Retired American nature-lover, living in Costa Rica, photographing birds and other jewels of nature. This site simply reports on my joys of being RETIRED IN COSTA RICA!
Another competitor for my little Rufous-tailed Hummingbird who thinks he owns my garden is this Blue-vented Hummingbird, Saucerottia hoffmanni(my gallery link) and I haven’t seen him try to stop this larger deep-blue tailed hummingbird who has also been around my gardens since my first year here. You can read about him on eBird. A tropical bird found only in Costa Rica & Nicaragua with maybe a few strays into Honduras & El Salvador. 🙂 Or see more than 400 observations in Costa Rica on iNaturalist CR.
Here’s two shots recently on my Porterweed flowers. And yes, it is still windy, but these hummers have to eat every few minutes, regardless of the weather! And we all hope for the rains to start any day now and maybe then the winds will disappear! 🙂
Only my second time to see this species with the other documented with just a cell phone on 8th Avenue in Boquerón Barrio, not far from my house. Thankfully, these photos, made with my Canon camera in my garden, will improve the quality of the photos in my GALLERY:Banded Orange Heliconian, Dryadula phaetusa. 🙂 This is mostly a Central American Butterfly with rare strays in Mexico & SW U.S. as shown on the few Butterflies & Moths postings, but more than 200 observations on iNaturalist CR. 🙂
Or it seems that I will do anything for one! 🙂 That is why I like going to the nature lodges where you can get closer to such colorful birds. Well, here are my step by step procedures for one of those many that come near my house (plus waiting for a blue sky!) 🙂 . . .
He’s back! (And while the wind is still blowing!) As one of the most common tiny butterflies in my garden each year, maybe he is signaling the beginning of “butterfly season?” 🙂 The Rounded Metalmark, Calephelis perditalis (my gallery link) is only a little bigger than my thumbnail and yet is one of the most intricately-designed of all the butterflies. I even used a photo of one on my2023 Christmas Card! 🙂
This one is the first of that species in my garden this year, but I expect there to be many more! 🙂 And a funny thing to me is that all my many photos of this species have come from my garden, not even one from another location in Costa Rica! But iNaturalist CR shows them all over, on both slopes, but with more in the hills and on the Pacific Slope for whatever reason.
Rounded Metalmark, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa RicaRounded Metalmark, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
I never claim to be an authority on anything in nature, but my deductions of this photo on K’s fence the other day lead me to believe that it is a Juvenile Cinnamon-bellied Saltator. The three Saltators are the only birds this size with a “seedeater bill” (short/stubby fat) that also have the white eyebrow and little white line under the eye. Thus my deduction that it is a Saltator and because just 8 days ago I shared a photo of an adult Cinnamon-bellied Saltator (most common saltator here), I believe this one may be the offspring of that adult.
The Merlin AI identifier (eBird) is very good, but not on juveniles like this, and it just said it was “unable to identify” and the iNaturalist AI (also very good) said “not confident to identify” but then went on to give it’s first choice of “possible” species as a double-collared seedeater (Sporophila caerulescens) and that was also the first choice of Google Lens, but that species is South American and never sighted in Costa Rica, plus it does not have a white eyebrow and in my opinion not a good option! 🙂
I did find some juvenile Cinnamon-bellied Saltators online similar to this, and yes, many are darker or grayer than this one, but a few similar. Whew! Identification can be a lot of work! 🙂 So here it is, whatever it is . . .
I think it is a JUVENILE CINNAMON-BELLIED SALTATOR, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
See all of my photos of this species in Cinnamon-bellied Saltator Gallery which, by the way, was formerly called the “Grayish Saltator.”
A few people in Costa Rica went to church every day this past Week, Semana Santa (Holy Week), with a special resurrection day spiritual emphasis each day. But factory and office workers across the country had the week off from work and with school out all week also, even more people in Costa Rica headed for the beaches or mountains, with all hotels filled and many beaches lined with camping tents, the only place to camp in Costa Rica safe from poisonous snakes. Easter Week & Christmas Week are the two biggest vacation & travel weeks for Ticos! Retail businesses and restaurants will usually be open part of the week, but traditionally everything is closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, though they are getting more Americanized here and thus more and more things are open those days too. 🙂
The Split-banded Owl-Butterfly – Opsiphanes cassina fabricii is a first-time seen butterfly for me and I found him dead on the floor of my bedroom one evening recently. And like with many new ones, it took awhile to identify the species, but I’m going to give credit to iNaturalist Costa Rica for their AI providing the final clue to nail down this identification with a certain amount of confidence that it is correct and the other photos submitted on both iNaturalistCR and on Butterflies&Moths seem to further confirm it. Though even here there is still always a little doubt with some organizations using sub-species, etc. and as an example with this, Butterflies of America uses Opsiphanes cassina fabricii (fabricii as a sub-species), while Butterflies&Moths uses just Opsiphanes cassina (as the overall species) and iNaturalist has the two separated as 2 different species. So I may never be 100% certain! 🙂 But it is still fun and I feel like I am contributing a little toward saving what is left of this planet. And we need everybody’s help for that to happen!
Split-Banded Owl Butterfly, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
¡Pura Vida!
SHARE YOUR NATURE PHOTOS on iNaturalist.org!
If you don’t want to just go there and start using it, try their website HELP PAGE with 5 Getting Started basic questions answered, then go to iNaturalist.org and start both using their IDs & sharing your photos! 🙂 I have it on my phone just for help in identifications and on my laptop computer from where I download my observations. Some younger people use their phone for everything, but that screen is too small for this old man! 🙂 And yeah! I still use a computer mouse and mouse pad too! 🙂
Similarly you can also share your bird photos on eBird and your butterfly & moth photos on BAMONA, butterfliesandmoths.org.
All of these are enormous contributions to scientific research and the conservation of our planet’s animals & plants. Your few observations and contributions added to those of thousands of other people WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Plus you will discover the identification of many things you’ve always wanted to know the name of! 🙂
When K had his gardener plant a Zinnia bed on the hillside just above my roof, I got my gardener to add a bench for viewing the many butterflies there. Now with the high winds continuing and me seeing very view birds from house-level, I have been trying the hillside bench and that is where I got the Gray Hawk and all of the last few days’ birds. I even got a Red-lored Parrot one day! But because he was near the top of the far hill, not a very good photo. I may or may not share it later. 🙂
Here is a gallery with three views from the bench that you email receivers may need to go online to properly see the left-to-right sequence (click post title above to go online). The email version does funny things with the photos sometimes. 🙂
CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE and then click through a manual slideshow . . .
Front-Left to trees around my house.Straight ahead above George’s roof to one hill + his trees.Front-Right to far hill and my landlord’s close slope & fence.
More bird photos coming from this new birding spot! 🙂 So far I’ve shared these: a Gray Hawk, a Cinnamon-bellied Saltator, a Stripe-headed Sparrow, a Great Kiskadee and tomorrow a Streaked Flycatcher and maybe later the Red-lored Parrot (grainy photo). A lot more variety than what I was seeing from my terrace rocking chair! 🙂 And though a little earlier, this was the spot from where I got that cool photo of two Keel-billed Toucans perched with a Chachalaca on the hill behind George’s house! 🙂 Right now I’m not scheduled to travel until the first week of July, so this is my nature photography mirador! And who knows, before long, eBird just might list it as one of the “Birding Hot Spots” in Costa Rica! 🙂
Though it is still too windy for many birds, they have to eat and late afternoon is their last chance of the day. Two of these Stripe-headed Sparrows – Peucaea ruficauda (eBird link) were moving from a tree to the fence and to the ground, looking for possibly seeds or insects or worms. It is another purely Central American bird found from Costa Rica to Mexico. See more of my photos of this bird in my Stripe-headed Sparrow GALLERY. You will note there that I’ve seen this sparrow only one other time here in Atenas (2020) and once in Guanacaste at Rincon de la Vieja (2019). Thus not one of my regulars! 🙂 And for you birders here in Costa Rica, yes, he is very similar to the Black-striped Sparrow seen on both slopes of Costa Rica (while this one is only on the Pacific Slope), BUT with multiple obvious physical & color differences, making both easy to ID. 🙂
Stripe-headed Sparrow, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa RicaStripe-headed Sparrow, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
