La Georgina and the Hummingbirds at 10,000 feet in Costa Rica

Villa Mills. Blink and you'll miss it. 

It is not much more than a broad spot in the road. Harder to miss, just beyond the blue sign, is a crisp-looking red and white restaurant, which may have several cars and a bus parked in front depending on the time of day. That's La Georgina, founded in 1947, just a year before the 44-day Costa Rican civil war that sparked the abolition of their army and instigated several social reforms that carry on today. Must've been interesting times for this spot, since a lot of the fighting occurred up here on Cerro de La Muerte.

 I have doubts whether this place was ever in any danger of being obliterated by that war, but in any case we're certainly glad that it's still in operation. It's a spacious place and has restrooms built for no-waiting. The food is the usual Tico buffet, not bad, but not terribly creative either. The main attraction for us is in the back.

A Late Birthday Gift or the Start of a Great Birthday Month?

Among my siblings, we have a tradition that we don't just celebrate each others' birth-days, but rather the birthday month. It's not so much a gesture of generosity as much as it is a nod to our shared tendency to procrastinate. Even we seem to be able to remember to send a card or gift if we have that extra 30 days to do it! Thus, I consider what happened this morning as an extension of my own birthday even though the actual date was yesterday, the 23rd.

Chocolate cake with vanilla icing.

If you read our Facebook page, then you know it was a remarkable 60th birthday for me. It started off with a scrumptious pancake and fresh fruit breakfast, time spent on a couple of personal projects, the planting of birthday trees and a wonderful social gathering of nearby friends and neighbors. In the midst of all that was a full double rainbow and an intensely luminous sunset.

Sunset par excellence

This morning was business as usual, a quick coffee and getting Sean off to school and planning to take our car to the mechanic. From the downstairs patio, I heard some shuffling in the living room and saw that Tamara was trying to herd not one but two hummingbirds who had mistakenly flown through the open front door.

Costa Rican Hummingbirds on Holiday at the Finca

Grey-tailed Mt. Gem

Pity the Old World, which has no hummingbirds (called colibrí or guirrión here). One of our year 'round delights is to watch the hummers enjoying the purple-flowered hedge below, while we enjoy our daily holiday sipping our coffee on the balcony. 

The hedge is Stachytarpheta frantzii (aka Snakeweed, Porterweed, Foxtail, etc.), which is one of two native varieties in Costa Rica. It's planted all over the finca and draws in hummingbirds of many types. 

Though we don't have the hummer pileups like they do at La Georgina up on Cerro de La Muerte, we usually see 5 or 6 species regularly throughout the year. The Rufous-tailed hummers are more or less permanent residents, but the others come and go.

In the last week, however, two (maybe three) new holiday visitors have shown up; hummers we've never seen here before. 

The first, the Grey-tailed Mountain Gem, was spotted in the Porterweed down by the workshop. They are tiny, four inches from beak tip to tail tip, but seem completely non-plussed by the larger Rufous-tailed hummers that claim patches of the hedge as their own and defend their rights vigorously.