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Even though much of the afternoon was rain, the morning was dry, just cloudy, and I managed to photograph about a dozen different butterflies including this little Hairstreak family butterfly, Dusky-blue Groundstreak, Calycopis isobeon, my favorite of the day! And that name is linked to my gallery where there are more shots from my garden. 🙂 And oh yeah, as you will see in that gallery, the top of his wings are solid blue! 🙂 Just one shot from this morning . . .
¡Pura Vida!
The rain seemed to arrive about the same time I did at Xandari this mid-day, but I managed to photograph 2 birds & 2 butterflies in either rain or mist. Those four photos are below and I continue to be amazed with Xandari and they upgraded me to a huge villa that is really nice! Hoping for clear skies the next two mornings and then my photo collection will grow! 🙂
Thanks to one of the volunteers on iNaturalist, I now have a species name for that “cute smiling” flower I photographed at Arenal last month. The scientific name is Trimezia gracilis and the most used common name is Liro Caminante, with a less-used common name of Falsa Orquidea. You can see a map of where they are found around the world and read more information about them on PlantNet.org. Here’s that one photo again and I’m proud to be first to share it on iNaturalist! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
One of my unidentified photos from Arenal just got identified by an authority with butterfliesandmoths.org and it is another one of those rare finds and mine is the first one ever submitted to butterfliesandmoths. 🙂 Wikipedia says “Athis inca is a moth of the Castniidae family. It is found from Mexico to Costa Rica.” You can see this photo of mine posted on butterfliesandmoths or in my gallery. And to learn more, the website that seemed to have the most information was GBIF (linked). And Project Noah (linked) has several nice photos, including different subspecies. I’m proud of my find and so glad that J. Wiley Rains of BAMONA identified it for me! Costa Rica is just full of “rare finds!” 🙂 And it is wonderful to be “Retired in Costa Rica,” the name of my blog! 🙂
On this same trip I also found another semi-rare moth which you can see in my gallery, the Feigeria herilia, an equally interesting and different moth! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Finally, I have processed all the photos and organized them into another fun gallery representative of Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails inside the Arenal Volcano National Park of Costa Rica. And the blog will be back to my little creatures and fun nature from my little garden. You can click the first page of the gallery below or if preferred, this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-May-6-11-Arenal-Observatory-Lodge-Trails
And to visit there, see the Arenal Observatory Lodge WEBSITE.
¡Pura Vida!
Both birds and butterflies are the two groups of photos from a forest trip that take me a long time to process the literal thousands of photos and this time I did the butterflies earlier and finally I have finished the birds with 28 species photographed and only 1 is unidentified. Click the first page of the bird gallery below to see it or you can go to this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-May-6-11-Arenal-Observatory-Lodge-Trails/BIRDS
Plus I have added the better photos from this trip gallery to my Costa Rica Birds by Species galleries, so they are found in both places. 🙂 And now I will more quickly finish the entire “Trip Gallery!” 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Like in my garden and some other places visited in Costa Rica, Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails seemed dominated by the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird and when I finally get my Arenal ’24 Birds Gallery finished, you will see a lot of Rufous-tailed Hummingbird photos as without-a-doubt my most seen hummingbird, though I place this Violet-headed Hummingbird (eBird link) as number 2 seen by me while at Arenal and as the only other hummingbird I got useable photos of on this trip, though I’m pretty sure I saw a Cinnamon Hummingbird but without a useable photo of him/her. So here’s one shot of the Violet-headed Hummingbird plus the featured photo at top and in my Big Costa Rica Birds Gallery, my Violet-headed Hummingbird Gallery has more photos from this trip plus shots from 3 other locations earlier in Costa Rica! So check it out for another beautiful Hummingbird here! The Violet-headed Hummingbird is found only in Central America and the northern fringes of South America, exactly like the seemingly more dominant Rufous-tailed Hummingbird.
¡Pura Vida!
From earlier trips, I’ve shared the aerial views of the beautiful, thick forests at Arenal Volcano National Park, so this time some different views from my May 6-11, 2024 visit. Five shots . . .
with overcast skies, clouds or rain every day (rainy season now), but it is still a nice “extra” visita in addition to the volcano adjacent the lodge. And as you can tell on the Google Map I’ve included below, the portion you see from the lodge or the Arenal Volcano National Park on the map in lower right-hand corner of the lake is only about 1/20th of the total 20-mile long lake that fills the valleys where the river used to flow. It is the largest lake in Costa Rica and a major source of electricity. Several small towns had to be relocated when the dam was built. Read the lodge’s description linked. It is one of the most popular places for Costa Ricans to go bass fishing and some tourist! 🙂 3 photos & a map . . .
The Great Curassow, Crax rubra (eBird link) with more information about this big bird, usually a little bit larger than the Crested Guan shown yesterday. But unlike the guan, the female curassow is more colorful than the male, unusual for birds. Though the male of this species has a bright yellow bump above his beak in great contrast to his all-black body, which I guess is to attract females and may be considered brighter to them. 🙂 See more of my photos of this Central-America-only species in my Great Curassow Gallery. I did not see as many of these on the trails but there were more of them at the fruit feeder by the restaurant deck, which is not my prefered place to photograph. These 3 photos were made on a trail.
