Category: Garden

Both my gardens and ones I visit

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Common Anastrus

This is another new species for me, a Spreadwing Skipper named Common Anastrus or Common Bluevent (my gallery linked) with more images in that gallery. Not as colorful or flashy as some I’ve seen here recently, but another important member of the Butterfly Family, photographed here on Lantana Flowers. It lives in Central America and tropical South America with Costa Rica it’s “type locality” or where it is happier (like me)! 🙂

Common Anastrus, Echelatus sempiternus, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

“Costa Rica: Cradle of Whales” FREE video on YouTube

Costa Rica is the only place in the world where whales come from two hemispheres to give birth to their babies. Currently the whales from Antarctica are here and by December those arctic whales from off the coast of Alaska will be here for the same reason. The 46 minute video was made by a large conglomeration of volunteer scientists, underwater photographers, and nature organizations in cooperation with Costa Rica TV Channel 7 that just premiered it on TV. They now share it with the world for free from their YouTube channel, linked from the title above and embedded below . . . IT IS IN SPANISH ONLY . . .

You will enjoy the photography, even if you can’t understand Spanish! 🙂

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Scrub Euphonia

My only other time to see this bird was in January of this year, also in my garden. eBird says they live from Mexico to Costa Rica but only in Northwest Costa Rica and I am in more of West Central Costa Rica. Maybe their habitat is expanding south! 🙂 Notice the big difference in the male and female, fairly typical of all Euphonias. See all my photos in the gallery  Scrub Euphonia – Euphonia affinis (linked).

Scrub Euphonia, female, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Scrub Euphonia, male, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Titan Sphinx Moth

One of the weirdest moths I’ve seen is the Titan Sphinx Moth – Aellopos titan (my gallery link) which has always been in my garden before, but this one earlier this month I saw on a Porterweed plant at the front gate of Residential Roca Verde. Some people have called them “hummingbird moths” because they hover over a flower like a hummingbird. I think they look more like a flying Shrimp! Ha, ha! 🙂

Titan-Sphinx-Moth, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Blue Lasaia

Another great discovery in my garden is this Blue Lasaia or Blue Metalmark (Lasaia sula) (my gallery link). It is the first one seen in my garden, though I saw one other back in 2022 on the lady’s Zinnias at 8th Ave & 3rd Street, with those shots also included in the above linked gallery. There are so many cool butterflies in Costa Rica! (About 1,500 species). 🙂

Blue Lasaia, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Continue reading “Blue Lasaia”
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Is this Butterfly a Nature Goddess?

About 3 days ago a new species of butterfly appeared on one of my Tropical Milkweed flowers as seen in these two photos, another new species for me. The Banner Metalmark, Thisbe lycorias, is a striking butterfly found from Mexico south through Central America to the Western Amazonian Basin of Peru. It has also been called the “Foxface Metalmark” and one of my older books the “Fox-face Lemmark,” meaning as with many species, I struggle to keep up with multiple names, but now default to whatever iNaturalistCR is using and only rarely do they differ from BAMONA, my second-ranked online source.

Banner Metalmark, Thisbe lycorias, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

It appears in only two of my several Costa Rica butterfly books and with limited information. So I researched the scientific name Thisbe lycorias and that’s how I came up with the headline for today’s post. In short “Thisbe” was a Babylonian forest nymph and part of their early legends, while “Lycorias” was a Greek sea nymph as part of their early stories and myths. If you didn’t know, historically a nymph was a “minor nature Goddess” in those early tales. 🙂

From Google & Wikipedia: “When British entomologist William Chapman Hewitson first described the species in 1853, it was standard practice among European naturalists to pluck names from classical Greek and Roman texts. By pairing the Babylonian nymph Thisbe with the sea nymph Lycorias, the scientific name became a poetic nod to ancient folklore.” 🙂 With the “fairy-like” appearance of so many butterflies, that early naming practice is sort of understandable. 🙂 And I’ve started a gallery on this species with 4 shots from this one observation: Banner Metalmark, Thisbe lycorias.

Enjoy today’s “nature goddess,” Thisbe Lycorias!

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Pink-spotted Cattleheart

There are several species of “Cattlehearts,” a type of swallowtail butterfly which are all solid black with red/pink and white spots or other “designs.” This is one of prettiest of the 9 species I’ve photographed here and show in my SWALLOWTAILS family gallery (linked) or you can see more of just this species in the gallery: Pink-Spotted Cattleheart (linked).

Pink-spotted Cattleheart, my garden, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Continue reading “Pink-spotted Cattleheart”
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July Flower Shots

As in most months I occasionally walk through my gardens and focus on the flowers rather than birds or butterflies. Below are two galleries (separating verticals & horizontals) with a few of the photos made in July . . .

Continue reading “July Flower Shots”
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Banded Peacock

This butterfly may be one of the most common in Costa Rica, but it is still a real beauty and a joy to find, the Banded Peacock (my gallery link).

Banded Peacock, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Email Notification Tech Problem

For about a week now, my regularly scheduled 4 am emailed release of a new post has not been working as handled by “Jetpack,” a service company to WordPress, thus the posts were published online but have not gone out by email to my subscribers. Sorry! Technology drives me crazy when it claims to do so much and then doesn’t work! Jetpack tells me they are working hard to fix it, but in the meantime my scheduled posts will only be emailed if I redo them manually, which I just did for several I considered good for the last week and will now manually publish each night, since their program is not working for scheduled posts. Sorry! Or maybe I should say “sorry technology!” 🙂 And this one is the one scheduled for today.

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Four-spotted Sailor

This is my second sighting in my garden plus the one I saw at Maquenque Lodge. A gorgeous butterfly as seen in my gallery: Four-spotted Sailor (linked). It is found in the tropical areas of Central and South America. Some call it the “Mexican Sailor,” probably because they first saw it in southern Mexico.

Four-spotted Sailor, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Four-spotted Sailor, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Rusty Metalmark

A young male Rusty Metalmark (my gallery link) in my garden on a milkweed.

Rusty Metalmark, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Atenas, Costa Rica makes the Forbes list of best places to retire! 🙂 That link is to the Tico Times article.