Not real common, though I’ve seen at least 3 other times in my garden, the Eastern Tailed-Blue, Cupido comyntas (linked to my gallery) has before been almost totally blue on top with less brown than this one, but with research, I’m confident that this set of photos is properly identified, even though Ceraunus Blue has more brown like this, it has a totally different set of black dots. Plus one article says that females are more brown, so maybe this is a female! 🙂 And all photos are of the same individual. Plus, interestingly, every time I’ve seen this species, it has been in grasses and never yet on a flower. 🙂 Here’s 3 photos . . .
This sailor (one of several “sailor” species) has been seen in my garden before and one other place in Atenas (8th Ave) plus my last previous sighting was in Cahuita National Park in Caribe Sur last October. See all my photos of this species in its own gallery: Pale Sailor, Dynamine agacles core. And yes, it seems to be a little rare with only one other person posting on butterfliesandmoths dot org and only 6 people on iNaturalist Costa Rica. So not an everyday butterfly! 🙂
Here’s three shots of one last Saturday in my garden . . .
From my garden to you with nature’s red, heart-shaped flower, the Anthurium, Anthurium andraeanum (linked to Wikipedia). It is native to Central and South America and has many common names in English such as anthurium, tailflower, flamingo flower, pigtail plant, and laceleaf. They bloom year-around in my garden and in a pot on my terrace where these photos were made.
Anthurium, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa RicaAnthurium, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Or most online sites say “relatively rare” but vary in the reasons from being very healthy or the “right amount of sun” to being stressed or root bound. Not sure why my snake plant in the frog pot on the terrace is blooming, but it is, and I thought a first for me, but after loading this I find my 2017 blog post with another one blooming. I had forgotten! 🙂
January to March is very windy here and maybe that is one reason for fewer butterflies, but one of the larger and more colorful ones that keeps hang on around my gardens is the Banded Peacock, Anartia fatima (my gallery link). While several Yellows fly around high in the trees and never seem to land for a photo and a few Skippers can be seen close to the ground, it is mainly these Banded Peacocks who frequent my gardens now.
Banded Peacock, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa RicaBanded Peacock, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Yesterday was a new species of birds for me and today a new species of butterflies for me, the Arita Skipper or Green-browed Skipper, Arita arita. No link to my gallery because this is the only photo in it now. 🙂 And no good article online, though there are 2 other photos on butterfliesandmoths.org and 5 more sightings from Costa Rica on the iNaturalistCR site. Not a spectacular butterfly, but one more species which brings my CR Butterflies Galleries up to 320 identified species now! 🙂
Green-browed or Arita Skipper, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~Henry David Thoreau
¡Pura Vida!
2,000 Blog/Website Visits in January! THANK YOU!
One of the services provided by my WordPress blog/website host is a monthly report of page visits on my site and it has been typical for the last few years to have around 2,000 page views of my blog/website at charliedoggett.net each month!
And though my photo gallery is a menu item on the website, it is actually separate and hosted by a different business, SmugMug.com, and they started in February 2022 counting my gallery visitors with several galleries now having had over 1,000 visitors in 2 years! And the shocker for me, as I typed this (yesterday) is that I’ve had 1,957 views of the gallery “My Home Gardens.” 🙂 Flowers are more popular than birds?! So I express my THANKS to all of you who read the blog (with more pictures than words)! 🙂 And then go on to look at my photos in the gallery! 🙂 Maybe “A picture is worth a thousand words” is a true statement after all! 🙂
Moving to Costa Rica 10 years ago and immersing myself in the incredible nature here was definitely one of the best decisions I every made! And I’m thankful for the many people who have joined me in my adventures vicariously by reading the blog posts and looking at the photos! ¡Pura Vida!
Our January 7 day trip with 6 Canadian friends from British Columbia to Rio Tarcoles & Punta Leona Beach was a fun trip with lots of nature photo ops! And I now have the “Trip Gallery” finished! Click that link or the image of the first page below or this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2025-January-7-Rio-Tarcoles-Punta-Leona In many ways, these trip galleries are my “base galleries” from which I glean photos for subject galleries like Birds! While photos made in my home garden go directly into the subject galleries if they even make a gallery. 🙂 But I love these trip galleries because I always make more photos on a trip!
CLICK this image of the first page to go to this gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
My needle biopsy went well yesterday and now I just wait for their report that I will receive in my February 12 appointment. And my sister Bonnie learned that her “colon cancer” was primarily an ovarian cancer that spread to her colon, and now they are about to begin chemotherapy after one more procedure. Our mother and brother both died of cancer and now it looks like the rest of us may go the same way. Only Dad never had cancer. The doctors said he died when his heart just stopped, not a heart attack. And Bonnie and I will both look for the positive while we fight our different types of cancers. Thanks for your prayers!
