Category: Flowers

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Flying to the Caribe Today!

Today begins what has become almost an annual tradition of spending a week in the Southern Caribbean of Costa Rica, during September when this rainy rainforest has the least amount of rain. After trying a few other hotels, I’ve settled on Banana Azul as my favorite and it is right on the beach (one of the few!) in a favorite room with balcony overlooking the beach and hotel gardens. It is one of my most relaxing weeks of the year! This Puerto Viejo area is south, near the Panama Border and quite different from my other Caribe fave which is north of the port of Limón and in a great wetlands wildlife national park called Tortuguero.

I have just two morning bird hikes scheduled, one in the Cahuita National Park and the other in Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge. Otherwise I just “hangout” at the hotel and beach, walking both the beach and a forested beach road where last year I found a bonanza of butterflies! 🙂

Sunrise at Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón.

Read on for some of my past creative endeavors from the South Caribbean of Costa Rica . . .

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Zilpa Longtail

Another new species for me! Zilpa Longtail, Chioides zilpa, found from the Southwestern U.S. throughout Central America and in Ecuador. It is kind of amazing that in this hotter and drier year of fewer birds and butterflies for me, I am still getting about as many new species of butterflies as in a more “normal” year! Of course they are mostly new species of Skippers with definitely not as many of the more colorful butterflies, but hey! A butterfly is a butterfly! 🙂 And I am happy to be finding these new brown ones in my garden this year. And just maybe, when I go the the Caribbean side of Costa Rica in the middle of September, I’ll be blessed with a lot of new varieties of butterflies over there in a totally different climate than the Central Valley where I live. But realistically the whole globe is being affected by the extreme weather this year, so, we will see. 🙂 Here’s three photos of this one . . .

Zilpa Longtail Skipper, Atenas, Costa Rica
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Tallest Agave I’ve Ever Seen!

For years this has been on the hill above my house in the yard of “the big house,” where my former landlord lived and is now rented to a wonderful young couple. And I’m pretty sure it is one of the several species of Agave and my gardener called it an Agave. But it could be something else. I first called it a “yucca” which the garden says it is not. 🙂

Over more than 8 years here the flower has never gotten that tall! Sorry I didn’t ask someone to stand by it for comparison. It is taller than two men or more that 12 feet (3.7 meters) I’m sure! And maybe even equal to tree men or 18 feet! Shooting from my yard down the hill it took 4 photos to make this vertical pano! 🙂 Another fun tropical anomaly! 🙂

An amazingly TALL Agave Flower
in my backyard reaching for the sun! 🙂

I tried to identify it online and the closest match (not exact) was to the Tequilana Agave, grown mostly in Mexico and used to make Tequila! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Another Unidentified Skipper

In fact, I have a whole GALLERY of Unidentified Skippers. And hopefully I will eventually get all of them identified, but until then, it is a large category of my photos! 🙂 Just one photo of this one today!

Unidentified Skipper, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Intel Costa Rica Helping the USA!

And Tico Times online has Good News for both the U.S. & Costa Rica with this article yesterday: Intel Investing $1.2 Billion in Costa Rica which means there will be an increase in the 3,000 employees and over 5,000 contractors already working on the research & development plus manufacturing of semiconductors here! And a lot better product than what the U.S. gets from China! 🙂 Costa Rica continues to be the technology hub of Central America and for much of all the Americas. ¡Pura vida!

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Bright Scintillant or Rounded Metalmark?

In the Glassberg book, this matches what Jeffrey Glassberg calls the Bright Scintillant, a Calephelis Species, but my butterfly websites don’t list it as an official species, so I continue to list it in the next closest match, Rounded Metalmark, Calephelis perditalis, though I think it should be listed as a separate subspecies. Most of the characteristics of these two are the same with the Bright Scintillant obviously being brighter and also the border fringe is brown and white checkered, while the Rounded is one solid color. But I’m not in charge of naming butterflies, so I label them the best I can with what information I do have. 🙂 Here’s four shots of one recently in my garden and be aware that he is tiny, only a little larger than my thumbnail . . .

Rounded Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica
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Whirlabout!

That’s not a carnival ride or some crazy new dance, but the common name for a Skipper Butterfly with the scientific name of Polites vibex, Whirlabout. And I know you probably think these two photos are of different butterflies, and though they are of different individuals of different sizes, they are the same species, with the folded wings the lighter color and the open wings orange and dark brown for males and all-brown for females. The other times I have photographed one in my garden, he looks a little darker or brighter orange than these, as you can see in my Whirlabout Gallery, but I’m fairly confident of my ID each time. There is no end to new discoveries with butterflies! 🙂

Whirlabout Skipper, Atenas, Costa Rica
Whirlabout Skipper, Atenas, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Pompeius Skipper

This Pompeius Skipper or Pompeius pompeius scientific name is a new butterfly sighting for me! I continue to be amazed that during this El Niño Year of radical climate change when I’ve been seeing fewer birds and butterflies that I am still seeing new species for me! It is fun! 🙂 And it demonstrates the huge number of species here in Costa Rica! 🙂

My two photos below show one to be lighter in color than the other but both the books and the websites indicate such variations plus different light does that in photos of anything. Plus these are different individuals at different times on different flowers! 🙂

Pompeius Skipper, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Pompeius Skipper, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!