By the time I get to a place and settle in I usually have less than half a day there but seem to get as many or more photos as other days – the excitement of a new place I guess! And so it was yesterday at Hacienda Guachipelín! 🙂
So to spare you, I’m saving today’s birds and butterflies for another day and putting today’s other photos in slide shows so it won’t look like so much. 🙂
Airplane Shots
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Hotel Grounds
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Hotel Mirador (Vista Point)
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Hotel Flowers
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“Wherever you go, go with all your heart”–Confucius
Possibly the most common broad category of butterflies in Costa Rica is the Skippers and there are 3,500+ species of Skippers!
Though I may have seen both of these before, I don’t believe I have previously named them or shared photos of either.
DISCLAIMER: Uniquely colored butterflies are easier to identify than the thousands of brown Skippers which are very difficult to identify, even if in the book or online (and all are not). Thus no guarantee of the accuracy of these identities! 🙂
Skipper – Gold Costa
Gold Costa Skipper
Skipper – Common Brown
Common Brown Skipper
“Just living is not enough, said the butterfly, one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.” – Hans Christian Anderson
Two butterflies scurrying around my garden the other day captured my attention much because of how fast they traveled and thus difficult to photograph. The one with red & pink is a Transandean Cattleheart (Parides iphidamas), while the one with turquoise is a Short-tailed Flasher(Astraptes brevicauda). These are both identifications using A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America, Second Edition. On the Cattleheart especially, I trust the book more than the internet where the many different types of Cattleheart butterflies do not have their photos as finely separated as in the book.
The unknown yellow butterfly was on the parking lot by gym at Colegio Liceo (college-prep high school) – must have been pretty when alive but can’t find him in the book. CLICK images to see larger.
Transandean Cattleheart
Transandean Cattleheart
Transandean Cattleheart
Transandean Cattleheart
Short-Tailed Flasher
Short-tailed Flasher
Short-tailed Flasher
Short-tailed Flasher
Unidentified Butterfly
So we’ll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies. ~William Shakespeare
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
And check out my Butterflies & Moths of Costa Rica photo gallery! I have not found another online Costa Rica Butterfly gallery yet with as many labeled butterfly photos, more than 80 with names!
To maintain a vista from my terrace I have to top or prune off the top of both my Yellow Bells Tree and my Nance Tree about once a year.
I asked the gardener to write down the official name in Spanish which is “Arbole de vainillo” (Costa Rica only name – click for español description and other Spanish names by country). I just discovered that the Latin name Tecoma stans (click for English description) also has multiple English names listed in this order on Wikipedia: Yellow Trumpetbush, Yellow Bells (which I have been calling it because of the yellow bell-shaped flowers), Yellow Elder, and Ginger-Thomas. It is the official flower of the United States Virgin Islands and the floral emblem of The Bahamas, both using different names!
Topped the Yellow Bell & Nance Trees to preserve my vista. 🙂
And is very popular all over Costa Rica as a garden tree bringing 2-4 months of yellow flowers every year. You can see more photos of my trees blooming in my photo gallery named: My Home Gardens.
“In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends.”
Coming in October: A visit to Rincón de la Vieja National Park & Hacienda Guachipelin, a volcano park lodge, this one in the north of Guanacaste, above Liberia (a new area for me) and another hotel that promises a great birding experience. I continue to try new places while occasionally repeating favorites like a redo of Arenal Observatory (another volcano birding lodge) coming in November. In Costa Rica – the adventures never end!
Just a few of the beautiful fruits and flowers blooming all over the hotel grounds at Cristal Ballena Hotel with 2 shots made on the river trip in same area.
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“Almost every person, from childhood, has been touched by the untamed beauty of wildflowers.” ~Lady Bird Johnson
One advantage of walking everywhere (I still do not have a car) is you see more! Walking to town I noticed this orchid through a metal bars fence and used my cell phone to snap between black bars this shot of unanticipated beauty!
“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”
The latest trip book is completed, a short & simple photo book of 36 pages for only $19 which is low price for a photo book + order by 10 September and get 40% off with discount code: SEPTEMBER4T
Banana Azul is maybe my most relaxing hotel in Costa Rica or certainly the Caribbean, thus I focused on the tranquility of nature there with several sunrise photos along with birds and other nature! 🙂 Click this link or the cover image below to see a FREE PREVIEW electronically of all pages of the book. As always, full screen mode is better for photos! 🙂
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
A most relaxing time in nature, that top, end/corner room was mine this week, looking through these trees to the ocean daily – – – and now back to my Cecropia and Fig Trees for the surprises of nature there for awhile. Life is great “Retired in Costa Rica” and . . .
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
These 4 species of birds were finding their breakfast as I ate mine on the patio of Hotel Banana Azul in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica this morning. How fortunate I am to live and travel in such a beautiful, peaceful little country! ¡Pura Vida!
Breakfast at Banana Azul
Female Scarlet-rumped Tanager
Male Scarlet-rumped Tanager
Gardens Full of Flowers!
Blue-gray Tanager
Palm Tanager
Common Black Hawk
“The sky’s gone blue: azure, the ocean bluer: cerulean, the trees are swirls of every hella freaking green on earth and bright thick eggy yellow is spilling over everything.”
― Jandy Nelson, I’ll Give You the Sun
