Cacti

Posted on Sunday, 22nd January , 2023 by Stephen G. Hipperson

You know when you do stuff and the instant you do it you know you shouldn’t – well, I bent down to pick up one of the fruits that had fallen – oops! It was just one of things – no real hassle in my case, as my daughter was on hand with a pair of tweezers and quickly pulled the needles from the tips of my fingers, but I can imagine circumstances might be a little different if I had happened to be a little one.

—Stephen G. Hipperson

Garden Birds in the Gloom

Posted on Monday, 27th December , 2021 by Stephen G. Hipperson

Thick cloud here today. A couple of strangers visited our garden feeders today – a Blackcap and two female Chaffinches. Blackcaps tend to be summer migrants but during most winters we get to see a least one pass through. And Chaffinches, although by no means uncommon in the UK, rarely if ever visit our garden nowadays – must be several months since the last.

Male Blackap (puffed up against the cold).

Female Chaffinch

Starling

—Stephen G. Hipperson—

San Jose to Tortuguero

Posted on Sunday, 21st April , 2019 by Stephen G. Hipperson

With an overnight in San Jose and an early start next morning (7 a.m.), the hotel put together a packed meal for breakfast, (an apple and some kind of processed flat meat between two pieces of bread), we were whisked away in a shuttle bus for the first part of our journey to Tortuguero. At about the halfway point we stopped somewhere called Guapiles at the Restaurante Selva Tropical, for a mid-morning breakfast and transfer to another shuttle bus for our onward journey. Fresh fruit, our first encounter with ‘rice and beans’ (a Costa Rican staple), plantain, scrambled eggs, there was enough to satisfy most people.

At the rear of the restaurant was a covered butterfly garden which was an interesting place to meander while we waited for the off for the next part of our journey. The proprietor had clearly put some effort into making an interesting exhibition. Near the entrance were some glass cases with chrysalis in various stages of development.

_MG_7609