For maybe an hour this morning, two Yellow-throated Toucans called out to each other from two different trees behind my cabin. Finally, they got together in one tree, though my last pix indicates that one is shy, hiding behind an air plant with her back to the other. Always fun to observe nature in action! 🙂 This was one of 11 bird species I photographed today, here at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge. A nice day! And though cloudy most of the day, no rain. Below this photo for the email is a photo of the two together or almost together! 🙂
Sunday before last in the early morning before walking to El Fogon for breakfast, I was on my terrace with a cup of tea and my camera when the neighborhood motmots came to my garden with their offspring. It appears that they were teaching him/her (male and female look identical to humans) how to catch a Cicada (or find a dead one). 🙂 Check out the gallery below of 6 shots chronologically of the lesson in my Higuerón and Nance Trees and on the ground below . . .
The Red Cracker, Hamadryas amphinome (my gallery link) has an almost solid red underside of his lower wing, which I am yet to get a photo of. The only other place that I’ve seen this butterfly was on two different occasions at Xandari Resort, on a hill overlooking Alajuela (city) and the San Jose Airport. This shot was made in my garden on the trunk of the Cecropia Tree. I’ve only seen Crackers (all species) on trunks of trees, so maybe there is something in bark they eat? 🙂 And I’ve also only seen the topside of most.
Red Cracker, Hamadryas amphinome, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
¡Pura Vida!
And if Cracker butterflies interest you, check out my galleries on these 6 different species . . .
And now I will try to focus on nature in June, right here in my garden! 🙂 I started May still processing photos from April and I finished May with blog posts scheduled through this one today, June 10. Yes, I’ve been staying ahead about a week and a half or 10 days on writing the blog posts while coordinating the useable photos for not only the blog, but I post the useable ones in . . .
I now post all my nature photos for future research on iNaturalist (linked to my posts with a map of where photographed in CR.
I am still putting butterfly photos also on butterfliesandmoths.org (linked to the Costa Rica Region where I’m the primary contributor).
And I still post bird photos on eBird of course! You may have to add my name to see my postings there: charliedoggett.
And though it may seem like I shared a lot of butterfly photos in May, there were a lot more photographed! I got 45 species of butterflies in my garden in May! At least two species were new ones for me. And I’m having trouble keeping up with them all! 🙂 It is like I don’t need to travel to get photos, but I look forward to some different animals in my July rainforest trip when I celebrate my 85th birthday.
In running these two photos through the iNaturalist, this insect is definitely in the Fidicina Genus (with about 30 species of Cicadas in CR) and though not an exact match, the closest species I could find was Fidicina toulgoeti which iNaturalist says has never been observed in Costa Rica (only Ecuador & Brazil), soooo, I will submit it to iNat just as the genus and see if one of the “bug experts” can identify it. If they agree with my suggested species, then mine will be the first observation of it in Costa Rica! 🙂
It was seen on the Cecropia Tree in my garden . . .
Had I been going there for birds like I used to, it would have been earlier, like 5:30 or 6 am! But even during this 8-10 am best time for butterflies, I saw a lot more than 3 birds, but this is all I photographed on Calle Nueva that morning, plus the Yellow-faced Grassquit (May 15 Post) in the cow pasture as I was getting back home. 🙂 Here’s the three other birds I got photos of on that nearby dirt road . . .
Inca Dove, Calle Nueva, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
This Clay-colored Thrush, Yigüirro (my gallery link) was still singing after the rains started in April but they are here for sure now, almost every afternoon or evening, and he no longer needs to sing in the rain! 🙂
Yigüirro or Clay-colored Thrush singing in Atenas, Costa Rica as the rains start!
This Central American squirrel is endemic to Costa Rica north to Southern Mexico and is the squirrel species that lives in my garden. In this photo he is dining on a portion of the Cecropia flower in the Cecropia Tree adjacent my terrace. He scurries through all the trees much more than the iguana and is a part of the garden wildlife that keep me entertained. See more of my photos of this guy from all over Costa Rica in the GALLERY: Variegated Squirrel or Ardilla Chiza (español), Sciurus variegatoides (scientific name). ¡Pura vida! 🙂
Variegated Squirrel, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
¡Pura Vida!
P.S. – Landslide blocks road yesterday!
One of the preferred routes between Atenas and Grecia . . .
COPY OF A WHATSAPP MESSAGE TO A GROUP I’M IN.
This happens on a lot of roads here, even the big highways, because to cut costs they did not cut the hills back far enough when constructing the road initially. Maybe its a case of “you get what you pay for!” 🙂