Category: Costa Rica

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Giant Swallowtail

Giant Swallowtail, Atenas, Costa Rica

This was one of the butterflies in my garden this morning that I haven’t seen here for awhile. He is similar to te Broad-banded Swallowtail and a little bit like the Thoas & the Ornythion Swallowtails, so you have to examine the details in the photos for a good ID. 🙂

You can read about the Giant Swallowtail, Papilio cresphontes on either of these websites: butterfliesandmoths.org or the butterfliesofamerica.com, the first of which is where I will eventually post one or more of these photos, when I get caught up, and the second sight is another one I use for identification along with my favorite butterfly book, A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America. The gallery below includes 2 top views, 2 bottom wing views and 2 side views or folded wings views of this beautiful big butterfly.

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Yesterday’s Parade

Yesterday, 15 September, was Costa Rica’s Independence Day Celebration nation-wide including here in Atenas. I worked into the night processing my many photos and selecting choice ones for my photo gallery titled in Spanish this time :

2022 Desfile del Día de la Independencia, Atenas

Here’s my favorite portrait of one of the two UTN Cowboys on horses followed by just 2 photos from each of the 8 sub-galleries in the above gallery (including one with the above guy’s horse) . . .

See his horse in one of the following photos!
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Xandari Trip Gallery

I do an online photo gallery (or galleries with the sub-galleries) and the gallery for my recent little two-night stay at a favorite place is now up at https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2022-Aug-31-Sept-2-Xandari-Resort-Alajuela

Or you can just click this first page image and get there!

The highlight of this little trip was the large number of butterflies seen and photographed with 29 species having useable photos for the gallery. And I am still trying to catch up with posting all my butterfly species on butterfliesandmoths.org! 🙂 Butterflies rule! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Xandari Flowers – Works of Art

Over the years here my favorite flower gardens have been the ones at Xandari because of (1) the large variety of species, (2) their placement in forest settings with architecture that is colorful and complimentary to flowers and (3) the additional wild flowers you can find on the forest trails. Earlier this year I found their match on variety of flowers at Guayabo Lodge near Turrialba, Cartago, though not arranged or laid out in as beautiful a surroundings as Xandari. And for some reason, this year Xandari seemed to have fewer flowers, especially in that front garden trail along the entry road, but certainly enough for me to make a lot of “flower art!” 🙂

One photo for the email announcement and then a gallery of some of my favorites from this short two-night stay at Xandari Costa Rica. Enjoy . . .

Flowers are works of ART at Xandari Costa Rica!
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Irritating Noise = Back to Normal!

With the fading of Covid and mask-wearing in Atenas comes the welcome sounds of the old “life as normal” with concerts and fiestas in the park and our first parade in more than 2 years scheduled for next week, 14 & 15 September, to celebrate Independence Day which is 15 September. Usually there is the parade of lanterns made by elementary school children on the night of 14th and then the big parade with all the bands + mid-day on the 15th. We will see, but you know something will happen because from the side of my hill I can hear three different schools practicing their drumming daily, which they always do a couple of weeks before a parade! 🙂 I’m still searching for a schedule of events and may have to go by the city hall for that. 🙂 Here’s some photos of previous years bands drumming before Covid . . . a single shot, then a gallery . . .

Youth Drumming in Atenas, Costa Rica
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A Busy Yigüirro

Yigüirro is the Costa Rican Spanish name for the English-named Clay-colored Thrush, like “the Robin of Costa Rica” (and Americans used to call it “Clay-colored Robin”). It is also the national bird of costa Rica because the early indigenous people said it was this bird that called in the rain at the beginning of rainy season, April-May, with its beautiful, melodious songs. Nice!

I’m not seeing as many birds anywhere this year which one naturalist said was because of the change in weather (El Niña) and a much wetter rainy season this year – I don’t know. But I thought the photo below of a wasp pestering the bird and another photo of the bird eating a berry were interesting enough to share, even if not high quality photos (bad light). But first a traditional portrait . . .

Yigüirro or Clay-colored Thrush, Xandari Resort, Alajuela.
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Last of Xandari Butterflies . . .

. . . and I think one of these 9 is actually a moth, but I can’t find an ID. The immense variety of butterflies and moths here in Costa Rica can be overwhelming at times but is also one of the joys of being here! 🙂 It depends on which website or book you read, but with more species still being discovered here, some say there are now 1,500+ known species of butterflies and over 12,000 species of moths (not all identified), so it is not surprising that I can’t find an ID for everyone I photograph. 🙂

And as is my practice, one photo here for the emailed announcement of this post, followed by a gallery of all 9 final butterflies (maybe 2 are moths) from my visit to Xandari Costa Rica last week. I may still share some other photos from that very unique hotel in Alajuela and then back to nature shots around where I live for the next two weeks before my Caribbean trip the 19th of September. Pura vida!

Blue-vented Mimic-White
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Second Group of Butterflies . . .

. . . from my brief two-night trip to Xandari Resort in Alajuela continues to show the amazing number of butterflies at this forest hotel less than an hour away from my house! I’m still not sure of the total and have four I can’t identify, but I will share 9 or 10 more tomorrow as the final batch of butterflies from Xandari before focusing on those around my house again.

As usual, one photo here for the email announcement of the blog post, then followed online with a gallery of all 10 butterflies. And again 11 photos because I want to show the big difference in the top and bottom side of the wings of one, the Starred Oxeo, even though almost all butterflies have different patterns on top and bottom, with this one just being a more drastic difference. Enjoy!

Ochre-patched Gemmed-Satyr
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