Category: Flowers

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Reduced Travel This Year

As my age, health and increased cost of living here begin to require, I simply need to reduce the big activities, so only 3 trips this year of 4 nights or more, and I may sneak in some day trips or even a 2-nighter at a nearby lodge – we’ll see! 🙂 But I’m still focused on nature and have plans for a few changes in my garden this year. And the three “big” trips are going to be very good, as always! 🙂

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird in a Heliconia Flower, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Golfito, Costa Rica.

It will be a coastal rainforest jungle in July as I return to Esquinas Rainforest Lodge for my 3rd visit and second time on my birthday! 🙂 Both photos with this post were made at Esquinas Lodge.

Then in September I’m exploring the “Amazon of Costa Rica” again at Tortuguero National Park on the Caribbean Coast instead of my usual Hotel Banana Azul beach trip. I like all the lodges in Tortuguero, but Tortuga Lodge & Gardens gets my vote for the most comfortable with the best food! And I don’t care if it is more expensive! 🙂

Then I finish the year with Christmas at Ballena National Park, Uvita in another favorite lodge, Hotel Cristal Ballena with a room overlooking the Pacific and nightly sunsets! Plus their 30 acre rainforest refuge! 🙂 And “Ballena” = “Whale” in English.

¡Pura Vida!

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Golden Torch

The Heliconia psittacorum x spathocircinata is one of many heliconia in Costa Rica that are easy to confuse in identify! And like some of the others, it has several common names, but I prefer “Golden Torch” for this one in my garden. 🙂

Golden Torch, Atenas, Costa Rica

See more of my flower photos in FLORA & FOREST Costa Rica including a whole gallery of just flowers in my garden.

¡Pura Vida!

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“Rare Snake Plant Flower”

Or most online sites say “relatively rare” but vary in the reasons from being very healthy or the “right amount of sun” to being stressed or root bound. Not sure why my snake plant in the frog pot on the terrace is blooming, but it is, and I thought a first for me, but after loading this I find my 2017 blog post with another one blooming. I had forgotten! 🙂

Snake Plant (Mother-in-law’s Tongue), Dracaena trifasciata.

Flowering Snake Plant (Mother-in-law’s Tongue), Dracaena trifasciata, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Flowering Snake Plant (Mother-in-law’s Tongue), Dracaena trifasciata, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Banded Peacock in Windy Season

January to March is very windy here and maybe that is one reason for fewer butterflies, but one of the larger and more colorful ones that keeps hang on around my gardens is the Banded Peacock, Anartia fatima (my gallery link). While several Yellows fly around high in the trees and never seem to land for a photo and a few Skippers can be seen close to the ground, it is mainly these Banded Peacocks who frequent my gardens now.

Banded Peacock, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Banded Peacock, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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A Fave Flower Finally Identified

My Costa Rican gardener has always called this flowering shrub “Once de Abril” as a local name honoring our one war hero who fought off the North American Rebels trying to turn Central America into another slave state in the 1800’s. Thanks to Google Lens & iNaturalist, I’ve discovered that it is “officially” . . .

Duranta erecta, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

Scientific Name = Duranta erecta

Common Names in English

  • Golden Dewdrop
  • Pigeon Berry
  • Skyflower

Nombres comunes en español

  • Coralillo (iNaturalist CR)
  • Tala blanco (en Argentina)
  • Flor celeste
  • Fruta de iguana (I like this because my iguanas eat those yellow berries) 🙂

So there you have it for all the “official” names I could find! 🙂 Which like pretty much everything in nature, the only sure name is the scientific name and sometimes even that changes! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

See all my flower photos in the Flora & Forest Galleries.

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Tropical Greenstreak

This is not the most common of the Hairstreak Butterflies, but I have seen it 3 other times before these two in my garden the other day. These photos of two different individuals show the variations in shades of green they can have. And yes, there are other species of green hairstreaks that are different in design from this one and their IDs are also not based on the shade of green which seems to vary in all the green ones.

Tropical Greenstreak, my garden, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Tropical Greenstreak, my garden, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

See my Tropical Greenstreak, Cyanophrys herodotus Gallery for more photos and more shades of green! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Simple Rainforest Beauty

The humble banana plant flower, seen here along the shores of Rio Tarcoles but also found all over Costa Rica in lowlands and rainforests.

Banana Flower, Rio Tarcoles, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Banana Flower, Rio Tarcoles, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

See the Day Trip Gallery: 2025 January 7 — Rio Tarcoles & Punta Leona

See also my gallery: FLORA & FOREST Costa Rica

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Rio Tarcoles & Punta Leona Day Trip Gallery

Our January 7 day trip with 6 Canadian friends from British Columbia to Rio Tarcoles & Punta Leona Beach was a fun trip with lots of nature photo ops! And I now have the “Trip Gallery” finished! Click that link or the image of the first page below or this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2025-January-7-Rio-Tarcoles-Punta-Leona In many ways, these trip galleries are my “base galleries” from which I glean photos for subject galleries like Birds! While photos made in my home garden go directly into the subject galleries if they even make a gallery. 🙂 But I love these trip galleries because I always make more photos on a trip!

CLICK this image of the first page to go to this gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

My needle biopsy went well yesterday and now I just wait for their report that I will receive in my February 12 appointment. And my sister Bonnie learned that her “colon cancer” was primarily an ovarian cancer that spread to her colon, and now they are about to begin chemotherapy after one more procedure. Our mother and brother both died of cancer and now it looks like the rest of us may go the same way. Only Dad never had cancer. The doctors said he died when his heart just stopped, not a heart attack. And Bonnie and I will both look for the positive while we fight our different types of cancers. Thanks for your prayers!

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Blue-vented Hummingbird

A new regular that’s seen about as much as the Rufous-tailed! See more photos in my GALLERY: Blue-vented Hummingbird.

Blue-vented Hummingbird, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Birding Today!

I’m out birding with friends from British Columbia, Canada today and expect to have a lot of photos to share over the next week or so. Stand by! Starting with blog in two days. 🙂

Our plan is to have breakfast in Orotina, which is not far from Tarcoles where we will check in at 8am for the birding river boat trip on the Tarcoles River. I usually get a lot of birds on that trip with my prefered “Jungle Crocodile Safari” boat. They generally do a lot better job finding birds than their several competitor boats who focus mostly on the crocodiles. 🙂

After two hours on the river we will go to the nearby coast and beaches of Punta Leona which is a private development and hotel, but the government requires all beaches to be public and Walter knows how to get in free. At these beaches he has seen sloths and monkeys in the past plus the usual seabirds. We will then eat lunch somewhere and travel the hour or so back to Atenas. That is the plan.

Hope you have a happy day too! 🙂