charliedoggett.net
Both my gardens and ones I visit
I’m the #1 observer of this species in Costa Rica’s iNaturalist and earlier I had it lumped with the North American Cloudless Sulphur, but someone decided that we are a different subspecies down here and added the “South American” identifier to the common name in both English & Spanish. Today I had 51 photos in my South American Cloudless Sulphur Gallery. (linked) Phoebis sennae.
¡Pura Vida!
When I first planted the Tropical Milkweed I was hoping they would attract the Monarch Butterfly which is not as common here as in the States, but none yet. Then the other day I found 3 caterpillars on one of the Milkweed plants and with the iNaturalist AI have identified them as caterpillars of the Queen – Danaus gilippus butterfly (Linked to my gallery) which is related to the Monarch. Maybe in the near future I will have some fresh Queens birthed in my garden! 🙂 So far, the only two Queens I’ve seen have been elsewhere.
I’m hoping that their eating all the leaves off my best Milkweed plant will not kill it! 🙂 They were first planted between two tall flowers and thus only get sunshine midday which is really not enough sun for milkweed. I just a few days ago planted 3 more Milkweeds in a different part of the garden where they get both morning and midday sun, so hopefully they will do better! I’m on the side of a hill with lots of trees, so plants like this that need lots of sunshine will always struggle on my little lot.
¡Pura Vida!
I have not focused on caterpillars, but do have a little gallery with what caterpillars I’ve photographed in Costa Rica at CATERPILLARS (linked) with most in the “Unidentified” folder for a total of 15 species, assuming no overlap or duplication.
This is becoming my new favorite bird in my garden, mainly because of that deep blue tail! See more of my photos in the gallery: Blue-vented Hummingbird.
¡Pura Vida!
And if after a few seconds, that click doesn’t work, then just go to this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2026-06-8-10-Xandari-Nature-Resort-Alajuela
Visiting places like this here in Costa Rica and making photos is my greatest joy! I hope you enjoy some of the photos! And I may still share a few more on the blog, but they are starting to happen now where I live! And in 2 1/2 weeks I will be at Maquenque Eco Lodge, one of my other favorite places from which to share my love of nature! And there I will celebrate my 86th birthday! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
One reason Xandari has so many butterflies is they have a huge variety of flowers in their many gardens, one of the best I’ve visited all over Costa Rica. I’m working on the Flower Sub-gallery of this Trip Gallery and it looks like now it will have 35 species of flowers identified! 🙂 Here is just one, the Tiger Flower – Tigridia pavonia (Wikipedia link) with many names and stories about some of the varieties in Middle America.
¡Pura Vida!
And see my many flower photos in the Flora & Forest Galleries! 🙂
One of the 17 species of butterflies I photographed at Xandari, Salome Yellow (my gallery link) is just one more of the large variety of butterflies found at Xandari and soon to be shared in a trip gallery for my little two-night trip there earlier this past week.
¡Pura Vida!
The Clay-colored Thrush (my gallery link) is called a Yigüirro in Costa Rica and is the National Bird, yet such a simple, Robin-sized brown bird. Not only does his singing in April attract the rain (and me), but his simple, plain look is also appealing. Another favorite bird seen at Xandari this week.
¡Pura Vida!
Xandari has more of my photo books in their lobby than maybe any other hotel/lodge in Costa Rica. And they were on a bookshelf in a back corner of the lobby for quite a while, but when that corner was made into an office, they moved my books to just inside the front door, nicely displayed on top of a miniature oxcart, one of the historical symbols of Costa Rica. And my friends in Reception tell me that a lot more people are using the books now! 🙂
All of the lodges that I regularly visit have some of my books in their lobbies and I know that people use them as I have received letters of thanks from tourists by way of my website Contact Page. 🙂 It is kind of fun to gift people I don’t know from around the world with a tiny expression of my Costa Rica Pura Vida in my nature photos here! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
The only other time I’ve seen this species was in 2022, also at Xandari! That year it was on flowers by the Room 19 Terrace (coincidentally the same room I was in this year), but this year I saw it by the Frog Pond near the Sunset Pool, the opposite end of the hotel! 🙂 I got better photos then as you can see in the Gallery Chiapas White. It is also called “Orange-striped White” and “Dimorphic White,” while in Spanish it is “Mariposa Pamela.” It is found only in Central & South America and some consider it “rare” which is partly because they often spend their time in the treetops and thus not seen as often. My first observation was 1 of only 38 in Costa Rica on iNaturalist and 1 of only 2 in BAMONA. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
This is one of two butterfly species called “Postman.” This one with the addition of “Red” in the common English name, has the scientific name of Heliconius erato (my gallery link) and at least one website uses a different common name of “Erato Heliconia” instead of “Red Postman.” And that is just in the English language! 🙂
Then to make it more complicated, the other species that looks the same to most people has the common English name of plain “Postman” or other websites use the common name of “Melpomene Heliconian,” which like the other one is a twist on the scientific name which is: Heliconius melpomene rosina (my gallery link). Any hobby that includes scientific names and information will get complicated sometimes! 🙂
A single photo of the Erato version for the emailed blog post, followed by a gallery of 4 different shots from different angles to help the identifiers. 🙂
