charliedoggett.net
Yesterday morning I stopped by Steve & Lucy’s for coffee and snapped a few photos of birds in their garden. Click this image of the gallery or go to this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-08-16-Steve-Lucys-Garden-Birds
¡Pura Vida!
I took my camera out for a later breakfast today and though earlier is better, I did get shots of these three familiar friends. I include two of the dove because front view and back view is always different! Click image to see larger.
‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
~Emily Dickinson
¡Pura Vida!
At first I thought this was something else, a Red-spotted Patch (found only in Mexico) and also of one I photographed in July at Xandari, called the Crimson or Bordered Patch. There are several kinds of Patches, all colorful and interesting, but the more I looked I decided this is the common Banded Peacock. Here he is with wings folded, same butterfly!
Article about this particular Banded Peacock Butterflies on Wikipedia and another article on Butterflies & Moths of North America.. Note that there is another variety in India with the same English name but looks different.
My Photo Gallery of Butterflies & Moths has over 80 species I have photographed here in Costa Rica. I love living in a colorful place! 🙂
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Panama vs Costa Rica for Retirees – Another article by Christopher Howard on his blog Living in Costa Rica, and of course slanted toward Costa Rica – but still an interesting comparison of the two countries for American retirees and interesting to me because he briefly compared Atenas, Costa Rica (where I live) with Santa Fe, Panama, both popular for retirees and about the same size. He does say that cost of living is higher in Costa Rica but does not say that I have observed Panama as “more Americanized,” if that is a correct term, with more communities full of almost all Americans, speaking only English and store stocking more American products. Retirees are more spread out across Costa Rica with Spanish the needed language everywhere and the few American products here are very expensive! If you want to retire in an English-speaking community of mostly Americans with American products and luxuries, Panama might be better for you.
The Giant Swallowtail is a fairly common butterfly here and even in the states, but I haven’t shown one in a good while, especially the under-side like the photo above. The topside of this fellow (below) is the more familiar black and yellow shown here on the same butterfly photographed above! Yeah, I know, they look different as do the top & bottom of many butterflies. Read about Giant Swallowtails on Butterflies and Moths of North America.
A butterfly lights beside us like a sunbeam, and for a brief moment, its glory and beauty belong to our world… but then it flies again, and though we wish it could have stayed… we feel lucky to have seen it. ~Unknown Author
You can hover over the top Menu Item “Blog” above for Category Sub-menus that will drop down. Go down to “Nature” and its submenu “Butterflies” to see all the blog posts I have made about butterflies since 2014. In this case, 6 pages of butterfly posts! Some old posts are mixed subjects with too many photos. Now I am trying to stay focused on one “category” (WordPress term) at a time with no more than 2 photos per post and a short, easy-to-read post like above. And you will see that there are many other “Categories” to follow if interested, with “Birds” being the largest and more are being added. And of course you can click on “Blog” Menu item and see all the posts in reverse chronological order or most recent on top.
All of the posts are also searchable in the right hand column or right sidebar by tags, categories, or by date. This makes my blog posts the main focus and main information found on my website now with multiple ways to find old posts. This is the strength of WordPress hosted websites, being blog-focused with many ways to utilize collections of posts.
You will also find a lot of “static” (WordPress term) or non-blog pages which I will tell about in another blog post.
Feel free to explore your interests now within the blogs through the pull-down menus or search boxes. I am having fun creating little articles about my interests, especially when I can share nature photography from my new home country of Costa Rica!
I know that this Ruby-spotted Swallowtail looks a lot like the Pink-spotted Cattleheart I posted a few days ago. But if you look close the spots are a little different in size, shape and colors and even the shape of the butterfly. Subtle differences is just one thing that makes labeling butterflies difficult! I did not get shots of both sides of this guy, partly because it started to rain.
Butterflies . . . Flowers that fly and all but sing.
~Robert Frost
Pink-spotted Cattleheart Butterfly
This is a rarer find today! This butterfly only exists from Mexico south as far as Costa Rica and is more common in Mexico and Guatemala. Read about the pink-spotted cattleheart, Parides photinus on Wikipedia or Google for other sites and articles.
“Quiet the mind and the soul will speak.” – Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati
Another Giant White Butterfly – the only species slowing down enough to photograph in my garden right now and I’m not going beyond my garden these days with a sore shoulder. This is a repeat butterfly within a week, but a different view. 🙂 The chachalacas and rufous-naped wrens are active but I’m tired of photographing them. So a repeat butterfly today!
My shoulder is doing fine, the incision healing well and I start with a physical therapist Saturday. Pain only bothers me at night and the pills help with that.