charliedoggett.net
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
This trailer in front of the public primary school sells snacks to young children and it appears here to mothers too! 🙂
And I remember having sweets available for sale near my elementary school way back in the dark ages. A world-wide tradition?
All I really need is love, but a little candy now and then doesn’t hurt!
~Charles Schulz
My morning walk today surprised me with this simple little flower – What a joy flowers can be!
Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
~Hans Christian Andersen
Its Terciopelo in Costa Rica or Fer-de-lance in the states, but with either name one of the most poisonous snakes in the world and we have them in my Roca Verde neighborhood unfortunately. The above photo is a dead one I just photographed while walking to town, on the sidewalk just outside our Roca Verde main gate. Since two people I know in Roca Verde have been bitten and I have found two dead ones myself, this one and another one earlier in the street in front of my house, I am more conscious of them being here and no longer leave my back door (garden door) open since there is no screen door on it.
All the clinics and hospitals have the anti-venom and if you get there quick enough, you live – but it is still scary and very painful I’ve been told.
For most this video will probably not appeal to you. It is a Terciopelo eating a frog. Snake lovers seem to love this kind of video! 🙂 At least it shows what they eat which is not people! Biting people is for their self-defense. Both persons biten here actually stepped on the snake while barefooted! And I never go out barefoot! Common sense caution is my defense.
Learn more about Terciopelo in the Wikipedia article in English.
This snake lives only in Central America, Mexico and northern South America.
As I type it is pouring down rain with the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard! Kind of like parts of the states, we are having above average rain this year and starting earlier in the day. So far the flowers seem to like it! And it is rainy season! 🙂
Around noon every day you see some of the elementary school children eating their lunch with their mothers in the park across the street from the school. Some grade levels only go a half day, morning or afternoon, meaning they eat lunch before or after school. But all ages of children are very close to their mothers making lunch with Mom very natural. Almuerzo con la madre.
All round my cottage it’s still,
Rain clouds gather over the hill.
Evening brings another eureka,
As I thank God for Costa Rica!
~Charlie
See my gallery of HAIKU Nature Poems
(though the above is not a haiku!)
And for evening sunsets, see my Vistas gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
Just one bloom on a potted desert rose plant is a joy and mine has been loaded with blooms this year during rainy season and maybe because I moved it to the side of house for morning sun – my gardener’s suggestion! Later I will show a photo of the whole plant with multiple blooms, but somehow the only photo of the total plant is in my January 12, 2018 Post about this particular flower, though it was not as loaded in flowers as it has been recently.
“A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”
― Walt Whitman
For my gallery of Costa Rica Flowers+ see: FLORA & FOREST
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.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39214757-the-power-and-the-glory
I read about a third of the book and quit because I found it rather depressing. It is very good writing and descriptions of rural Mexico in the 1940’s, but at my stage of life I do not care to read hopeless, depressing stories of misspent lives and that is how I see the story or life of this outlawed priest. Others will see it as an adventure!
The National Bird of Costa Rica is known for singing in the rainy season in April and May, thus his honored position in Costa Rica, yet a simple bird. Seen here in my back garden, hiding behind a limb he thinks.
Change the world by being yourself. – Amy Poehler