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I’ve been way too busy in the past month and looking forward to slowing down and spending more time photographing nature! BUT, in all the recent “busy-ness” I did walk through parts of my gardens each morning and though early for the peak of butterflies here, I’ve seen quite a variety. Here’s5 or 6 different species in my gardens recently . . .
I mentioned earlier about being very busy with several projects like changing doctors, renewing residency, and helping start the new “Artenas Galleria” that all have seemingly taken the leisure from my life – but not for much longer! 🙂 This morning I had my leisurely 30 minute walk to El Fogon restaurant for an Avocado Toast breakfast before grocery shopping at La Coope across the street. and the two shots in this post are from my morning walks in the garden over the last week+, with more photos coming! 🙂
And the feature photo (at top online) is of one of the recently budded “Maracas” or “Shampoo Ginger” flowers that I will have even more of this year. They are coming just as the other Maraca plant (orange) in my front yard has its flowers dying out, so I have one of the Maraca plants blooming almost all of the time on one side of the house or the other! 🙂 I will share more flower shots later along with very few birds and butterflies the last week. We finally got a reasonably good rain yesterday afternoon, but this is starting out to be the driest “Rainy Season” in my 8.5 years here! And somewhere I read that much of the entire globe will be dryer this year, including Central America.
Continue reading “My Blogging Pause & 2 Flowers”
No – though the first time I saw these bright pink flowers on top of the cactus plant at a house I walk by frequently on my way to town, I thought is was going to be a beautiful cactus! But it seems that the owner of that house has allowed his Bougainvillea to climb over from the wall to the cactus and from a distance, the second photo, it looks like it’s blooming. And some cactus here do bloom, but I’ve not seen that one bloom yets.
Not as colorful as other butterflies but still an important part of the ecology of our planet where there are more insects than all other animals and people combined and the rest of the earth depends on them! 🙂 Plain Longtail Skipper, Urbanus simplicius. And for you who are identifiers, let me add that I had some trouble identifying this one, with the side view, to me, being more like the Teleus Longtail but I think the fainter white lines on the tops of the wings is what makes this one a “Plain Longtail,” along with the location of the white on his antennae. Here’s 4 shots from different views . . .
My best printed source of butterfly identification is the book A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffrey Glassberg. In that book this butterfly is labeled as a “Bright Scintillant,” but rather than giving a scientific name, it just says it is one of the “Calephelis species.” The butterfly website I volunteer for (butterfliesandmoths.org) does not have Bright Scintillant nor does its backup website, butterfliesofamerica.com, therefore I and others have put this one in “Rounded Metalmark, Calephelis peritalis,“ a part of the “Calephelis species” as the book says. But according to the Glasberg book, the white dots on the upper edges of the the forward wing make this one different from the Rounded Metalmark in the book. I do not know who is the final authority on butterfly names, but hope this one is at least made a subspecies of the Rounded Metalmark! And identification of the myriad of butterflies in Costa Rica will always have its challenges like this! 🙂 Here’s two shots of the latest I have seen of the above butterfly in my garden . . .
Continue reading “A “Bright Scintillant” or Subspecies of “Rounded Metalmark”?”
Three shots and three different impressions of what a Polydamas Swallowtail, Battus polydamas “looks like” in three photos from my garden below, plus you can see more in my Polydamas Swallowtail Gallery.
And maybe that would be a good name for this one, “Tiny Tan.” 🙂 And for you butterfly specialists, it almost has the tail of a hairstreak but not the lines or colors and thus is probably one of the enumerable Skippers! But I could not find this one in my book! Here’s 3 photos of one in my garden the other day . . .
One of the common butterflies here is the Dina Yellow, Pyrisitia dina, which I have featured more than once in the past, but still an enjoyable butterfly to share. Here’s 3 shots from my garden the other day . . .
This has always been one of my favorite butterflies, even in the states with a slightly different version, seen a lot when in Florida. Here’s two shots of one in my garden the other day . . .
See my Tropical Buckeye Gallery for more photos of this colorful guy! And note that in earlier years here I called it the “West Indian Buckeye” and I was wrong then. All I have seen here are the “Tropical” and theoretically we may have some “Mangrove Buckeye” here, though I’ve not seen one yet. Probably down along the coasts in the mangroves! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Though that sounds like me over the last few days and in the coming days, it is actually the name of a butterfly, Whirlabout, Polites vibex, and here are two photos of one recently in my garden.
And what have I been so busy about? Well, several things . . .