charliedoggett.net
Another new species for me and if approved will be a new species for the website I volunteer with, butterflies and moths dot org. I’m requesting the addition and I’m pretty certain of the ID based first on the Jeffrey Glassberg book and then iNaturalist website. Note that I have indicated male and female in my photos, since I managed to photograph both and there is a difference! 🙂 Here’s one shot for the email version and then all four shots below that in a little gallery . . .
Today begins what has become almost an annual tradition of spending a week in the Southern Caribbean of Costa Rica, during September when this rainy rainforest has the least amount of rain. After trying a few other hotels, I’ve settled on Banana Azul as my favorite and it is right on the beach (one of the few!) in a favorite room with balcony overlooking the beach and hotel gardens. It is one of my most relaxing weeks of the year! This Puerto Viejo area is south, near the Panama Border and quite different from my other Caribe fave which is north of the port of Limón and in a great wetlands wildlife national park called Tortuguero.
I have just two morning bird hikes scheduled, one in the Cahuita National Park and the other in Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge. Otherwise I just “hangout” at the hotel and beach, walking both the beach and a forested beach road where last year I found a bonanza of butterflies! 🙂
Read on for some of my past creative endeavors from the South Caribbean of Costa Rica . . .
Continue reading “Flying to the Caribe Today!”
Another new species for me! Zilpa Longtail, Chioides zilpa, found from the Southwestern U.S. throughout Central America and in Ecuador. It is kind of amazing that in this hotter and drier year of fewer birds and butterflies for me, I am still getting about as many new species of butterflies as in a more “normal” year! Of course they are mostly new species of Skippers with definitely not as many of the more colorful butterflies, but hey! A butterfly is a butterfly! 🙂 And I am happy to be finding these new brown ones in my garden this year. And just maybe, when I go the the Caribbean side of Costa Rica in the middle of September, I’ll be blessed with a lot of new varieties of butterflies over there in a totally different climate than the Central Valley where I live. But realistically the whole globe is being affected by the extreme weather this year, so, we will see. 🙂 Here’s three photos of this one . . .
Middle America Bush-Tanager, Chlorospingus flavopectus, which is sporting a new name found only in my new 2023 Princeton Field Guide, Birds of Costa Rica (and online). And that is why I try to always have the latest bird guide because there are always changes in the names. eBird is currently using both names and even “Middle America Chlorospingus” as another option. This particular one is found only in Central America with a slightly different one in South America which I suspect is why the name change. I photographed this one from my porch chair at my cabin in El Silencio Lodge & Reserve last month. I’ve already featured the Collared Trogon and now this one from El Silencio and may do just one more bird post on all the others I photographed to keep from stringing the El Silencio posts out too far. 🙂 Or maybe one on Hummingbirds and one on all the others! 🙂 Here’s 3 of my porch shots of this nice little bird by whatever name! 🙂
I had only one full day (along with two partial days) at El Silencio Lodge last month and on that full day it rained until after 2 pm, so it was nearly 3 pm before I headed out on what the lodge sometimes calls “Mystery Trail” for my 2 km hike mostly uphill to the three beautiful waterfalls that I shared photos of yesterday, then 2 km back to cabin before dinner.
But as is often the case, the journey is as beautiful or life-changing as the destination! And this was no exception! Every hiking trail is a “Mystical Footpath” to me and when I have more time than I did that day, I find exciting insects and lizards along every trail and in some places birds, monkeys, sloths and other wildlife! But this report is more on the trail and many streams along the way found in a photo gallery below this one pix. In the gallery you can click an image to see it larger and full-width or by clicking the first image you can go through all 12 as a manual slide show that you click through my story in pictures! Enjoy views from my Cloud Forest Hike of last month . . .
For years this has been on the hill above my house in the yard of “the big house,” where my former landlord lived and is now rented to a wonderful young couple. And I’m pretty sure it is one of the several species of Agave and my gardener called it an Agave. But it could be something else. I first called it a “yucca” which the garden says it is not. 🙂
Over more than 8 years here the flower has never gotten that tall! Sorry I didn’t ask someone to stand by it for comparison. It is taller than two men or more that 12 feet (3.7 meters) I’m sure! And maybe even equal to tree men or 18 feet! Shooting from my yard down the hill it took 4 photos to make this vertical pano! 🙂 Another fun tropical anomaly! 🙂
I tried to identify it online and the closest match (not exact) was to the Tequilana Agave, grown mostly in Mexico and used to make Tequila! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Yes, I too think it is probably one of the thousands of brown Skippers, but all the books and websites making ID dependent on the wing patterns with top and side views, this “in your face” photo does not help me to identify him! But I still thought it an interesting photo worth sharing! 🙂
Depending on what you think it is, check out what else is in my Costa Rica Galleries on:
¡Pura Vida!
These two different insects I managed to photograph in flight the other morning are probably two of the approximately 700 species of bees found here in Costa Rica, but I cannot specifically identify them. One has a black body and one a orange body. 🙂
And if you don’t read Spanish – no problem! It’s a photo book! With only the title and introduction in words! 🙂 Preview every page by clicking the cover image below or going to: https://www.blurb.com/b/11661183-el-encanto-de-las-hojas
¡Pura Vida!
Another new species of butterfly! And that is pretty good with this being a year of overall fewer butterflies seen! 🙂 This one is in the Gossamer Wings Family and sub-family of Hairstreaks, scientific name Rubroserrata mathewi and common name of Matthew’s Groundstreak. And this is another one of those tiny, fingernail sized butterflies which seem to be handling the wind and lack of rain better this year. Here’s four photos of this new species, all shot in my garden: