Category: Flowers

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Colorful Peacock Butterfly!

The Banded Peacock is one of those steady friends you can always expect to be here every year and in this strange weather year, he was again always here, even if in fewer numbers, continuing to add color to my gardens and other places I visited. These two photos were made just before I left for Macaw Lodge and I like how he contrasts with both the green and the yellow leaves as another butterfly with a rich brown color. There will be fewer butterflies now until next May, but fortunately a tropical country has some butterflies year around! And soon my copies of the Second Edition of Pura Vida Butterflies book will be here with 240+ species of butterflies, the most of any book available right now! Click that link to order your copy!

Banded Peacock Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica
Banded Peacock Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica

For more photos, see my Banded Peacock GALLERY.

¡Pura Vida!

And don’t miss this weekend’s BIG ART FAIR at Plaza Calle 2! JIT! Just in time for the Holidays with gift possibilities for everyone!

CLICK image for the JIT Facebook Page!
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Art Fair One Week from Today!

The annual weekend art fair that I have been participating in for 3 years now is next weekend, December 8-10 at a new location, Calle 2 Plaza, in the same plaza as the new Galería Artenas which is now the sponsor of the art fair. That means you can find Charlie Doggett “Nature as Art Photography” next weekend in both places! Side by side! 🙂

I will continue to have 6 wall art photos, all of my greeting cards and floral accent pillows plus 5 photo books in the Galería Artenas through 13 January, my last day as a member of that cooperative, which I will explain later. But I WILL HAVE 7 DIFFERENT ITEMS IN THE ART FAIR! (1) A new CR Butterflies 2024 Calendar, (2) Atenas Tote Bags, (3) T-shirts, (4) Coffee Mugs, (5) Mouse Pads, (6)several different Wall Art Photos, and (7) a few different Photo Books including my brand new Pura Vida Butterflies, Second Edition with more than 240 species! (Linked to a free preview of it!)

Don’t Miss the “Just in Time for the Holidays” Art Fair next weekend, December 8-10 at Calle 2 Plaza next door to Linea Vital Medical Plaza! 3-7 Friday, 10-7 Saturday and 10-2 Sunday.

¡Pura Vida!

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A New Tiny Butterfly

As I said in yesterday’s post, on the morning I published the second edition of my big butterfly book, I captured a photo of another new species that just barely made it into the book! 🙂 It is the Clench’s Greenstreak – Cyanophrys miserabilis and I adjusted the size of another Gossamer Wings butterfly in the book to make this last minute addition fit. Fun! And that is in addition to the other last minute addition of just 4 days before that when I got the Red-headed Firetip – Pyrrhopyge phidias at Macaw Lodge which I featured in an earlier blog post and also adjusted the size of another photo to make that Skipper butterfly fit in the book. 🙂 Here’s one shot of the Greenstreak for the email followed by a little gallery of 4 shots.

Clench’s Greenstreak, Atenas, Costa Rica
Continue reading “A New Tiny Butterfly”
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Red-headed Firetip

Out of about a dozen species of butterflies photographed here at Macaw Lodge, it looks like the only new one for me will be this Red-headed Firetip, Pyrrhopyge phidias. I have photos of the Royal Firetip, but neither seem to be seen often. And this one looks a little like the Guava Skipper, though in a different sub-family. They are all in the big Skipper family. See all my Skippers in that family gallery.  😊

I have enjoyed my little 3-night getaway at Macaw Lodge and I return home tomorrow. Even with a lot of rain, I managed to photograph much in this truly “off the beaten tracks” lodge in a partially old growth forest adjacent a national park. I got about 17 species of birds and a dozen species of butterflies along with landscapes and other nature things!  😊 The food is good and the people super-nice, both the rural locals and the guests that included a group from Europe this week. For anyone considering wilderness places in Costa Rica, I do recommend this lodge! It is my second visit with the other time in 2019.

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Persistent Flower!

Anthuriums have almost always done well in my garden and even better in a big pot on my terrace where they get sun about 80% of the day. They grow in one shady part of my garden with almost no sun, but not as well and with smaller & fewer flowers. But this week I observed this “stray” among my taller plants that get 60+% sunshine, mostly midday. I did not plant the anthurium there where the taller plants get all of the sun, but look what this flower did that somehow got planted among the tall ones! It sent the flower stem up through the tall plants to a height of 5 ft 3 inches, that’s 63 inches or 160 centimeters! It’s the first time I’ve seen an anthurium shoot up that high! It is obviously one strong and persistent flower! 🙂

Anthurium reaching over 5 feet up for sunshine.

See the ones in a pot with about 80% sun and another in almost total shade. They all seem to do well, but the above one shows that sunshine is important to any flower, even one that grows in the shade. 🙂

Continue reading “Persistent Flower!”
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Today’s Lone Butterfly

This morning’s walk through the garden revealed only one butterfly, but a favorite! 🙂 The Rounded Metalmark, Caliphelis perditalis, (linked to my other gallery shots), a tiny butterfly in the Riodinidae or Metalmark family of butterflies about the size of two of my thumbnails. I love the rich blend of blue, orange and brown colors and in my gallery you can see some shots of his “cute” bug-eyed face! 🙂 Surprisingly, the only place I’ve seen this species so far is in my garden here in Atenas. 🙂

And yes, butterflies seem to be fading (moving or dying off) a little earlier this year than usual. I will be interested to see if there are more in the “wilder” forest preserve I will visit next week at Macaw Lodge adjacent to Carara National Park. And hopefully more birds there too! 🙂

Rounded Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

And an interesting announcement in our online English-language newspaper, Tico Times, this week: Travel & Leisure Magazine Named Costa Rica the 2024 Destination of the Year!

Or better yet, go directly to the Travel+Leisure articles on Costa Rica!

¡Pura Vida!

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Air Plant just appeared . . .

. . . in one of my Nance trees and of all things, on a dead limb! The wind probably blew the baby plant there when it broke off its mother plant in maybe another tree or higher up in this same tree. And the dead limb is no problem because it does not get its nourishment from the tree but from the air! Here’s a good short definition from the Family Handyman site with more info at that link . . .

“Air plants, or Tillandsia, grow floating in the air, where they live and thrive without soil.
Part of the Bromeliad family, air plants are epiphytes — plants that attach themselves to other plants for support, without relying on the host to thrive.”

familyhandyman.com
Air Plant in a Nance Tree in my garden.

It feeds from the air with its arms while the roots are only used to hold on to it base, a tree limb in this case. This one is a recent or young plant only the size of a human hand, but will likely grow larger.

There are more wild air plant photos scattered throughout my Flora & Forest GALLERY. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Walk to Clinic Flowers

The other day I needed to walk to our Atenas public Clinic to pick up a “cita” or appointment to see an audiometrics doctor in the Alajuela Hospital for what will probably end up being a government-provided hearing aid for my left ear that I can hardly hear with since the big cancer surgery. They require that piece of paper for the visit but send it to our local clinic to pick up so I can avoid another trip to Alajuela. 🙂

I make that 12 block walk frequently for multiple reasons (my GP doctor, pharmacy, lab, etc.), but on this particular trip I decided to see if I could photograph some contrasting or different flowers with my cellphone and that was after I had already passed the Zinnas. 🙂 Here’s four totally different flowers in various yards over that 12 block walk:

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Bringing Nature Inside

It is not often, but occasionally I like to bring a touch of my garden inside and this time added to it some budding lilies from the supermarket. A fun and cheerful spot of color inside my little casita! 🙂

Continue reading “Bringing Nature Inside”
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Tanna Longtail

The five spots in that upper short white line on the wing is what makes this a Tanna instead of a Teleus, Brown or Plain Longtail. Otherwise, those four are very similar and often confused. These two were in my garden and are fairly common Skippers here.

Tanna Longtail, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Tanna Longtail, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

See my Tanna Longtail Skipper GALLERY.

And for comparisons with Teleus, Plain & Brown Longtails, browse through all my SKIPPER GALLERIES to see those and many others! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!