Category: Costa Rica

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Renewed Residency Today

I went to San Jose this morning to renew my residency with an attorney and 3 other American expats in Atenas. Since we were all three “Adultos mayores” or senior adults, we did not have to stand in that long line in my photo, but instead were escorted to the front of the line where we got the next available window to finish processing our paperwork (having paid in advance the fee amounting to a little over $100 USD, 66,000 colones). Then they photograph you and your new plastic card is ready in 30 to 40 minutes while you wait in an outside patio with coffee available.  🙂  Plus at the same time they email you the new (since my last renewal) electronic card that you keep on your phone and can use just like the plastic card. Getting too modern for me! 🙂 It is pictured below this Immigration Office line photo with my numbers scratched out. The actual blue plastic card is pictured in the center of the electronic one. Plus the plastic card is also electronic for card readers like on the public bus and government offices.

Waiting in line for residency cards at the Uruca Office of CR Immigration.

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Playground Equipment Arrives!

And as I expected, it is very modern or contemporary and seems to be geared to preschool and younger primary school kids. My feature shot at top shows a young couple holding up their child to see the installation. Below is a shot of the workers  installing the new play things and artificial turf which I guess is better than the gravel base installed earlier.  🙂  I made these shots yesterday and expect it to be several days before it is open for the kids to play on when I will make another cell phone shot of an active playground.  🙂  For new followers of this blog, this one area of the Atenas Central Park is just one of many very slow steps in this small town’s renovating the Central Park here for 3 or 4 years now. You can see all of my Park Renovation photos in the photo gallery:  Remodeling Central Park Atenas.

Workers installing playground equipment and artificial turf in the new playground for the Central Park Atenas.

THREE MORE PHOTOS BELOW . . .

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Blue-lipped Iguana?

Not really a new species, but this is first time I’ve noticed any iguana with blue lips! (Okay, I just looked in my gallery and one at Punta Leona had his whole head blue! 🙂 ) It is an immature Spiny-tailed Iguana and I have no explanation for the blue lips or earlier blue head!   🙂   Here’s 3 shots of him the other day in my Guarumo/Cecropia Tree . . .

Immature Spiny-tailed Iguana, Atenas, Costa Rica

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Plain Longtail Skipper

Not as colorful as other butterflies but still an important part of the ecology of our planet where there are more insects than all other animals and people combined and the rest of the earth depends on them!  🙂   Plain Longtail Skipper, Urbanus simplicius. And for you who are identifiers, let me add that I had some trouble identifying this one, with the side view, to me, being more like the Teleus Longtail but I think the fainter white lines on the tops of the wings is what makes this one a “Plain Longtail,” along with the location of the white on his antennae. Here’s 4 shots from different views . . .

Plain Longtail, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

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A “Bright Scintillant” or Subspecies of “Rounded Metalmark”?

My best printed source of butterfly identification is the book A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffrey Glassberg. In that book this butterfly is labeled as a “Bright Scintillant,” but rather than giving a scientific name, it just says it is one of the “Calephelis species.” The butterfly website I volunteer for (butterfliesandmoths.org) does not have Bright Scintillant nor does its backup website, butterfliesofamerica.com, therefore I and others have put this one in “Rounded Metalmark, Calephelis peritalis,“ a part of the “Calephelis species” as the book says. But according to the Glasberg book, the white dots on the upper edges of the the forward wing make this one different from the Rounded Metalmark in the book. I do not know who is the final authority on butterfly names, but hope this one is at least made a subspecies of the Rounded Metalmark! And identification of the myriad of butterflies in Costa Rica will always have its challenges like this!  🙂   Here’s two shots of the latest I have seen of the above butterfly in my garden . . .

Bright Scintillant or Rounded Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica

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One Street’s “Tree Tunnel”

I love these! And there’s actually more than one place in Atenas where a tree spreads over the street like this, forming a “tree tunnel” that cars drive through and I walk through. There would probably be more if the power company wasn’t tree-trimming along most streets in town regularly. Here the tree is actually growing in the street and power lines are over the sidewalk and you can see that the sidewalk side of the tree has been trimmed and it looks like it is about time again!  🙂

“Tree Tunnel” on Calle Central, alongside the Sports Park, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.

Though not all of my photos, I do have an Atenas Gallery, a collection of things & places here, or for pix of people and activities here see my PEOPLE, FIESTAS & ARTS Costa Rica collection of galleries which is mostly from Atenas.

And in case you are wondering, “Pueblo Atenas” and its county called “Canton Atenas” is in the Central Valley of Costa Rica about an hour and a half from the Capital, San Jose. It is a coffee and sugar cane farming town of about 8,000 people while the canton has 25,000, thus many more live away from the main town. A lot of expats from the United States, Canada and Europe live here, more in the canton than the town. Rich Americans have built big luxurious homes out in the country nearby and do grocery shopping in town or other nearby supermarkets and big box stores around Alajuela and in other suburbs this side of San Jose. Because I have no car and walk most places, I prefer to live in town.    🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Unidentified Tiny Tan

And maybe that would be a good name for this one, “Tiny Tan.”  🙂  And for you butterfly specialists, it almost has the tail of a hairstreak but not the lines or colors and thus is probably one of the enumerable Skippers! But I could not find this one in my book! Here’s 3 photos of one in my garden the other day . . .

Unidentified “Tiny Tan,” Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

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Tropical Buckeye

This has always been one of my favorite butterflies, even in the states with a slightly different version, seen a lot when in Florida. Here’s two shots of one in my garden the other day . . .

Tropical Buckeye, Atenas, Costa Rica
Tropical Buckeye, Atenas, Costa Rica

See my Tropical Buckeye Gallery for more photos of this colorful guy! And note that in earlier years here I called it the “West Indian Buckeye” and I was wrong then. All I have seen here are the “Tropical” and theoretically we may have some “Mangrove Buckeye” here, though I’ve not seen one yet. Probably down along the coasts in the mangroves!  🙂

¡Pura Vida!