Category: Butterflies

Butterflies photographed in Costa Rica and nearby

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New Book for a Special Place

Hotel Banana Azul is my #1 source of butterfly photos and thus they get another book just for butterflies found on their property and nearby reserves. If you are going to the Costa Rica Caribbean and love butterflies, then you will want to take a copy of this book with you, featuring 61 species of butterflies photographed there! One of a kind book! 🙂 And why I’m introducing this week? Because Blurb is offering a “Black Friday Sale” of 50% off photo books! And I’m about to do another book also, for the same reason! 🙂

See all the pages in the free preview at: https://www.blurb.com/b/11780529-hotel-banana-azul-butterflies

Or click this image of the book cover:

CLICK this cover image to see the free preview.

¡Pura Vida!

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The Colorful Brown

One of the few butterflies that are still hanging around is the Rounded Metalmark, one of my most seen tiny butterflies this years and unlike a lot of the brown Skippers, he/she is a “colorful brown” to me. I like blue and brown together with the orange and those big beady eyes! And he’s only a little larger than my thumbnail! 🙂

Rounded Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica

More in my Rounded Metalmark GALLERY.

¡Pura Vida!

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Today’s Lone Butterfly

This morning’s walk through the garden revealed only one butterfly, but a favorite! 🙂 The Rounded Metalmark, Caliphelis perditalis, (linked to my other gallery shots), a tiny butterfly in the Riodinidae or Metalmark family of butterflies about the size of two of my thumbnails. I love the rich blend of blue, orange and brown colors and in my gallery you can see some shots of his “cute” bug-eyed face! 🙂 Surprisingly, the only place I’ve seen this species so far is in my garden here in Atenas. 🙂

And yes, butterflies seem to be fading (moving or dying off) a little earlier this year than usual. I will be interested to see if there are more in the “wilder” forest preserve I will visit next week at Macaw Lodge adjacent to Carara National Park. And hopefully more birds there too! 🙂

Rounded Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

And an interesting announcement in our online English-language newspaper, Tico Times, this week: Travel & Leisure Magazine Named Costa Rica the 2024 Destination of the Year!

Or better yet, go directly to the Travel+Leisure articles on Costa Rica!

¡Pura Vida!

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Morning Coffee & Wildlife

Friends up the hill invited me for coffee on their terrace yesterday where they have both a hummingbird feeder and a fruit feeder to attract more birds. And though they too have had fewer birds this year of El Niño weather, they get more than me because of their feeders and maybe their location adjacent the Calle Nueva Forest. Here’s what I was able to photograph while drinking coffee and talking a lot, though the one hummingbird never slowed down enough for a shot. 🙂

Lesson’s Motmot

4 birds, 2 insects and one iguana . . .

Continue reading “Morning Coffee & Wildlife”
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Tanna Longtail

The five spots in that upper short white line on the wing is what makes this a Tanna instead of a Teleus, Brown or Plain Longtail. Otherwise, those four are very similar and often confused. These two were in my garden and are fairly common Skippers here.

Tanna Longtail, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Tanna Longtail, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

See my Tanna Longtail Skipper GALLERY.

And for comparisons with Teleus, Plain & Brown Longtails, browse through all my SKIPPER GALLERIES to see those and many others! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Los Colinas del Sol Wildlife

On September 30 after my house was fumigated for ants, I spent the night at our little neighborhood Hotel Colinas del Sol and though cloudy and getting dark, I got some shadowy shots of 3 birds and two butterflies seen below. Nothing spectacular, but nature is almost everywhere waiting to be seen and photographed! And I love it, even in bad light! 🙂

Simple Big-eyed Satyr
Juvenile Baltimore Oriole
Great Kiskadee
Hoffmann’s Woodpecker

¡Pura Vida!

And this Banded Peacock Butterfly I posted on that night. 🙂
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Hammock Skipper

This is another new species for me, assuming I have identified correctly. Mine has more tail than those photos in the books and online, but the folded wing pattern is identical and my basis for this identification. Hammock Skipper, Polygonus leo. In my garden in Atenas.

Hammock Skipper, Atenas, Costa Rica

See all my Skippers’ GALLERIES!

Or more of this species on Butterflies & Moths.org.

¡Pura Vida!

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Brown Longtail

All the Longtail Skippers are brown, but this one has slightly different markings to give him the color name. 🙂 And you may have noticed that I’m much heavier on Skippers in general this year which may mean that they can handle the different weather better or some other reason I don’t know. And I continue to have fewer birds and fewer of the brighter colored butterflies, whatever the reason may be.

Brown Longtail, Atenas, Costa Rica

These range from a lighter brown than this to a dark brown as seen in my Brown Longtail GALLERY.

¡Pura Vida!