White Angled-Sulphur & Atenas Weather

The wind is slowing down a little and that helps to see more birds and butterflies like this White Angled-Sulphur (my gallery link) photographed day-before-yesterday in my garden. This is a typical folded wings sideview showing a little greenish hue, while the top view is bright white with bright yellow patches under the two dark spots. See that in my above linked gallery, which I was unable to capture this time.

White Angled-Sulphur, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

“The Best Weather in the World”

or “El Mejor Clima del Mundo,” is the slogan of the town of Atenas, where the temperature stays in the Fahrenheit 70’s or Centigrade 20’s year around! It is usually windy just January to March, blowing in both regular dust and sometimes volcano ashes, which are black, making them obvious. Dry season is December to April or May and Rainy Season May to November, with April and November called “shoulder months,” meaning that it could be either dry or rainy and this April, also windy, which is not normal.

When I walked out of my bank across the street from Central Park on Tuesday, there were no other people by the city sign (unusual), so I did the touristy thing and made a selfie in front of the sign, which I haven’t done since it was first installed. The ATENAS letters have colorful drawings of places and activities in Atenas, while carved in stone beneath the name is the weather slogan: EL MEJOR CLIMA DEL MUNDO, which is also on the back of all Atenas buses.

Charlie Doggett, Central Park, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

We were suppose to have a big rain last night and I hope it will be the early beginning of the rainy season, which is my favorite time of year here with most days having only a couple of hours of rain in the afternoon or evening, and everything is greener and more beautiful! Plus that is when I see & photograph more wildlife including butterflies! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Amateur video in español . . .

Amateurish, but it does show a lot of Atenas including the county villages . . .

Unidentified Skipper

Neither the AI nor I could positively identify this tiny little Skipper, but it is another encouraging sign that the wind was slowing down a week ago when photographed and soon I will be seeing many more species, though it will probably be May before a lot of them! 🙂 This one was maybe the size of my thumbnail, which is too small for any of the Longtails he looks a like and I just chose to not identify.

Unidentified Skipper Butterfly, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

South American Cloudless Sulphur

We haven’t always had the “South American” part of this one’s English name, but just like with birds, names of butterflies are always changing and that challenges the hobbyist to keep up with the names! 🙂 See the others I have photographed in my Cloudless Sulphur Gallery with some from many locations on both slopes of Costa Rica, but as with everything, the more recent ones are from my garden. 🙂

South American Cloudless Sulphur, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Fawn-spotted Skipper

With the wind still blowing I found this little guy in my garden 6 days ago along with the tougher Polydamas Swallowtails. Not an every day butterfly, but I’ve seen 4 or 5 as shown in my gallery: Fawn-spotted Skipper, Cymaenes isus

Fawn-spotted Skipper, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Residential Roca Verde Butterflies . . .

. . . is what fills this latest of my photo books and maybe my last, at least for a time. Blurb killed their old design software and I don’t like their new one, so definitely fewer and maybe no more books. Too much work and frustration with a poorly designed software!

You can preview every page of this newest book for free by clicking the book cover photo below or going to: https://www.blurb.com/b/12835485-roca-verde-butterflies

CLICK the above book cover for a free preview of all pages.

¡Pura Vida!

Dirce Beauty, Indoors

This is one of those butterfly species, that for some reason, likes to come inside the house to die. And with the heavier than usual winds this year, inside seems to be the only place I can photograph butterflies. So here are 3 postmortem photos of a Dirce Beauty, Colobura dirce (my gallery link) on my living room floor. 🙂 And notice the big difference of the top and bottom of the wings.

Dirce Beauty, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Continue reading “Dirce Beauty, Indoors”

Polydamas Swallowtail

It was still windy when I captured this very determined butterfly feeding on the flowers. Maybe the worse part of the January to March constant winds blowing here is no butterflies! And somewhat also my allergies to the constant dust blowing in! 🙂 But the Polydamas Swallowtail (my gallery link) seems to be one of those few tough (or strong) butterflies who can fly in the winds and is maybe the most seen butterfly during this time period. I do also see some Banded Peacocks and tiny brown Skippers in my garden, but only occasionally, plus way up in the trees are some Yellows that seem to stay high, with almost no other butterflies. But that will start changing in April & May as the winds stop and my peak of butterflies in my garden is May to September! And yes, that is the rainy season. Just one shot of this Polydamas.

Polydamas Swallowtail, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Carara National Park Gallery ready

Because we went after the Rio Tarcoles trip, it was too late in day for many birds, I got only 2 species, but I did get 10 species of other wildlife including some interesting species like the Helmeted Iguana, stick moth caterpillar, etc. and one of my dark monkey shots is visible. Click the first page of gallery below to enter or if you prefer an address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/Hiking-Carara-NP

CLICK ABOVE IMAGE to go to the gallery.

I earlier did a post on the Helmeted Iguana and one on the Stink Bug, two of the 10 “Other Wildlife” seen at Carara this time. See gallery.

And tomorrow I will hopefully have completed the gallery for our morning visit to Los Angeles Cloud Forest Reserve and Villa Blanca Cloud Forest Hotel.

¡Pura Vida!

Giant White

This was in my garden and not the cow pasture, but with the strong winds this time of year I’m seeing a lot fewer of any species in the garden, though this one has been pretty common in the past as you can see in my Gallery: Giant White, Ganyra josephina. Note that all of them have been seen in Atenas! 🙂 Two shots from the other day . . .

Giant White, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Continue reading “Giant White”

Hesperini Tribe

This tribe level identification means it will be difficult even for the experts to identify, as that is as far down the ID latter the iNaturalist AI would go and I’m certainly unqualified to go farther. It may end up being a common species with two anomalies, that dark “plate” or whatever on his back or shoulders and the whitish tip of his tail. Neither characteristic matches any of the similar species photos I could find, so I’m leaving it at the tribe level. 🙂 Found in the cow pasture and it is the last one from that visual adventure. 🙂 This tribe is also called “branded grass skippers” which is appropriate for one found in the grasses of a cow pasture! 🙂

Hesperini Tribe or branded grass skipper butterfly, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

An added side-note on that walk along the cow pasture in my shorts is that, when I got back to the house, both legs were itching all over, possibly from some insect in the grasses or allergic reaction to some plant. A generous lathering of Allergel took care of that itching pretty quickly! 🙂 This is all from the cow pasture for now. Back to my garden! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

PS to Anyone Who Tried to Subscribe to my Blog and it Didn’t Work!

Technology drives me crazy sometimes and it seems that the email subscription box in the right column wasn’t working for maybe a year or more, but when I realized it, I found someone who could fix it and it is working fine as of the other day. If you don’t have an email subscription, you are missing the easiest way to receive my blog posts with guaranteed security and no spam! So subscribe today! 🙂