Blooms, smiles – Greeting me – Happy!
¡Pura Vida!
See photo gallery More of My Garden or . . .
The Flora & Forest – more Costa Rica flowers
Garden Walk
2 Old Friends on the Walk
The Giant White and Banded Peacock were seen on my last walk.
¡Pura Vida!
El bastón de emperador
Yeah, that’s the Spanish name which I like better than the English name of Torch Ginger – but by either name this morning I noticed that one plant off my terrace had flowers in three stages and I liked that picture of progression. There could actually be an earlier stage with a tighter bud, but not this morning. 🙂
Tropical flowers continue to be a part of the magic of my retiree life in Costa Rica, both in my own gardens surrounding my little rental house and in my travels around the country. Click either above link for more of my flower photos – what a joy to live in paradise! 🙂
Torch Ginger Bud 
Torch Ginger Opening Torch Ginger Fully Opened
“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.”
– Zen Shin
¡Pura vida!
Xandari GALLERY #4 Published
The “4” can mean my 4th trip to Xandari or the 4th Gallery on Xandari or the fact that I was there for 4 days this time! 🙂 The featured photo is on my walk to the restaurant from my villa.
It is a magical getaway every visit and I tend to photograph many new things or the same things in different ways each time, like this time I didn’t even hike to the waterfalls but spent more time with flowers & butterflies and a feature on the bamboo forest. So if considering a visit to Xandari, check out each of my photo galleries from 4 different trips there with 4 different perspectives:
- 2020 August 21-24 – A Weekend Retreat during a World Pandemic with masks & solo activities in nature. Most butterflies & flowers this time.
- 2020 January 12-16 – Five days when I installed my photo books library and photographed all kinds of nature with more birds than above.
- 2019 July 1-6 – My birthday week with them providing a cake and great celebration and me making another different set of nature photos all over. A very good week! Or see the Photo Book, Brilliant! My Birthday Week at Xandari!
- 2018 July 14-18 – My first trip to Xandari and maybe my most photos as I was thrilled with the discovery in every way! Or see the Photo Book, Xandari – Enchanted by Nature
¡Pura Vida!
Flowers Close
My first afternoon at Xandari was mostly in the rain, but I managed get these close-ups of a few of their many flowers plus a toucan and a butterfly which I will share later. For now enjoy the beautiful art of flowers! CLICK image to enlarge . . .
Some of the best gardens I’ve visited and you can meet one of the gardeners in this video:
¡Pura Vida!
Breakfast Butterflies
This was yesterday at breakfast and today I will be leaving by noon today for Xandari where I expect a lot of different types of butterflies along with the birds.
I apologize that I cannot give an exact ID on all these guys, but as frequently happens there is not an exact match in my two butterfly books and the Skippers are particularly difficult, but still fun to watch! 🙂 CLICK image to enlarge.
Brown or Teleus Longtail Skipper 
Ridens Skipper Maybe 
Banded Peacock 
Green or Emerald Flasher Giant White 
Unidentified Skipper
Expect some “X-factor” Xandari Nature as Art the next few days! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
2 minute introduction to Xandari, my “Oasis!”
GALLERIES FOR MY 3 PREVIOUS VISITS TO XANDARI:
AND MY TWO PHOTO BOOKS ON XANDARI:
Find out why I like Xandari so much – check out the above video, galleries & books.
Adding to the Charlie Doggett Library
This weekend I go to Xandari Nature Resort near Alajuela, which is the only place in Costa Rica that you can see all of my Costa Rica Photo Books, other than at my house. I installed the library of photo books in January there for the benefit of their guests and this weekend I will be adding two more books, the only ones made since January for all of Costa Rica. (I also did a photo book on my Roca Verde neighborhood birds, but figure that is too narrow a focus, but may decide to take one of those too.)
Two new books for the Charlie Doggett Photo Library at Xandari Resort.
¡Pura Vida!
More Color from Walks
Like with the birds and butterflies, I will never tire of the variety of flowers here, even in my own neighborhood or walks to town like these three, CLICK to enlarge:
For more flowers: My Flora & Forest Gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
Another New Butterfly Species!
New species for me that is – Scientific Name: Chlosyne hippodrome, and two common names: “Simple Patch” in A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America, my only good printed guide, while several websites are calling it “Simple Checkerspot,” with checkerspots and patches being “cousins” in the larger “Brushfoot” family of butterflies or maybe checkerspots being a type of patch butterfly – not clear to me yet. Confusing? Yeah, labeling butterflies has always been difficult for me and I still have several “unidentified” butterflies in my gallery. There doesn’t seem to be as much world-wide coordination of butterfly naming and following like with birds.
But anyway, this one is similar to Crimson Patch which I already had a photo of and also similar to the Banded Peacock of which there was one flying near where I got this guy on a zinnia at the Corner of Avenida 8 & Calle 3 while walking to town. Butterflies continue to amaze me! 🙂
See all 3 of my “Patches” butterflies along with about 112 other species in my Costa Rica Butterflies Photo Gallery.
And CLICK an image below to see it larger.
Simple Patch or Simple Checkerspot 
Simple Patch or Simple Checkerspot 
Simple Patch or Simple Checkerspot 
Simple Patch or Simple Checkerspot
¡Pura Vida!
Color!
On a walk to town I’m energized by red, orange, yellow, green, blue – the colors of the rainbow found in the yards of Atenas houses as I walk by them. Truly . . .
“Color! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams.”
~Paul Gauguin
See also my Flora & Forest Gallery.
¡Pura Vida!