Category: Insects

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Colorful Peacock Butterfly!

The Banded Peacock is one of those steady friends you can always expect to be here every year and in this strange weather year, he was again always here, even if in fewer numbers, continuing to add color to my gardens and other places I visited. These two photos were made just before I left for Macaw Lodge and I like how he contrasts with both the green and the yellow leaves as another butterfly with a rich brown color. There will be fewer butterflies now until next May, but fortunately a tropical country has some butterflies year around! And soon my copies of the Second Edition of Pura Vida Butterflies book will be here with 240+ species of butterflies, the most of any book available right now! Click that link to order your copy!

Banded Peacock Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica
Banded Peacock Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica

For more photos, see my Banded Peacock GALLERY.

¡Pura Vida!

And don’t miss this weekend’s BIG ART FAIR at Plaza Calle 2! JIT! Just in time for the Holidays with gift possibilities for everyone!

CLICK image for the JIT Facebook Page!
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Another New Butterfly Species!

Sorry that I keep switching between more photos from the Macaw Lodge visit and photos in my own garden at home. But another new species is a big deal to me, even though this one did not make my new butterfly book which is already being printed! 🙂

It is another tiny Metalmark with the English name of Blue-based Theope and the scientific name of Theope virgilius. The top of his wings are a bright sky-blue, but because it was windy, he never perched with wings spread and thus no photos of top. I saw the blue when he was flying, but too fast to photograph! 🙂

Blue-based Theope, Atenas, Costa Rica
Blue-based Theope, Atenas, Costa Rica

And see more shots I made of him in my garden in my Blue-based Theope GALLERY.

There haven’t been many submitted on butterfliesandmoths.org, but you can see those four from Mexico and Costa Rica at that link plus a few more at butterfliesofamerica, also from Mexico and Costa Rica. Our regional guanacasteconservationarea includes photos of the caterpillars and iNaturalistPanama has some nice photos of the butterfly which they call “Tourmaline Butterfly” in Panama, but it is the same one. 🙂

Butterflies are amazing and beautiful and there are so many of them! The frequent new discoveries I’m having are a joy! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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A New Tiny Butterfly

As I said in yesterday’s post, on the morning I published the second edition of my big butterfly book, I captured a photo of another new species that just barely made it into the book! 🙂 It is the Clench’s Greenstreak – Cyanophrys miserabilis and I adjusted the size of another Gossamer Wings butterfly in the book to make this last minute addition fit. Fun! And that is in addition to the other last minute addition of just 4 days before that when I got the Red-headed Firetip – Pyrrhopyge phidias at Macaw Lodge which I featured in an earlier blog post and also adjusted the size of another photo to make that Skipper butterfly fit in the book. 🙂 Here’s one shot of the Greenstreak for the email followed by a little gallery of 4 shots.

Clench’s Greenstreak, Atenas, Costa Rica
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Second Edition of Pura Vida Butterflies

And today just before publishing it, I added another new butterfly! 🙂 I’ll share that butterfly tomorrow, but here is the link to my new Costa Rica Butterflies book:

348 photos of more than 240 species of butterflies in Costa Rica makes this the largest current photo book of just Costa Rica Butterflies. Use as a coffee table book or for identification and research with a complete index of both common English names and the Latin scientific names. And this is right on the heels of the release of my second edition of the smaller Hotel Banana Azul Butterfly book! 🙂

Follow this link or click the image of the book’s front cover below for a free electronic preview of every page! https://www.blurb.com/b/11802842-pura-vida-butterflies

CLICK this cover image for a FREE PREVIEW!

¡Pura Vida!

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10 Different Dragonflies

Macaw Lodge is, like the nearby national park, a “Transitional Forest” near the coast and lowland rainforests, yet at a higher elevation but not quite high enough for a cloud forest, and though sometimes drier than a rainforest, definitely not a tropical dry forest like those in nearby Guanacaste, thus the indication of “Transitional Forest.” Yet they have a lot of water (mountain streams they route portions through lily ponds) which helps attract frogs and dragonflies. Here’s 10 dragonflies I photographed and though I’ve identified a few, not most, I will not identify any of the photos here until I’m sure of the identity, which continues to be difficult with over 300 species and a great similarity of many of the species! 🙂 One photo for the email version and then a gallery with all 10.

Dragonfly, Macaw Lodge, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
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Red-headed Firetip

Out of about a dozen species of butterflies photographed here at Macaw Lodge, it looks like the only new one for me will be this Red-headed Firetip, Pyrrhopyge phidias. I have photos of the Royal Firetip, but neither seem to be seen often. And this one looks a little like the Guava Skipper, though in a different sub-family. They are all in the big Skipper family. See all my Skippers in that family gallery.  😊

I have enjoyed my little 3-night getaway at Macaw Lodge and I return home tomorrow. Even with a lot of rain, I managed to photograph much in this truly “off the beaten tracks” lodge in a partially old growth forest adjacent a national park. I got about 17 species of birds and a dozen species of butterflies along with landscapes and other nature things!  😊 The food is good and the people super-nice, both the rural locals and the guests that included a group from Europe this week. For anyone considering wilderness places in Costa Rica, I do recommend this lodge! It is my second visit with the other time in 2019.

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New Book for a Special Place

Hotel Banana Azul is my #1 source of butterfly photos and thus they get another book just for butterflies found on their property and nearby reserves. If you are going to the Costa Rica Caribbean and love butterflies, then you will want to take a copy of this book with you, featuring 61 species of butterflies photographed there! One of a kind book! 🙂 And why I’m introducing this week? Because Blurb is offering a “Black Friday Sale” of 50% off photo books! And I’m about to do another book also, for the same reason! 🙂

See all the pages in the free preview at: https://www.blurb.com/b/11780529-hotel-banana-azul-butterflies

Or click this image of the book cover:

CLICK this cover image to see the free preview.

¡Pura Vida!

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Today’s Lone Butterfly

This morning’s walk through the garden revealed only one butterfly, but a favorite! 🙂 The Rounded Metalmark, Caliphelis perditalis, (linked to my other gallery shots), a tiny butterfly in the Riodinidae or Metalmark family of butterflies about the size of two of my thumbnails. I love the rich blend of blue, orange and brown colors and in my gallery you can see some shots of his “cute” bug-eyed face! 🙂 Surprisingly, the only place I’ve seen this species so far is in my garden here in Atenas. 🙂

And yes, butterflies seem to be fading (moving or dying off) a little earlier this year than usual. I will be interested to see if there are more in the “wilder” forest preserve I will visit next week at Macaw Lodge adjacent to Carara National Park. And hopefully more birds there too! 🙂

Rounded Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

And an interesting announcement in our online English-language newspaper, Tico Times, this week: Travel & Leisure Magazine Named Costa Rica the 2024 Destination of the Year!

Or better yet, go directly to the Travel+Leisure articles on Costa Rica!

¡Pura Vida!

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Morning Coffee & Wildlife

Friends up the hill invited me for coffee on their terrace yesterday where they have both a hummingbird feeder and a fruit feeder to attract more birds. And though they too have had fewer birds this year of El Niño weather, they get more than me because of their feeders and maybe their location adjacent the Calle Nueva Forest. Here’s what I was able to photograph while drinking coffee and talking a lot, though the one hummingbird never slowed down enough for a shot. 🙂

Lesson’s Motmot

4 birds, 2 insects and one iguana . . .

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