It is finished and is the best summary of my most recent trip which you can thumb through electronically for free in my bookstore or click the cover image below:
Manuel Antonio-Quepos, THE BOOK
Butterflies
On the hotel property’s “Wildlife Refuge” or nature trail is a “Butterfly Garden” like you find all over Costa Rica, a big, high ceiling cage with lots of flowering plants and continuously hatching butterflies. Here’s some of the ones I saw there today in a simple little slideshow. I do not have my butterfly book with me, meaning I could have mis-labeled one or two and there is one I have no idea of the name and there was no attendant to help me label them. Most I already knew from all I have photographed all over Costa Rica. Enjoy what Robert Frost calls “Flying Flowers!”
Today’s Butterflies
“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
See all my butterflies in my Costa Rica Butterfly Gallery
See this TRIP GALLERY 2018 December Si Como No.
Sun Setting on 2018 & My Celebration Begins!
The above photo is one of my sunsets at Manuel Antonio National Park in 2015, my first year here! I go back to celebrate 4 years living here! Photographing new birds and other animals, walking forest trails and one of the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica, getting one or more relaxation massages, and eating gourmet food every day for a week as I create more Costa Rica Nature Photos! That is my kind of Christmas Celebration and I anticipate a fabulous week! Here’s one of the resort’s several videos:
Or browse the Si Como No Website — This is living! 🙂
Retired in Costa Rica 4 Years Christmas Celebration
Starts Tomorrow, 21 December 2018
¡Pura Vida!
Palo Verde National Park Visit
There is plenty to see and photograph on the 5,000+ acres of Rancho Humo, birds, other wildlife, and scenery! But across the river from the ranch is another wonderful and large Costa Rica park: Palo Verde National Park.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) I float down the river for a different experience in the park. But here are 3 slideshows for what was seen on Tuesday on a 6 km hike and posting here on Wednesday. Will post boat trip later today or tomorrow.
Birds in Palo Verde National Park
Other Wildlife in Palo Verde National Park
Views Surrounding Us in Palo Verde National Park
Today at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge
No rain today – so far at 3pm! I had a wonderful 6am birding hike with birding guide Kevin and returned for breakfast and the morning photographing wildlife from my cabin terrace – amazing!
Below is a slideshow of a few of today’s photos – mostly birds but some other animals. Tomorrow Kevin and I go on a boat trip through the mangroves which always yields a lot of birds rain or shine. Then over the weekend I plan to just enjoy walking the forests that surround me here and the really good food someone else is preparing! 🙂 And oh yeah, a night hike one of those nights which is always interesting!
And I’m hearing thunder now, so rain tonight which is always the best time and well, it just started at 3:42! 🙂
Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval [tropical] forests, … temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature. No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.
— Charles Darwin
¡Pura Vida!
In a Rainy Rainforest
I left early this morning, like at 4am from my house for a 5:30 flight arriving in Golfito at 6:35 after a brief stop in Puerto Jimenez – I just love flying in these small planes even when it is cloudy like this morning.
Here the bird photographed today in the rain:
And here are some shots of the grounds of my lodge for the week:
And other animals seen today:
Banded Peacock Butterfly
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.
Giant Swallowtail
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
A New Blog Feature in this New Website
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!
Ruby-spotted Swallowtail
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
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.