This is a very common butterfly here and one of many in the family Pieridae – WHITES, YELLOWS & SULPHURS, though this was the only one from this visit to Xandari. In that linked gallery there are photos of 23 species and many came from Xandari on earlier visits.
Cloudless Sulphur – Phoebis sennae
¡Pura Vida!
And the 2023 Xandari Trip Gallery is now ready for you to see all my photos from this colorful nature resort.
Yesterday’s Freshness . . .
. . . was felt when I went to and from Central Atenas on the first day of school. Everywhere were happy, smiling, chatting school kids of all ages, kindergarten to 12th grade wearing brand new uniforms and marking the real beginning of 2023 for them! School year here is February to December. It made me feel good about living en el pueblo de Atenas!
The largest family of butterflies is Nymphalidae – BRUSHFOOTSand you can click that link for my galleries in that family where I now have photos of 93 species. I did get one more photo from this family that I cannot yet identify, so not included here.
Banded Peacock – Anartia fatima
Erato Heliconian – Heliconius erato
Carolina Satyr – Hermeuptychia sosybius
¡Pura Vida!
And the 2023 Xandari Trip Gallery is now ready for you to see all my photos from this colorful nature resort.
Continuing to blog my butterfly sightings in families, here are the 2 Skippers or Hesperiidae butterflies from this past week’s visit to Xandari. You can see more of this type of butterfly in my Hesperiidae-SKIPPERS Galleries.
I’m still working on my photos and identifying species and just discovered another new species for me, the Wedge-spotted Cattleheart, a butterfly in the family with Swallowtails. Here’s three shots of this one, all with folded wings (he refused to open them). And for the students of butterflies, note that it is similar to or could be confused with the Iphidamas or Transandean Cattleheart, but there are small differences! 🙂
In my short two-night stay at Xandari Costa Rica I photographed 13+ species of butterflies with a few more still unidentified, so maybe more. 🙂 It is my #1 best location for wild butterflies so far! In this post I present the the only two “lifers” or first-time seen butterflies on this trip.
Chestnut Crescent – Anthanassa argentea
This one is easily confused with the Tulcis or Pale-banded Crescent and the Ardent Crescent (both in my gallery).
Gray-based Crescent – Castilia griseobasalis
And this one is easily confused with both the Mayan and Cryptic Crescents with only the Mayan in my gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
You can find more of the “Crescents” Butterflies in my BRUSHFOOTS FAMILY of galleries.
I got 8 more butterflies today and at least one a “lifer” or new one for me, but identifying and processing hundreds of photos is just too much to share those today and the birds were just a very few! It is quite windy here this time of year.
So for today’s post, the easy way out, a handful of vistas from the hotel, many from my room and most of these are untouched straight out of the camera to facilitate my limited time for this post today! 🙂 One shot of last night’s sunset from my room just for the email announcement, and then all in a slide show that follows . . .
I arrived at Xandari in time for a little snack lunch and was assigned the same room, Villa 19, that I was in last August also for just two nights (they’re expensive is why short stays). See the room gallery for last year if you want to know what it looks like. All rooms are very nice here!
I walked the inner-circle trails photographing only these four butterflies and a whole lot more flowers and other nature which I will share later. It was bright sun and hot all afternoon, which is what butterflies like and there were a lot flying around but not stopping for a photo, especially the yellows and I saw some Julias too, but only these 4 landed where I could photograph. Tomorrow I will walk some deeper forest trails which have different butterflies and birds, though I got no birds this afternoon. Birds will be in the morning.
A local friend who has connections with a private religious retreat center in the mountains of Santa Eulalia, Atenas Canton, took me and two other friends last Saturday morning for a really nice birding hike that included all nature! 🙂 You can see the photos at:
Before Christmas I get down to just a few butterflies and because of the Jan-Mar winds will not see many again until April or May just before the winter here or “rainy season” during which I see the most. The number one most seen during this off season in my yard is the Carolina Satyr which is a small butterfly about the size of the upper half of my thumb or less. The folded wings view has the distinctive Satyr markings with particular ones for the Carolina. But the open wings view is just plain brown.