charliedoggett.net
Both my gardens and ones I visit
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).
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”
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).
¡Pura Vida!
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.
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.
¡Pura Vida!
A young male Rusty Metalmark (my gallery link) in my garden on a milkweed.
¡Pura Vida!
Atenas, Costa Rica makes the Forbes list of best places to retire! 🙂 That link is to the Tico Times article.
A tiny butterfly on a groundcover flower, the Pale-banded Crescent (my gallery link).
God has so many designs for butterflies that it is overwhelming! And brown is one of my favorite colors! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
I finished the Maquenque photos and posted some of my June garden photos and still way behind on processing July garden photos, when I photographed 7 species of birds and 31 species of butterflies in my garden! To start the July garden photos, here’s a favorite . . .
The Royal Firetip – Mysoria barcastus (my gallery link) as one of those unusual butterflies in Costa Rica (Found only from Southern Mexico to Costa Rica) that I’ve been fortunate to see several times, all either in my garden or nearby here in Atenas. 🙂 Here’s 3 shots from this sighting in my garden last month (July 2026) . . .
I’ve been unable to identify this butterfly I observed in my garden in June and iNaturalist helped me to put it in this Genus Cecropterus, generally referred to as “Cloudywings.” I’m hoping that after I post it on both iNaturalist and BAMONA, some butterfly specialist will identify it. It is similar to some other butterflies I’ve seen, so it is possible it will join another species I’ve earlier identified. We will see! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
I’m beginning to place more of my unidentified butterflies into their probable genus or even a broader tribe or family, thanks to the folks at iNaturalist who encourage that and their very helpful AI helps me choose which level to put it in. This one from June at my house really fits the Calephelis Genus but I simply cannot identify the species and hopefully when I post it on both iNaturalist and BAMONA at the end of the month as my June observations, some “identifier” or butterfly specialist will have an identity. 🙂 But until then, this observation will stay with several other similar ones in my gallery Calephelis Genus. (linked)
This one might be as common in parts of North America as here, the Giant White – Ganyra josephina (my gallery link). One of the many new species showing up in June when the wind was not blowing. 🙂
