Category: Atenas

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Small Endemic Bird – Spot-crowned Euphonia

This small bright blue & yellow bird landed for 30 seconds or so in my Yellow Bell Tree Wednesday and I managed to get a few shots before he left. He is the male Spot-crowned Euphonia  (eBird link), endemic to Costa Rica and the northern fringes of Panama, only on the Pacific Slopes, and just my third time to photograph one! First time in my garden!  🙂  My other places were at Esquinas Rainforest lodge at Piedras Blancas NP north of Golfito and at Hacienda Guachipelin, Rincón de la Vieja NP in Guanacaste near Liberia. I go back to Esquinas in July for my 83rd birthday and expect to see them again! 🙂

One of my all-time favorite bird photos was of a female Spot-crowned Euphonia eating a berry at Esquinas Lodge! See that and the other shots in my Spot-Crowned Euphonia Gallery! Now here’s 3 shots from my garden Wednesday . . .

Spot-crowned Euphonia, male, Atenas, Costa Rica

Above he’s looking down, next looking up and the third looking right into the camera before flying off!  🙂

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Great Crested Flycatcher

He landed in one of my Nance trees for only a few seconds and then flew away, never showing his face, which can help with ID! 🙂 But after a lot of research online and in my books I am pretty certain that this fellow is a Great Crested Flycatcher which we can have here as both immigrants from the north this time of year or non-breeding residents year-a-round. But this is my first time to see one here, though I saw one in the states in the past.

Great Crested Flycatcher, Atenas, Costa Rica

For the birders reading, notice the distinctive white wing-bars and the slight reddish-orange tinting on the lower edge of his wing. Only Great Crested, Brown and Ash-throated Flycatchers have both of those, eliminating the similar Yellow-bellied Elaenia, Dusky-capped Flycatcher and Northern Beardless Tyrannulet. Plus none of those have this bright a yellow belly or this dark of a brown crest which is also the two reasons I eliminate the  Brown and Ash-throated Flycatchers!

Sometimes bird ID becomes like scientific detective work!  🙂  But I’m pretty confident of this ID, even without a face shot which would have shown no eye ring and a slight bit of pink at the base of his bill.  Read about him on eBird. And you who live in the Eastern U.S. are possibly familiar with him as a common bird there, as shown on eBird’s map, and where I’ve seen him before.

¡Pura Vida!

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The “Brown is Cool” Butterflies

Three butterflies I got the other morning at the same time that are not new to me but I think handsome butterflies, The Tanna Longtail (normal sized) and the Rawson’s Metalmark (tiny fingernail sized), the same species I featured 6 days ago on March 22, and a Plain Longtail not much different from the first one above.

Tanna Longtail, Atenas, Costa Rica

Note that this Tanna Longtail is very similar to the Teleus Longtail (darker side spots, thinner median band) and the Brown Longtail (also with darker side spots) and thus my ID is not guaranteed but I’m pretty sure!  🙂

Rawson’s Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica
Plain Longtail Skipper, Atenas, Costa Rica

 

See my galleries of other shots of these two at:

¡Pura Vida!

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Gutter Iguana?

Well — he’s an immature Green Iguana “I think,” but the immature Black Iguana is also greenish, so he could technically be either one (though I think the face looks more like the green). But the last adult iguana I had here was the Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, so maybe that’s more likely.  🙂  Juveniles are difficult to ID for certain!

This one just happened to be in my casita’s gutter when I was on my morning garden walk the other day. I don’t see iguanas around my house very often, but when I do they often climb the trees to get away from me which makes it easy for a young one like this to jump over on the house roof. I doubt they find much to eat around my house which is why I seldom see one. A full-grown Iguana is more than twice the size of this one! (Green or Black)  🙂

Immature Iguana, Atenas, Costa Rica

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The Layered Mexican Yellow

It’s the layers of yellow, white and brown that identify this butterfly more than the spots and their locations which I tend to focus on first. 🙂  This butterfly photographed in my garden is the Mexican Yellow, Eurema mexicana. I’ve seen him before at Arenal Butterfly Conservatory and at Xandari Resort. See all those shots in my Mexican Yellow Gallery.

Mexican Yellow, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

And it looks different from other angles or light . . .

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Nature as Contemporary Art

Delicate flower buds, a dead leaf and a huge tree on the hill above my house – just using my imagination and playing with nature in the camera . . .

Nature as Art, Atenas, Costa Rica
Nature as Art, Atenas, Costa Rica
Nature as Art, Atenas, Costa Rica
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Fingernail-sized Butterfly

This tiny butterfly in my garden the other day that I am identifying as a Rawson’s Metalmark. These very tiny little brown butterflies are difficult to identify!  🙂   Here’s 4 shots of this one from different angles . . .

A tiny Metalmark Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica

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AM Garden Bird Sightings

These are just the ones I recently photographed with the Saltator and Yellow Warbler seen less often but not really rare and the other 4 regulars seen almost daily now with the White-winged Dove and Chachalaca also fairly regular but no pix this time. Now that the wind is starting to lessen, I expect to see a lot more birds! There are few butterflies now, but their “big season” here seems to be June to October, so I look forward to that also! Here’s one bird for the email notice and 5 more below that online . . .

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Atenas, Costa Rica. Note the long white tongue sticking out of the red and black bill!  🙂

 

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Garden Pix

Walking through the garden on two mornings (March 11 & 12) and I chose these shots to share in a little slide show. Rainy Season usually sorta starts the middle of April and really starts in May, but by March 12 we have already had 3 little but nice rains! So I’m glad as is my garden!  🙂

Each and every bloom is unique and beautiful to me. Enjoy walking through my garden with the slide show below and here is the only one I can’t identify, from across the driveway in neighbor’s yard . . .

Unidentified in Neighbor’s Yard

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