms…it was written by him for a university who was awarding him an honorary degree. The man didn’t think much of academia so the theme in the piece was borrowed from the tune of a collegiate drinking song at the time…so joke on the university I guess. That was followed by Les Preludes by Liszt…they’re familiar with both of those pieces and enjoyed the performance. Last up before intermission was an aria by a local mezzo-soprano from the opera Samson and Delilah by Saint-Saëns.

Following intermission we got into the highlight of the afternoon…the Organ Symphony…which was again spectacular. There were a few baubles in the French Horn section on some of their higher notes…which makes them appreciate even more the quality of the horn section at our local Sarasota Orchestra…it is the hardest instrument to play well of any of the woodwind instruments. You did know it is considered a woodwind and not a brass instrument despite having a mouthpiece like other brass instruments…right? Yep…dunno why but it falls into the woodwind category. The organist opened up the louvers on the right side of the pipes for all of the loud sections and while it wasn’t the most powerful organ they’ve ever heard…it well filled the church and the sound was quite excellent. It would have been slightly better sounding if they were a few rows back but they decided the opportunity to watch the organist do his thing was worth it. The entire concert was live streamed so there were large screen videos as you can see from the orchestra shot above.

They had reservations at Maggianos after the concert…so they sat at the bar, split a bottle of wine and an order of stuffed mushrooms and then split one of their signature butter cakes for dessert…it is one of the better desserts they have ever had at a restaurant.

Monday they met Michael…one of Neil’s photo Internet forum friends who lives in the area…for a dawn photo shoot at the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Ponds and spent a very pleasant couple of hours with the birds. Photos from the morning will be posted later once Neil processes them. They then headed to Old Town for a late breakfast/early lunch since their anniversary dinner was scheduled for 1800. Heading a couple miles north from their hotel then turned into the Fairmont Princess Resort and it was pretty spectacularly lit…all of the Christmas lights were up and turned on. After parking they headed inside looking for the La Hacienda Mexican restaurant which turned out to be several buildings back into the complex but they eventually figured out where it was located and after checking in for their reservation moved to their far preferred seats at the bar for dinner. They ordered a bottle of wine to split and started viewing the menu…which included well over 100 different tequila brands and types at prices ranging from $15 to well over $400 per shot. Connie noticed the caramel flan on the menu for dessert and they immediately decided to eat light. They split an order of Lobster Tacos and a basket of chips and salsa before ordering the flan. Flan is essentially a soft egg custard flavored with vanilla and baked in a small dish has caramel on the bottom…then the dish is inverted onto the plate so that the caramel runs al over. It was then topped with a combination of whipped cream, marscapone, and sugar so you end up with a thicker than whipped cream topping and then topped with some crunchy stuff with pepita seeds, toasted oats, and some other goodies they could not identify and a scoop of strawberries on the other side. They were glad they only ordered one as it was huge and excellent. Following that they headed back to the hotel. Here are a couple of shots of the decorations inside the resort.

Tuesday morning their flight out left at 0600 which means get to the airport at 0400 which means set the alarm for 0300 to pack the last couple of items, drive down, get gas for the rental car, turn the car in, and schlep seemingly miles through the airport to their gate. Leaving on time they arrived in Dallas-Fort Worth early for a bit over an hour layover than another 3 hours back home. The remnants of Hurricane Sara out in the Gulf south of Louisiana rerouted their flight a bit…instead of heading southeast straight from Dallas they went east until over central Mississippi and then turned south over the gulf back home.

They were pretty burned out by the time they got back to the house…so Neil just whipped up some potato hash topped with eggs for dinner and they were in bed early.

Cyas.

Posted in Critters, Food, Hiking, Organ Symphony, Travel | 2 Comments

Thoughs on the Election

Posted on 2024/11/08 by Gunther

Yeah…I know a little less than half the country is unhappy…and in a bit I’ll give you our synopsis of why she lost…but first…

Truthfully…I’m quite sure that millions of voters weren’t actually voting For either of the candidates…they were mostly voting Against one of the candidates…choosing the least bad between two alternatives. Neil still thinks that his idea for elections is the best answer…None of the Above should be on the ballot and if None wins then there must be a new election and nobody on the previous ballot is eligible to run. Unfortunately that would take a constitutional amendment to happen as well as revision of a lot of the relevant election laws…but it would prevent us from being stuck with the least bad of a bunch of crappy candidates.

What in the heck are people that supported her thinking.

Staring into the abyss

He will never leave office

I’m leaving the country

If you assholes voted for him unfollow me on social media

I will drink Drano now

This is the end of democracy

He won because the US is racist and misogynistic

It doesn’t make sense

White women cost us the election

Black men cost us the election

Biden cost us the election

Each and every one of those was a headline in the last 3 days…and each and every one of them is wrong.

As I’ve said before in these postings…bears don’t have political opinions…but their humans do…and while they’re right of center they both consider themselves pretty much in the middle and actually think that some of the things that Democrats who aren’t far left progressives make sense. But the trouble is the politics has changed drastically in the past 50 years they’ve been voting and the changes have been for the worse. Used to be…both sides would compromise and work out a bill or solution or program that gave something to both sides. Nowadays…the only things that are important are demonization of the other side, name calling, and absolute refusal to entertain either the idea of compromise or that some of the other side’s ideas might have merit. Nope…strict party line BS is what we have these days…and that’s a damn shame.

Ok…why did Ms. Harris lose.

She was Biden only worse. 

As a member of the current administration…there’s no way she was going to be able to dodge responsibility for conditions in the country today. Granted…the inflation we’ve had recently isn’t entirely this administration’s fault…the previous one contributed to it as well…but in the middle of the pandemic rapid development of a vaccine and getting it out to people was important and worth spending a lot of money on. Presidents get far too much credit when the economy is good and far too much blame when it isn’t…and while their policies can contribute to things…economics goes up and down in ways that are to a large extent unpredictable. She couldn’t run against the administration’s policies without throwing the President under the bus. People are concerned about inflation and prices and they’re concerned about the border/immigration disaster…and again both this administration and the ones before all have their share of that blame. The bottom line…she said that she would have done nothing differently than the President did…and the people were really into a “throw the bums out” mode this election cycle.

She was a terrible candidate.

You can’t run an election campaign based on telling everyone that your opponent is a bad guy…you have to run on the issues and say what you will do and Ms. Harris simply refused to do this. From refusal to take any hard questions at interviews to refusal to take Joe Rogan up on his offer for a 3 hour podcast of questions…she simply refused to do anything but take softball questions and anything slightly difficult she went off into one of her canned statements that answered nothing. She continued to act like the elite progressive she has always been and her run to the center for the election was patently a lie to anyone who’s heard her talk or read her positions for her entire career. Add in the media being in the tank for her from day 1 and refusing to report about any of her negatives and it’s no wonder nobody trusts the media these days.

The Democratic Party completely screwed the pooch on this one.

This is far and away the biggest reason for her loss. The President ran in 2020 on a transition to a younger generation platform…but then decided he liked the job and wanted to keep it. Anyone with 2 working brain cells has seen his cognitive decline since 2020 and even before then…but consistent denials by the White House, Democratic elites in the party, and the media that Joe was “sharp as a tack”…was and is obviously just so much BS.It was absolutely zero surprise to anyone when the great debate debacle happened…but then it got even worse. The party elites…and I’m talking to President Obama, his wife, Ms. Pelosi, and Oprah Winfrey…stabbed the man in the back and basically forced him to withdraw. And if that wasn’t bad enough…she was anointed as the nominee sans any voting. The party should have recognized a year ago that the President was not going to win reelection and convinced him to step down at that point in favor of an actual primary season that would reveal things about the various candidates and result in a better candidate. I don’t know who would have won in the primaries if he wasn’t running…but I’m pretty darned sure that Ms. Harris would not have been the nominee. The party passed up the option of having an open convention and went for the coronation instead…and it backfired spectacularly.

Then there were speeches in the past couple of weeks by President Obama, his wife, and Ms. Winfrey…all of which basically told women and blacks that if they didn’t vote the way those three told them to then the women and blacks were enemies, not true men, and assorted similar slurs. Even Steven A. Smith disagreed with them after the election and wondered what in the heck they were thinking…and both Connie and Neil found it funny that it was the first time they ever agreed with Mr. Smith about anything.

In all likelihood the President would have lost the election anyway based on the dissatisfaction with his policies…but she only made the problem worse. All she did…and the media and her party…was focus on convicted felon and fascist and insurrectionist and let’s not forget rapist.

Elections should be about policies and not about personalities. We’re not fans of Mr. Trump around here at all…but his policies (at least the ones that weren’t stupid or illegal and got cancelled as they should have by the courts) were better than the current administration’s policies have been…and that’s shy he won and she lost.

Let’s not worry that this is the end of democracy…the country has survived every president we have had believe it or not. And he’s not going to really deport 12 or 20 million or however many it is illegal immigrants for a couple of reasons. First off…the government can’t find them all. Second and more importantly…the government simply doesn’t have the ability to round up that many people, house them until the deportation hearing, and send them home. Third…a country can only deport people if their original country agrees to accept them and that’s unlikely at best. What we do need is to keep illegals from coming across the border and that will require spending a bunch of money. We also need to beef up the immigration system to process asylum seekers claims in a more reasonable amount of time…catch and release isn’t cutting it as most of them never show up for their hearing in 2 years anyway. We personally think we need more legal immigration than we currently allow…but criminals should not be allowed in and economic refugees which is what most of them are need to wait in line until their turn comes. I can’t fault…not one bit…the wishes of parents in impoverished countries to our south wanting a better life for them and their kids…but they need to do it legally. The left likes to call them “undocumented persons”…but that’s just whitewashing the fact that they are here illegally and that makes them criminals.

Down here in Florida…both the abortion amendment and the marijuana amendments failed…and again they failed due to lack of compromise. While we personally believe that abortion is wrong based on our religion…we don’t get to impose our judgement on everyone else and our personal opinions and legal opinions on both of those are different. I’m quite sure that a reasonable compromise on the abortion amendment would have resulted in something more than the current 6 week limit in the state and requiring parental permission for underage women…and heck maybe the father of the pregnancy should have a vote as well…but no, the amendment was written as broadly as the progressives that wrote it could do so…providing zero limits on the practice because that’s what progressives want. Religious fundamentalists want no abortion ever for any reason…and both of those positions are completely out of step with legal reality or common sense. Same with the drug one…written far too broadly to be acceptable. Maybe they’ll learn and try a more reasonable approach next time.

Interesting things found on the net.

Everything you need in one place…aisle 11.

Out in Ranier, Oregon…
there was this 71 year old cyclist riding his bicycle in town…at least there was until an ambulance from Columbia River Fire and Rescue made a right turn into him and destroyed his bicycle and injured him. Being an ambulance…the driver loaded the man up and took him to the hospital for treatment…and then sent him a bill for $1,862 for the ambulance ride to the hospital.

Cyas.

Posted in Reality Based Blogging, Ya Can't Fix Stupid | Leave a comment

Randodm Musings

Posted on 2024/10/28 by Gunther

It’s been a pretty quiet couple of weeks…we’re getting the usual assortment of election related junk in the mail, email, and by text and just deleting all of it because we’re just disgusted with the nastiness all around, the lies from every candidate, the name calling and all that nonsense. 

Neil did some processing on a few more images from Africa and Costa Rica…I’ll put them up in a bit. Other than that…nothing is really going on around these parts. The weather has cooled way off so that we’ve had the windows and doors open and stayed over pretty much 24-7 for the last couple of weeks. Having the breeze and fresh air puts us pretty much in our happy place…it is Florida after all so during the summer the A/C is mandatory but the cooking smells never really get pulled out of the house…we much prefer the fall, winter, and spring weather. Connie especially likes it because it means Neil doesn’t need to get out biking so early to avoid the heat and that means she doesn’t have to get up and make coffee as early.

We’re starting to think about the holidays…don’t know what he will cook yet but I’m sure it will be tasty. They had a couple of Elks things that they went to and one that they cancelled out on last Saturday…they both felt bad most of the day and although she improved he still felt bad and the thought of a stuffed pepper (he’s normally pretty fond of those) just did not suit so they cancelled and had some angel hair pasta and butter instead. She was supposed to collect the money from the bras…the Ladies put up 6 decorated bras to collect money for breast cancer research but she texted Tammy at the lodge (she’s the bartender) and Tammy took care of it for her.

We ran some errands today…got gas for Connie’s car so she won’t run out on the way to chorus practice tonight, bought a rake, and she looked for a spiffy new dress for their anniversary at Bealls but failed…he’ll send her to Nordstrom or someplace before then to get something nice.

Neil’s working on advising a lady photographer on the forum on some new equipment…a pro shooter but has some serious deficiencies (in his opinion) in their computer setup…thinking on whether to get a new Windows box or move to macOS…he’s advised her pros and cons of both and also given her some image storage suggestions that will work far better no matter which platform she chooses. As you know…he’s a macOS guy but is more than willing to recommend sticking with Windows if it makes sense based on the situation he is evaluating for someone.

I see from the latest media postings from the supposed journalists that Mr. Musk is no longer the darling of the left. He was for a long time since Tesla cars were supposed to be the vanguard of the great EV migration. Personally…the lack of sufficient charging facilities and limited range makes a full EV really impractical for anyone that actually has to travel long distances; stopping every 200 miles to charge for an hour plus just doesn’t make sense. Hybrids make a lot more sense…they’re still getting a lot better mileage than gas only vehicles but allow range for long trips and easy fill ups along with having engines that are specifically tuned to keep the battery charged which lowers emissions. Unfortunately though…the save the world people aren’t interested in a partial solution that is achievable in the short to medium term. 

Anyways…it all started when he bought Twitter and renamed it…then refused to arbitrarily kick every user the left doesn’t like off of the platform. Those folks are only interested in free speech they like…and while the far right are about the same it seems that overall the right isn’t as bad Us…we like all free speech…even that we disagree with because we’re great believers in the Constitution. 

Just when the hubbub over Twitter was starting to die down…Mr. Musk decided to support the former President instead of the Veep…and in the past 3 weeks or so the personal attacks against him in the formerly friendly media has increased. Too bad. The man is entitled to support politically whoever he likes and shouldn’t be demonized for his choices…but that’s the way it goes these days. The man has done a lot of good…he did build Tesla after all as well as SpaceX which has pretty much taken over the launch market. We’re still on the fence about the whole Starship thing and whether we can send people to the moon Mars with it…but he’s been successful enough that maybe betting against him ins’t the smartest thing to do.

And just a week ago…out in the PRC…the CA Coastal Commission declined to authorize SpaceX to launch more rockets per year from Vandenberg. Now if they had some valid reason to do so that would be fine…but
according to this…the commission voted the proposal down because of his political views and not based on any scientific evidence. Governor Newsom has come out and said they’re absolutely wrong for doing so…and when that guy says you’ve gone too far politically ya gotta think maybe you have.

Even Anderson Cooper has been blasted in the press lately. While we didn’t watch it…the Veep was interviewed by him the other day and apparently he asked hard questions and did his best to try her to actually answer them instead of just slipping into irrelevant talking points. Naturally her supporters are horrified that he dared to not treat her with kid gloves. To his credit…he said he was trying to actually practice serious journalism and that it was his job to ask hard questions and insist on them being answered. 

The other side isn’t much better though…the former President pretty much only has softball interviews and doesn’t really answer hard questions either…but that’s the way politics has evolved. He keeps saying stupid things like eliminating income taxes but doesn’t really say how the government will get funded…he did talk about tariffs but that’s not going to work in a global economy. Frankly…both parties are pretty much spending money they don’t have…they’re just spending it on different priorities.

Out on the left coast…the Boeing strike against their aircraft factories is still going on…last week the union rejected the second contract their leaders negotiated…this one would have given the workers (who average well over $100K salary already) a 35% pay boost over 4 years, a $7,000 per worker ratification bonus, and an expanded 401K contribution in both matching funds as well as a contribution even if the employee contributed nothing. But nope…rejected…the union wants their defined benefit pension plan back and that’s just not likely to happen as they put all of the liability for the pension plan on the company instead of the individual worker. Since the 90s the percentage of defined benefit plans as compared to defined contribution plans has declined from the 70% range to the 20% range…because the companies don’t want the liability for the plan on their balance sheets since that affects profitability and management bonus plans. The auto workers and dock workers tried to get theirs reinstated in their recent strikes and failed miserably. If I was Boeing…I would start moving my production to the facility in SC which has a lower cost of living and is a right to work state. The union out there is going to bankrupt the company…remember they’ve got the white elephant space capsule, a money losing space launch business, and parts keep falling off of their planes (although to be fair most of the parts falling off are due to airline maintenance procedures and practices and not faulty aircraft manufacture).

Over in the Middle East…the Israelis have struck back at Iran after Iran sent several barrages of missiles launched from Iran at Israel. We have no idea how the whole situation will end up…but the entire area has been fighting over religion, territory, and water for 2,000 years or more…so how in the heck does anybody think it’s going to stop. Israel just wants to live in peace but apparently their neighbors do not and will only be satisfied with the destruction of the country…and that’s pretty unlikely to happen.

Ok, let’s see what Neil has for ya…I won’t identify all the species but it should be pretty obvious what they are and where they are from.

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Interesting things found on the net.

For those (like Neil) who never really understood that whole twice removed thing he found this.

And finally…this post from Mr. Musk’s twitter account. I’m not sure whether he authored it or just reposted something else he found…but the sentiment expressed is absolutely spot on. People that leave them scattered all over the parking lot have always seriously pissed us off…but then as Neil is fond of saying…most people are just a$$holes. He even admits that he occasionally is himself…but he’s honest about it and does his best not to be one.

Cyas.

Posted in Africa, Costa Rica, Critters, Homebody, Nature, Photography, Reality Based Blogging, WIldlife, Ya Can't Fix Stupid | Leave a comment

Costa Rica Last Day Part 2

Posted on 2024/10/14 by Gunther

Well…we’re coming to the end of images from the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica…and we currently have no trips planned so I dunno when I will have some more images to pass along. Maybe I’ll have Neil pull some more out from the Africa and Costa Rica trips until something better comes along. We’ve got a short trip out to Arizona next month for a Saint-Saẽns concert but other than that there aren’t many birds yet at any of the prime birding locations so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. 

Things are getting back to normal after Milton…the beach areas and some of the places that got hit harder will have a longer recovery but here in North Fort Myers everything has pretty much died down and we’re normal again…and the weather the past couple of days has been pleasantly cool so that’s a break. We were able to open up the house and get some fresh air for the first time in months…that’s a good sign we’re getting to the time of year when we can stay open most of the time.

Some of Connie’s Ladies of Elks things got moved around due to the storm…meetings and lunch and such that were originally scheduled at the Punta Gorda lodge which being right on the Peace River got slammed pretty hard. She’s in charge of the meeting so has had a bunch of phone conversations and emails with other important personages to get them rescheduled. 

Connie’s off again tonight to Mastersingers rehearsal…they missed last week and there’s only another month or so until the concert…and Neil finally got his ticket for it straightened out; he had paid for one but instead of being issued by the Gulf Coast Symphony they are collaborating with the print at home ticket was to be issued by the venue and it never got here. The folks at the Symphony got it sorted out though.

We will be so glad when the election is over…both of the candidates are essentially lying for votes at this point. We don’t like either one and wish None of the Above was on the ballot instead. While we’re not fans of the former President at all…we have to recognize that most of the media is in the tank for Ms. Harris and the coverage from most of the media has been extremely biased because unfortunately most of the media is pretty much to the left and at this point in time about 99.5% of all media is no longer interested in journalism and reporting the facts but instead are more interested in being the news rather than reporting the news and pushing whatever their political viewpoint is…and that is true of both right and left leaning media. It was so much better back when folks like Walter Cronkite were on the evening news…he just told you the facts because that’s the way it is as he used to say. Not until he retired did we ever get a glimpse of his actual politics…and he was what would have been described at the time as a flaming liberal but even he wasn’t as far left as the progressives are today. The fact remains though…he didn’t let his personal views affect the way he did his job…nope, it was just the facts.

Ok, on to images…the flowers are Connie’s and were not on the boat ride but all of them get sorted by exposure time so that’s why they are where they are.

American Crocodile…not the same one as last time with the butterfly.

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Green Iguana…this is the same species we have in Florida but ours are normally all bright green and down in Costa Rica they’re mostly black/gray but you can see the green in the legs. This one was about 2 feet long.

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Green Heron hatchlings…like most heron babies they’re pretty ugly and were the offspring of the adult one in the last post.

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Proboscis bat…they found a whole lot of these underneath a bridge on the boat ride.

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Capuchin Monkey…they found two different troops of these on the ride near each other on opposite sides of the river which was maybe 40 or 50 feet wide. They don’t swim and there are predators in the water anyway so mostly they just scream at each other.

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You can see in this shot that their legs actually have hands instead of feet…makes it easier to climb due to better flexibility and ability to grab onto things along with the opposable toe/thumb.

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These bird shots were not taken on the boat ride but rather at Dennis Valverde’s sloth preserve…they stopped by there to allow folks on the workshop to pay for the wives that had gone along on then chocolate tour earlier in the week…that was not an official part of the workshop but wives were invited along for a brief nature/wildlife outing followed by chocolate fondue.

Thick Billed Euphonia.

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Painted turtle…very similar to several species we have here in Florida. Neil was hoping for an action shot as it slithered into the water and triggered a 20 frames per second burst when it moved…but unfortunately it went off the far side of the log.

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Scarlet Rumped Tanager…again very similar to the Scarlet Tanager in the US except the red and black areas are swapped.

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More Thick Billed Euphonia.

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And the final bird…the Costa Rica National Bird. This is the Clay Colored Thrush…and Neil originally had to wonder why it was chosen instead of one of the many far more beautiful bits in the country…Macaws, Toucans, Parrots and the like. He asked Dennis and it was selected because unlike all of those other birds which are only found in specific regions of the country this one is found everywhere and whoever decides these things thought it made a better selection. It’s a pretty good sized bird…much larger than the Euphonia and Tanager but still smaller than the Toucans, most of the parrots, and the Scarlet Macaw.

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Here are a couple snapshots from where they had lunch after the boat ride. The boat departed from the dock at the left so it wasn’t much of a commute to lunch from the boat.

And just in case you couldn’t figure out where to recycle the beer at.

So…that’s it for the trip down there…I’ll leave you with these three final shots as we prepared to take our leave from what turned out to be a pretty nice country with very friendly folks and really good food.

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Neil really thought this one captures the essence ofd the place pretty well.

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And if one had to pick his second favorite shot of the wildlife there…the Scarlet Macaw pretty much takes that cake.

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After a farewell dinner at the resort they got all packed up and were off to the airport for the flight home shortly after breakfast.…and then there was some excitement on the outgoing flight. First off…the plane turned out to be overweight but one of the participants wasn’t leaving out of San Jose that day but staying overnight before flying out so he volunteered to go back to San Jose on the afternoon flight…that solved the first problem. Then…despite the fact that there was one and only one outgoing flight on the ramp and all 9 passengers in the terminal were scheduled for that flight…they managed to leave Neil’s tripod bag in the office at the airport which they didn’t figure out until landing in San Jose. Once they discovered that…talking to the folks at both the domestic and international sides of the airport indicated that it would be on the next flight from Osa landing about noon and he could pick it up then. They were told to go ahead and check in and enter the international section of the terminal and he would be allowed to leave and go pick it up. So that’s what they did and once the flight was scheduled to arrive Neil tried to do that…only to be told that he had already passed through outbound immigration and thus was actually no longer legally in the country and that he couldn’t leave to go back over and pick up the tripod. This naturally disturbed him since it’s an expensive carbon fiber model with a fluid head and set him back more than $1,000. He started texting with Rose Perry back in the US (she did all the logistics for the workshop) and she was working on getting somebody to bring it back when they returned from their workshop the next week (there were 4 or 5 in a row) and she would ship it to him. This was going to be an issue since he needed it just a week later for another workshop in Glacier National Park…so he started talking to those folks (different organizer) to see if he could borrow a tripod from them for the duration. Nothing had been settled by the time they got on the plane, but they were sitting in first class on the right side and as he saw the luggage being loaded…lo and behold he recognized his tripod bag. Turned out that the bush plane airline folks had figured out he wouldn’t be able to come and pick it up so they brought it over, figured out which airline and flight he was on, and got it checked through to Miami for him. So…good on them for outstanding service.

Then as it turned out the workshop in Glacier he ended up canceling (and losing the fee since it was too late) because he ended up with diverticulitis. Luckily…the tickets there were transferrable so he was able to use that balance to pay for half of their flights to Arizona next month.

So…all in all they can confirm that Costa Rica is a pretty nice place to visit. Yeah, it’s hot and humid but wildlife is great another are several other sections of the country…the Cloud Forest in the north and the east coast lowlands…that have different wildlife so it’s possible they’ll head back there again for another workshop or just a trip and hire guides to show them around.

Cyas.

Posted in Costa Rica, Critters, Photography, Travel, WIldlife | Leave a comment

We Survived Milton…Or…Costa Rica Last Day Part 1

Posted on 2024/10/11 by Gunther

Some of you are old enough to remember Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons and how the narrator with the deep voice told you the title of the episodes…and some of you had a deprived childhood and never got to see Natasha Fatale, Boris Badenov, Snidely Whiplash, fair maiden Nell, and her intrepid rescuer Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties.

Anyways…as you saw on the news Hurricane Milton went across Florida on Wednesday and…despite all the doom and gloom you saw on the news about the Storm of the Century, the ever powerful category 5 storm, and the complete inundation of the entire Florida peninsula…it wasn’t and isn’t really that bad, the news always shows you the worst bits they can find because clicks ya know. 

I’m not going to tell you there was no damage, and I’m not going to tell you it was all fairy dust either…just that it’s not nearly as bad as the news might lead you to believe. True…it was a cat 5 way out in the gulf but had weakened to just cat 3 by the time it was close enough to land to matter…and the storm surge wasn’t nearly as high anyplace as the original overhyped news reports predicted. And yes…there was damage along the beaches and on the barrier islands but barrier islands are there to protect the mainland to some extent and personally I don’t think they should be allowed to be developed as that takes away from their purpose…but rich people ya know. In Lee County where we are and south…the major issue was tornadoes from one of the storm bands. There weren’t any super strong ones but there were probably 20ish smaller ones, and those damaged homes…particularly manufactured ones and RVs…and knocked down trees and power lines in some areas. North of us in Charlotte, Pinellas, and Hillsborough counties there was a bit more damage but again it isn’t really the catastrophic civilization ending aftermath you’ve been seeing on the news. 

They just can’t help themselves I guess.

Anyways…around our place we got winds of 60ish and maybe 3-4 inches of rain total and the worst parts happened way before landfall. Most of the storm was north of the eye with just a couple of bands around the south side and as the biggest of those came ashore Wednesday morning it spawned the numerous tornadoes and lightning storms we saw. We didn’t even lose power as the local electric cooperative cleared away trees from the feeder lines to our substation at the front of the neighborhood and the lines to the houses are underground. Nonetheless…we had water and food and flashlights and generator gas just in case and Neil put the shutters up and brought the lanai stuff into the garage. Yesterday morning he undid all of that and we’re pretty much back to normal today…and bonus, it’s cool today so we have the doors open for awhile to get some fresh air into the house for the first time in probably 4 months.

The worst part of the storm was that…once again…an October storm screwed up a planned trip for Neil and Connie. They had tickets (actually for this afternoon) to see the Saint Saëns Symphony #3 Organ again at the Philadelphia Symphony…they’ve heard it there before and the organ is quite excellent. They were supposed to leave Wednesday AM (the day the storm got here) for the 2 day drive up and were going to stop by Baltimore to see an old friend for dinner and then by the human kids for a couple of days. However…they didn’t know how bad the storm was going to be and didn’t want to risk losing power and the freezer full of meat in the garage so they canceled the trip. Ian cancelled a trip similar two years back for a performance of the symphony, a visit with some RVing friends in NC, and a visit to the human kids…so we’re not planning any more trips in October. They thought about trying to get plane tickets for yesterday after the storm went past…but both the airports here didn’t open until Friday morning and the performance is at 1400 so they couldn’t get there anyway…bummer. 

Ok, enough of that…let’s get on to the last full day of the workshop in Costa Rica.

The plan for the day was to head about 60ish miles northwest actually off of the Osa Peninsula for a boat ride on the river so off they headed about 0700 up and over the mountains to exit the peninsula then northwest on the famous Pan American Highway a bit before turning back south to the river as near as he can tell it was the Rio Sierpe from looking at the pictures of the boat launch place and the Spanish signs posted there. They then spent a couple hours on the boat going a mile or two up and down the river and off into some side channels in search of critters. After that…lunch at the boat landing and they went back to the resort for the farewell dinner of the workshop.

Amazon Kingfisher

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White Rumped Swallow…he got a nice takeoff sequence here. This guy was really fast…these were all at 1/3200 of a second shutter speed to freeze the motion.

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Green Heron…exactly the same species as we have in the US. Determined to be likely the female as you’ll see in a bit.

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Giant Lubber Grasshopper…about 4 inches in size.

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Crab of some sort…google says it’s a Red Land Crab despite the fact that it’s in the water.

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Green Kingfisher…and I’m confused as there’s not really any green on it. I guess you could call the almost black part a greenish dark gray but Ima not seein’ it.

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American Crocodile with a butterfly near it. The guide said that the butterflies drink the tears of the crocodile as their source for drinking water.

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Interesting things found on the net.

Australian population…98% lives in the white area and only 2% in the yellow area.

This is the San Francisco Garter Snake…it’s on the endangered species list and even Neil who thinks there is no such thing as a good snake agrees that this is quite the attractive species.

Cyas.

 

Posted in Costa Rica, Critters, Photography, Travel, WIldlife | Leave a comment

Well…That Was Embarrassing

Posted on 2024/10/06 by Gunther

Nope…not me, bears don’t get embarrassed. Not Connie or Neil either…although they are unable to understand some of the human kid’s opinions. Nope…it’s the Alabama football team…but Ima gonna get to that in just a bit.

This post was originally gonna be about our trip a couple weeks back to Daytona Beach for the Florida Ladies of Elks (FLOE) convention and include a few pictures from a mostly bust trip to Black Point Wildlife Drive Neil took that weekend. But Ima gonna get to that in another bit because we got bigger fish to fry this week.

This week…it’s Milton…and Ima not talkin’ ‘bout Berle or any of the other famous Milton’s (if there any of those…can’t recall any more). Hurricane to be Milton which is currently down in the Campeche Basin directly west of the Yucatan peninsula…for those of you not familiar with the geography it’s just about due south of the LA/TX border as I type this on Sunday October 6. It’s heading east and then northeast with landfall as a cat 2, 3, or 4 storm depending on who you believe (most are calling it a 2 or 3) about Tampa but the cone goes from the Big Bend area where Helene came in down to south of Naples…and it will get to FL midday on Wednesday.

The good news is that we’re pretty much ready for it. Concrete block house with tile roof, we’ll put up the shutters and bring the lanai stuff in tomorrow and/or Tuesday. Checked the generator operation (started on the second pull) and have battery banks, UPSes and flashlights charged and plenty of spare batteries for the non rechargeable ones. We’ll fill the tub with water for toilet operations just in case and have plenty of food and water. Flooding even during Ian was a non issue here in our development and there aren’t any more trees that could come down and break the lanai screens again. Neil’s car is full of gas and not going anyplace before Wednesday and Connie’s is 3/4 full but he’ll have her fill up on the way home from chorus tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that both the Ladies of Elks meeting/lunch on Tuesday and Bingo on Wednesday will both be cancelled but we’ve no official notification on that.

The bad news…is that we were supposed to leave Wednesday at zero dark thirty for a 2 day drive to Philadelphia for a Saint-Saëns Symphony #3 Organ concert (the same one we go to hear quite a lot) then a stop in Baltimore to see our friend Cynthia and then a couple day stop in Midlothian to see the human kids and grandkid. We cancelled the Philly hotel yesterday since that was the last no cost day and Connie will kill the rest of them today. With the hurricane coming…although we’ve got nothing to fear from wind or water…if power goes out which isn’t a certainty but somewhere between likely and more likely than not…well, we would lose 3 freezers and 2 fridges worth of food and that’s a lot of bucks. We’ll be out the tickets to the concert of course but that’s the way it goes. Connie is bummed about not seeing the not quite so little guy Alex but it is what it is.

I see the liberals including their human kid (where did they go wrong they keep asking themselves) are all up in arms and demanding that Israel stop hostilities against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon because “they’re killing innocent people” and “they’re invading another country”…and let’s not forget “Israel is so much more powerful militarily than either Hamas or Hezbollah”.

Let’s face it…war sucks. Things get broken and people…including innocents…get killed, lose their homes and livelihoods and generally the raw end of the deal. But deal with it…war is hell but war will always be with it. What the liberals are deliberately ignoring is that (a) the current set of hostilities was started by Hamas and Hezbollah last October 7 with terrorist attacks on unarmed civilians (b) those same terrorists or their previous incarnations of a different name have been continuously attacking Israel since it was formed in 1948 along with an accompanying Arab/Muslim/non Jewish state; this however…wasn’t good enough for the other side and they swore to wipe Israel and its people from the face of the earth…Israel would love to have peace…and after losing several wars to them both Jordan and Egypt signed peace treaties and have accepted the existence of the country of Israel and (c) the only reason that innocents are being killed is that the cowardly terrorist bastards deliberately use their innocents as human shields above and around their military facilities…because they know the Israeli operations will kill those innocents and the cowardly terrorist bastards want the political capital that those deaths bring.

Liberals though…want to ignore the facts of who started what when and deny Israel the right to protect their country, land, and population. Let’s be honest people…Israel is not in the wrong here for doing so. Yes…the fog of war and use of human shields certainly means that innocents get killed…but that’s on the cowardly terrorist bastards, not the Israelis.

Ok…embarrassment. We all watched Alabama pretty much demolish the top ranked Georgia Bulldogs last week to open their conference season…then this week they went to Vanderbilt. Now…Vandy has been the proverbial doormat of the SEC for decades…but since they’re an egghead engineering school you actually have to be a good student to be admitted and this necessarily cuts down on the talent their sports teams have. In fact…they haven’t won the SEC since 1923 and the last time they beat Alabama was 40 years ago when Bear Bryan was still prowling the sidelines. So…Alabama was favored by 23 points…but they forgot the fact that the SEC is a lot deeper than it was in days gone by and the old adage of any given team on any given day applies. 

The team basically figured that all they needed to do was show up and they would win just because they’re Alabama…so all of the fundamentals like blocking and tackling were just ignored.. Vandy scored on the opening drive after the kickoff…then scored again on a tipped pick 6, then scored again. The offense…well, they were adequate, scoring 35 points which most days is good enough to win…but the defense was simply unable to get a defensive stop that meant something. Even in the fourth quarter…the offense twice got within 5 points and they were clearly better than Vandy’s offense…all they needed was a defensive stop and the offense would have had an excellent chance to score again and win the game.

But…nooooo…trailing by 5 with 3 timeouts left and the 2 minute warning with almost 4 minutes left in the game…they gave up 4 consecutive first downs to let Vandy close out the game.

Mistakes abounded…having both players with #2 on the field resulted in a Vandy first down that resulted in a score…a facemask penalty provided another first down leading to a score…

Appalling, gruesome, hideous, atrocious, pitiful…take your pick of them…Neil has been watching them for going 60 years now and that was the single worst defensive performance he has ever seen. No matter the records…when you’re one of the dozen or so teams with a realistic chance of winning the championship every game you play against somebody outside that dozen is a chance for them to make their season. You have to show up and get off the bus ready to play. There was plenty to go around…poor coaching prep, poor defensive plan, poor effort…not to mention once Vandy got ahead they actually believed they could win…

It was turrible as Sir Charles Barkley would say.

OK…the FLOE convention. It was up in Daytona Friday through Sunday and Neil only had a single job for Connie over the weekend…he was the door guard Saturday afternoon during there Memorial Ceremony where they honor Ladies who are no longer with us. Other than that he was free so he popped down to Merritt Island NWR for the Black Point Wildlife Drive…and it was almost beyond pitiful. He’s not going there in October ever again…and was so bored at the convention that he’ll probably send her on the bus next year and stay home instead.

He did get a few shots…but they were very few.

Little Blue Heron with breeding plumage although it’s still a bit early for that (the red on the neck)

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Sunrise

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Cormorant

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Non breeding Little Blue Heron

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And that literally was it. It was so dead that he declined to do the additional drive over by the beach as well and went home early.

Sorry…no interesting things found on the net this time…

Cyas.

Posted in Critters, Nature, Photography, Reality Based Blogging, WIldlife | 2 Comments

Costa Rica Day 6 Part 3

Posted on 2024/09/25 by Gunther

Sorry ‘bout not posting for going on 3 weeks…but life sorta intervened. We had a pretty busy couple of weeks as Connie got ready for her Ladies of Elks Conference up in Daytona and Neil did a lot of assisting her with getting ready and making sure she had things done. Add on to that with the actual conference last weekend…and well, ya know how it goes I reckon.

Now that we’re back…she’s working (well, actually she’s done) on DLETC duties for another couple of upcoming trips for Saint-Saëns Symphony 3 Organ concerts along with a visit to the human kids and to see a friend from her old working days at ACP. 

And then there’s good old Hurricane Helene to worry about…she formed this morning down off the coast of Yucatan and is headed northwest into the gulf. She’ll pass here tomorrow afternoon well offshore…but she’s about 600 or 700 miles wide and despite being just off the point of Yucatan as Ima typing the outer rain bands are already over us. We’re expecting 6 or so inches over the next 36 hours or so and forecast winds here at Casa de Laubenthal are in the high 20s with gusts to the 40s. Neil cleared of all the light stuff from the lanai but we’re holding off on storm shutters for now. If it changes course or the wind forecast changes radically he’ll just have to go out and shutter in the rain in the AM. It only takes him a couple of hours now that he knows exactly what to do…and we’re seriously considering upgrading to the accordion style shutters like our neighbors got as they get deployed in maybe 10 minutes and no lifting/carrying/mounting (and then undoing it all) is required with that style. The electrical ones have just way too many things that can go wrong so we’ll stay well away from those although if we upgrade we’ll get the rolling type for the lanai door and front door…probably.

And a Happy Birthday to DIL Jen…she’s a peach and we’re glad to have her in the family. She’s something or other years old today…she’s a year or two older than Bryan so it’s probably the 2nd or 3rd anniversary of her 40th…but then one never really asks a woman how old she is…how dumb do ya think I am??

Ok, on more images from Costa Rica.

Chestnut Mandibled Toucan…although to be honest there’s not really much difference with the Yellow Throated. This one is eating some palm fruit.

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Howler Monkey

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Capuchin Monkey at sunset (or maybe Spider…couldn’t see enough detail to be sure.

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Connie and her fishing captain.

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Scarlet Macaws. They mate for life and a pair are rarely very far from one another. These were taken from the bluff at the resort as they flew by…yo can see how they remain pretty close together even in flight.

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Guianan Puffbird

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White Hawk…Dennis identified it as a Golden Eagle but…nah…not even close.

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Red Ruped Agouti

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Crested Caracara

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Great Curassow…it’s in the pheasant/turkey family (or maybe genus or whatever the right group name is)

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Collared Peccary

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Sloth

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It was getting pretty late in the day by this time so the group skedaddled back to the resort before it got dark…or actually it was pretty much dark by the time they returned.

Interesting things found on the net.

Turns out that the cell phone was invented…at least the concept of both it and the smartphone…back in 1926 by Nichola Tesla…here’s a quote from him in an article in Collier magazine.

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This one will make sense for anybody our age to perhaps 20 or so years younger.

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Ever wonder how big Australia really is? Look at all the countries you could fit inside it. It’s actually about 80% of the size of the USA.

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Ever wonder how credit card numbers are derived? They come from something known as the Luhn Algorithm named after Hans Peter Luhn of IBM…it is a simple method of determining whether a number was mistyped or is otherwise invalid.

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I might have used this one before…India is not only the only country that has both lions and tigers but it is the only country that has all of the animals in this image.

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Cyas.

Posted in Costa Rica, Critters, Organ Symphony, Photography, Travel, WIldlife | 2 Comments

Costa Rica Day 6 Part 2

Posted on 2024/09/06 by Gunther

First up…nah, ya didna miss Day 6 Part 1…it was part of the Small World After All Post from about a week back.

We were hoping that now that it’s September the weather would start cooling off. The bad news is that it didn’t, the past week or so has been about the hottest and most humid of the summer with some rain most days but fortunately it’s pretty much been later in the day so Bike Day has been able to be conducted every other day as scheduled (well, except for today as a flat fire had him walking home after a mile of riding…). The good news is that the two potential tropical disturbances we’ve been watching the past week are no issue for us. One is in the Gulf almost to Texas and the other off the coast of the Carolinas and neither appears to be going to amount to much. But with all the rain our pond out back is about as full as it’s ever been.

Not much else is new outside of the hot weather (which really ain’t new either, it’s Florida in the summer)…Connie’e been hard at work doing Ladies of the Elks stuff for the convention coming up getting ready for the Memorial Service she’s in charge of. Neil…well, he’s pretty much not been doing anything.

Our Elks lodge has found another candidate for our new location…we have to be out of the existing one by the end of the year and the folks looking for a new place have had 5 or 6 potential locations of which 3 were seriously considered and we were ready to use them but the liquor folks wouldn’t approve either one as too close to schools. The new one we found out about this week is in a shopping center that already has a liquor store in it so that should not be a problem. The biggest problems with a new location have been (a) management doesn’t want to move north of the river because driving across the bridge is soooo hard; (b) they don’t want a kitchen because it’s a hassle…which is true but Neil and Connie have been in 50 or more lodges across the country and every successful one has a kitchen because food brings people in and then they spend money on cocktails which is where the lodge prospers; and (c) they have a champagne taste/beer budget problem in wanting to only be in a nice neighborhood which means that the rent is much higher. High enough in fact that a lodge of 200something members open 4 nights a week with nothing to eat most days simply can’t make enough to pay the rent. They’ve got money from when they sold their previous building (which actually had a kitchen so that’s why it was sold) but the new place will be negative cash flow every month.

On the good note…the Ladies moved Bingo from Sundays to 2nd and 4th Wednesday evenings which I working out a lot better for both numbers of players and no longer causes issues with symphony or Mastersingers concerts for us.

Ok, on to part 2 of the images for the day…part 3 will be coming later on and then I think there’s only 1 (or maybe 2) more day’s worth of images for Neil to finish (well, he’s gotta start first I guess) processing.

Bicolored Antbird

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Capuchin Monkey

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With baby

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Butterfly

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Spider Monkey

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Another of Connie’s Jack Crevalle fish…they’re not edible but are good fighters so all 5 of them got tossed back. She also caught 3 Black Tipped Sharks between 2 and 3 feet long…didn’t bother taking any pictures of them in the water and her captain just cut the line. Neil pulled her Deadliest Catch hat out of the closet for her to wear on the trip as you can see.

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White Faced Coati. They’re somewhat similar to raccoons and are primarily tree dwellers although they do forage on the ground in family groups quite a lot…and their tail is usually raised straight up when on the ground.

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Our English participant in the workshop.

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White Crowned Parrot

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Squirrel Monkey with baby

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Goan Day Gecko

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Golden Silk Orb Weaver

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Common Bird Snake. This one was about 3 feet long and was reported by Dennis as being about full size.

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Howler Monkey baby

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For those of you who remember the movie ET…I’m not sure whether this proves that ET was really a Howler Monkey or whether he was an alien designed by Hollywood too look that way…but anyway it appears the baby wants to phone home…or more properly he’s pointing towards mom.

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Who he finally caught up to.

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Most of the shots today were taken at the place…located on the far southeast tip of the Osa Peninsula…it’s an Eco-Resort where the minimum room rate is north of 500 bucks a night.

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Here’s an iPhone pano shot of the outside bar where they were resting during the heat of the afternoon.

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Off to the left side about a half frame width Neil noticed this Yellow Headed Caracara and got a nice takeoff sequence.

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Once it was in flight…it passed through the open air bar and out to the left where it sat on a railing by the pool.

20240710 CR Z8a 5752-NEF-DxO.

20240710 CR Z8a 5774-NEF-DxO.

He didn’t notice the perfect position of the lady in the red suit behind the bird until he was processing the shots.

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After the bird flew off they headed off through the grounds immediately around the resort to see what else was there…but that will wait until next. time.

Cyas.

Posted in Costa Rica, Critters, Photography, Travel, WIldlife | Leave a comment

It’s A Small World After All

Posted on 2024/08/27 by Gunther

Yep…that’s the way the Disney tune goes and it’s clearly true…as evidenced by a happening last Saturday night.

Throughout their time together…Connie and Neil have experienced a smattering of serendipitous events that individually pretty much defy whatever odds you might think…presented here in no particular order.

  • When we lived in the RV…we were up in Minnesota and went to the commissary (grocery store) on an Air Force Base there to pick up some groceries. Neil as he was want to do had an Alabama baseball cap on and this African American fellow about his age came up and said “Roll Tide”…and they got to talking about where they were from. Neil said Alabama and the guy said “where from?”…and after a series of increasingly more specific answers to that question it turned out that he lived in what used to be called the colored neighborhood that essentially came up to the back of the yard where Neil grew up…and he lived 3 doors down that street. They went to different schools so never met and just happened to run into each other 40ish years later in Minnesota.
  • When the human kid Bryan was just a little tyke in grammar school…Connie went on a field trip for his class someplace as one of the chaperones. There was another parent there and he introduced himself as something or other Memoli as his last name. Now that’s a pretty obscure last name of course and Connie had been telling Neil for years about this girl in her class named Emilie Memoli and wondered how the parents could possibly have named her that. So she asked the guy if he had a sister named Emilie and he reported he did. He was her older brother and was a year ahead of her at her high school.
  • When he was in Nuclear Power School in Orlando back in 1977…there was a meet and greet for the wives that she attended. She saw this woman there with New Jersey plates on her car so they got to talking about where in NJ they were from. The woman (Pat) told her she was from nearby where Connie grew up and after a series of “where froms” similar to Neil above they both went to Immaculata High School and the woman was a year ahead of her in school. They exchanged original names and this woman stood in front of her in gym class.
  • When they were in the RV life…they made a lot of friends that towed the same New Horizons 5th wheel that we had. Mostly we saw those folks every 18 months or so at the New Horizons Owners Group (NHOG) rally and occasionally had some email chats. At the time there were less than 1,000 New Horizons ever made and only 30 or so at each rally so it was strange to even see one in a campground at all or driving down the road. Nonetheless…at least half a dozen times through the 8 years we did that we would see one going the other way on the highway and recognize the truck and wave at each other via email and about as many times we pulled into a campground and found not only another New Horizons but one owned by people we had met at multiple rallies.
  • And that leads up to last Saturday night. One of the long time members at our Elks Lodge was having a 70something birthday so there was BBQ and cake in her owner. We attended (well, the humans did since the lodge isn’t zoned for bears) and they started at their usual seats at the bar. As I might have mentioned before…in the going on 48 years of marriage they’ve probably eaten 95% of their eating out meals at the bar for a simple reason…you meet a much better class of bum that was as Neil so elegantly puts it (and he’s only pissed off 1 person sitting at the bar in all the decades he’s been saying that). Eating dinner at the bar is hard since there’s a raised lip on the front and no good place to put your plate…so when friends Joe and Suzanne came in they headed over and sat with and another couple from a different lodge who also knows Diane. They were chatting with Joe and Suzanne about the serendipity of small world meetings and then Connie got to talking to the other woman (Jeanne) about what they did and they were swapping tales and showing off I phone pictures. Connie mentioned that she had been in London last summer singing with the choral group and Jeanne said she was there too. Connie pulled out her photo of John Rutter to show Jeanne and said “Hey, that’s you in the background”…and airdropped her the shot. Another serendipitous moment to be sure.

Otherwise…things around are still pretty much copacetic…it’s Florida in the summer so it’s hot and humid. We’ve been having rain…a lot…more than most summers past but hopefully in another month or so it will start cooling down. We’ve got a couple short trips planned for the fall to a Ladies of Elks thing and then a couple of Saint Sáens Organ Symphony concerts…we’ll piggy back those with a visit to the human kids and out to Arizona for some sightseeing and photography.

And I see that NASA has finally made up their mind how to get the stranded astronauts back from the ISS instead of putting them on the fundamentally broke Boeing capsule…they’re gonna hang around up there until February and the next crew rotation headed up in late September will only have 2 crew instead of the normal 4. Butch and Suni will become the replacement crew members for expedition whatever it is and do ISS things until February. The SpaceX capsule will carry up some spacesuits for them to wear during reentry as the Boeing suits aren’t compatible with the SpaceX capsule…you woulda figured that NASA woulda been smart enough to require that the suits be cross compatible. The only drawback to this recovery plan is there’s currently no parking space available at the ISS for a US craft. There are 2 docking ports, one taken up by the current crew’s ride home and the other by the broke Boeing capsule. The latter will have to be reprogrammed with autonomous software to get home. Again…the thing has already launched twice and docked/undocked/returned twice with that software but the geniuses at Boeing and NASA removed the autonomous software from it before sending it up with people. You woulda thought they were smart enough to leave that capability installed…but the cynic in me says that Boeing knew there were issues with the thing and deliberately removed it to try and ensure that in the event of an issue it would come home with people rather than the embarrassment of being ditched…but nah…that wouldn’t happen would it?

Ok…enough of that so let’s get into Costa Rica Day 6…although it is going to be a 3 post day for the blog as he processed a metric buttload of images for me to post…it was one of the two largest number of images taken that day with over 4,700 on the card by the time he got back to the resort.

So…monkeys. You’ll see some monkeys on this and the next 2 posts but it occurred to me that I haven’t really talked much about the various species available in the country so let me digress a bit and do that.

There are a total of 4 species discussed here in size order…and they’re all sub classified as New World Monkeys by the biologists.

  • Howler monkeys…or more properly Mantled Howler as there are multiple species of howlers. They’re the largest at about 15 pounds and 30ish inches long plus the tail. The name comes from their extremely loud calls. All brown…they eat almost exclusively leaves so spend a lot of time napping to digest their nutrient poor food very similar to what a koala does. They spend almost no time on the ground.
  • Next largest are the Spider Monkeys or more properly Geoffroy’s Spider due to multiple species. They have prehensile tails and essentially long fingered hands on all 4 limbs Dark brown with a tan chest and a black face with white around the eyes very similar in appearance to a raccoon. 
  • Capuchin or more properly White Faced Capuchin again due to multiple species. This is the most common species and got its name based on appearance. Dark brown mostly but with tan chest, head and shoulders and they were said to resemble the hooded cowl worn by Capuchin monks from the Middle Ages.
  • Finally…the Central American Squirrel Monkey…it is the rarest species in the country and has a very small range much smaller than the other 4 which are found through the country. Squirrel monkeys are found only in the lowland forests on the Pacific side of the country. Usually no more than a couple of pounds…they’ve been used as pets for a long time and are the typical species that used to be owned by organ grinders at carnivals and such.

So…day 6 the photographers headed off to the far southeast tip of the Osa Peninsula…it was about a 2.5 hour drive without stopping and naturally they stopped…frequently…so it turned out to be a really long day. I’ll let you know in the shots when they actually got to the Bosque del CaBo lodge that was the destination for the day and I gotta tell you plush doesn’t really do the place justice. The average price per night was up in the $700 a night minimum range and although that does include food but not booze it’s still pretty expensive and there weren’t all that many rooms in the place. And it was the day that Connie went out fishing so there’s some shots of that included as well.

Amazonian Black Throated Trogon (although I have to tell you black throated wouldn’t have been the name I came up with)

20240710 CR Z8a 3083-NEF-DxO.

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Fishing trip shots as Connie and her captain left port.

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20240710_CR_iPhone 15_3692.

20240710_CR_iPhone 15_3696.

Plain Brown Woodcreeper

20240710 CR Z8a 3317-NEF-DxO.

20240710 CR Z8a 3323-NEF-DxO.

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Common Poo-too or Stickbird as the locals named it. It perches on the end of a branch and angles itself so that it looks like an extension of the branch or trunk…very similar to what the Australian Tawny Frogmouth does. There was a very narrow window to see this one so the shooters had to take turns…there’s about 20 minutes between the first and second image and the little sucker never moved. This bird was sitting about 5 yards off of the road and about 10-15 yards up in the tree and our intrepid driver Eduardo spotted it looking pretty much straight up. Even after they stopped it still took the rest of the shooters 5 minutes to find it in the foliage as it is the same color and texture as the tree it’s sitting on…and even after finding it it took Eduardo and Dennis a few minutes to find a window where one could actually get a shot, and while this is still a fairly obstructed shot it is the best they could do.

20240710 CR Z8a 3200-NEF-DxO.

20240710 CR Z8a 3218-NEF-DxO.

And since we talked about monkeys…here’s a Capuchin, you can see the cowl like appearance that influenced the name selection.

20240710 CR Z8a 3584-NEF-DxO.

Interesting things found on the net.

Fun fact…the northernmost point of Brazil is closer to every other country in North, Central, and South America than it is to the southernmost point of Brazil.

And finally…remember this critter from the Serengeti? It’s a Caracal which is a 16-20 inch high cat to the shoulder and weighs 15-40 pounds.

20240401 Serengetti Z9 9550 NEF DxO XD2.

Notice those extremely large ears and if I recall correctly I talked before about how the ears move to help it locate and isolate prey including birds which it snatches out of the air. Well…turns out that there are 20something muscles that allow it to do so and Neil happened across this video showing the ears moving. Sorry…it’s from the application formerly known as Twitter. Yeah…we don’t think much of it after it basically turned into a dumpster fire under it’s new owner…but hey, it is what it is..It wouldn’t be ethical to repost the video so you’ll have to go look at it there but it’s free to go see.

Cyas.

Posted in Costa Rica, Critters, Nature, Photography, Travel, WIldlife | Leave a comment

Costa Rica Snake Day Redux

Posted on 2024/08/15 by Gunther

Just a lil’ tidbit I forgot to put in yesterday.

This is Eduardo…he was the main driver for the workshop down in Costa Rica and is…again…some relation of some sort to Dennis if we recall correctly. Anyways…here he is doing the whole “readjust the critter perch for the photographers” thing. In this one he was adjusting the position of the Masked Tree Frog

What you can’t see in this shot is the little music stand looking thing with a clamp on it that is holding up the flower the frog is sitting on. Once the frog was put away…the flower was replaced by a palm leaf of some variety for the venomous juvenile Eyelash Viper to perch on…here’s a reminder of that positioning from yesterday.

20240708_CR_Z8b_4742 NEF DxO XD2.

As I said…this viper was 12 or 15 inches long…more than a newborn but still juvenile although still venomous and being a juvenile it hasn’t really learned the ability to inject part of it’s venom based on the size of the target as an adult one would but rather when a juvenile strikes (as in most snakes) it injects the entire amount stored in it’s venom glands…and even a juvenile has enough to kill a person especially if medical help isn’t immediately available which it wasn’t in the Costa Rican rain forest.

Anyway…he was in about the same position as in the shot above and grabbed the stand to reorient the palm leaf but sorta wasn’t paying attention to the viper while he was doing so. Just the slightest inadvertent jerk of the stand and whoops…off fell the snake. Naturally…instead of falling harmlessly to the ground it landed on his wrist where it stayed for about a millisecond before he tossed it off and it fell safely to the ground where Snake Guy wrangled it back into it’s expected position.

Neil forgot to send me his photo yesterday that I was gonna use when I told this story and I forgot to ask him about it. So…there, now ya’know.

Interesting thing found on the net yesterday.

Cyas.

Posted in Costa Rica, Photography, Travel, WIldlife, Ya Can't Fix Stupid | Leave a comment