Mystical Cloudless Sulphur

For some reason, most of the big Yellows have been flying around up in the trees here and not down on the ground like other butterflies! 🙂 And of course there’s a natural explanation for every such phenomenon! I just don’t know it! 🙂

But the other day this female Cloudless Sulphur spent some time on the flowers in my garden and here are three fave photos from that experience. This first one below is where she looks like a fairy to me! 🙂 The second shot of her open wings is also the feature photo at top of this post online and it is interesting to note that only the females sometimes have those two brown spots on top of the wings. And the last photo is the most typical photo of a Cloudless Sulphur, showing a folded-wings side-view with the two prominent, imperfect double-white-circles used to identify a Cloudless Sulphur. No other Yellow has that! 🙂

Cloudless Sulphur female, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Cloudless Sulphur

An old regular is back! And in the next two months there will begin to be an increase in the number of butterflies with May-October the peak months for me or at least in my Atenas garden, roughly the same time as the rainy season. This Cloudless Sulphur, Phoebis sennae, is fairly common throughout the southern half of the USA down throughout Central America and the Caribbean Islands. One photo from my garden the other day:

Cloudless Sulphur, Atenas, Costa Rica

See more in my Clouded Sulphur Gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

And be sure to tune in tomorrow! I plan to tell you about my 3-day, 2-night adventure planned for Monday less than an hour from Atenas. One can have adventures close to home! 🙂

10 Butterfly Species at Maquenque

Although birds are the biggest category of wildlife for me at Maquenque Ecolodge, there are a lot of other wildlife and on this April trip I photographed 10 species of butterflies with one being a Lifer or first time seen (the Glassy-winged Skipper). Below is 1 photo of each of the 10 species for those who don’t go to separate galleries. Or here’s links to the online gallery with all my butterfly photos from this trip.  https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2023-April-9-14-Maquenque-Ecolodge/OTHER-ANIMALS/BUTTERFLIES

CLICK above image to see all my butterfly photos GALLERY from Maquenque.

Or below see just one photo of each of the 10 species . . .

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Tortuguero Butterflies

The only place I saw and photographed butterflies this trip was in the lodge gardens, totally on their Porter Weed flowers. I managed to capture 9 different species I think, but have only identified the 6 that are included in this post. See them in their own gallery below this anchor shot . . .

Julia Heliconian, Tortuguero National Park, Limón, Costa Rica

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Last Butterfly – A Clouded Sulphur

This is a very common butterfly here and one of many in the family Pieridae – WHITES, YELLOWS & SULPHURS, though this was the only one from this visit to Xandari. In that linked gallery there are photos of 23 species and many came from Xandari on earlier visits.

Cloudless Sulphur – Phoebis sennae

Cloudless Sulphur – Phoebis sennae at Xandari Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

And the 2023 Xandari Trip Gallery is now ready for you to see all my photos from this colorful nature resort.

Yesterday’s Freshness . . .

. . . was felt when I went to and from Central Atenas on the first day of school. Everywhere were happy, smiling, chatting school kids of all ages, kindergarten to 12th grade wearing brand new uniforms and marking the real beginning of 2023 for them! School year here is February to December. It made me feel good about living en el pueblo de Atenas!

¡Pura Vida!

 

Cloudless Sulphur & Why Costa Rica?

Though this is a repeat butterfly for the blog, these are maybe better photos than I posted back in 2020 and again on June 15 this year with some doubt then of the ID, but I’m relatively certain now that these are Cloudless Sulphur Butterflies, Phoebis sennae, butterfliesandmoths.org link. They seem to be fairly common all over North America and that website will soon start showing them in Costa Rica! 🙂

Cloudless Sulphur, Atenas, Costa Rica
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Nature’s Angels – Butterflies!

Yawn! Not much going on yesterday! So I walked out into the garden and snapped some butterfly photos. None new, but I like this shot of the Brown Longtail and equally the Cloudless Sulphur shot, which is found from Canada to South America by the way! 🙂 No usable shots of the many Giant Whites I saw but I included a shot of an injured or damaged Polydamas Swallowtail, since broken wings seem common among most butterflies. Life can be harsh, even for a butterfly! 🙂

See my Costa Rica Butterflies Photo Gallery – 109+ species!

Butterflies are nature’s angels. They remind us what a gift it is to be alive.

-Robyn Nola

¡Pura Vida!