Category: Garden

Both my gardens and ones I visit

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Green-browed Skipper – A Lifer!

Yesterday was a new species of birds for me and today a new species of butterflies for me, the Arita Skipper or Green-browed Skipper, Arita arita. No link to my gallery because this is the only photo in it now. 🙂 And no good article online, though there are 2 other photos on butterfliesandmoths.org and 5 more sightings from Costa Rica on the iNaturalistCR site. Not a spectacular butterfly, but one more species which brings my CR Butterflies Galleries up to 320 identified species now! 🙂

Green-browed or Arita Skipper, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~Henry David Thoreau

¡Pura Vida!

2,000 Blog/Website Visits in January! THANK YOU!

One of the services provided by my WordPress blog/website host is a monthly report of page visits on my site and it has been typical for the last few years to have around 2,000 page views of my blog/website at charliedoggett.net each month!

And though my photo gallery is a menu item on the website, it is actually separate and hosted by a different business, SmugMug.com, and they started in February 2022 counting my gallery visitors with several galleries now having had over 1,000 visitors in 2 years! And the shocker for me, as I typed this (yesterday) is that I’ve had 1,957 views of the gallery “My Home Gardens.” 🙂 Flowers are more popular than birds?! So I express my THANKS to all of you who read the blog (with more pictures than words)! 🙂 And then go on to look at my photos in the gallery! 🙂 Maybe “A picture is worth a thousand words” is a true statement after all! 🙂

Moving to Costa Rica 10 years ago and immersing myself in the incredible nature here was definitely one of the best decisions I every made! And I’m thankful for the many people who have joined me in my adventures vicariously by reading the blog posts and looking at the photos! ¡Pura Vida!

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Gray-headed Chachalaca

The only “regular” (almost daily) large (Turkey-sized) bird in my garden is the Gray-headed Chachalaca, Ortalis cinereiceps (eBird link) which is found only in the southern parts of Central America or from Honduras to Columbia. When a whole flock of them swoop into one of my trees they are sort of “pests” because of their constant chatter. But lately it has only been 2 to 4 at a time which is less noise and more interesting to watch. See my many photos of this unique bird in my Chachalaca Gallery. Just one shot here.

Gray-headed Chachalaca, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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A Fave Flower Finally Identified

My Costa Rican gardener has always called this flowering shrub “Once de Abril” as a local name honoring our one war hero who fought off the North American Rebels trying to turn Central America into another slave state in the 1800’s. Thanks to Google Lens & iNaturalist, I’ve discovered that it is “officially” . . .

Duranta erecta, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

Scientific Name = Duranta erecta

Common Names in English

  • Golden Dewdrop
  • Pigeon Berry
  • Skyflower

Nombres comunes en español

  • Coralillo (iNaturalist CR)
  • Once de Abril (Costa Rica Common Name)
  • Tala blanco (en Argentina)
  • Flor celeste
  • Fruta de iguana (I like this because my iguanas eat those yellow berries) 🙂

So there you have it for all the “official” names I could find! 🙂 Which like pretty much everything in nature, the only sure name is the scientific name and sometimes even that changes! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

See all my flower photos in the Flora & Forest Galleries.

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Red-billed Pigeon

This colorful, purpleish, dove-like bird is not as common in my garden as the White-winged Dove, but I like him just as much! He is the Red-billed Pigeon, Patagioenas flavirostris (linked to eBird) and found only from Costa Rica to Mexico. Just one more of the many birds unique to this part of the world! The best place to go birding! 🙂

Red-billed Pigeon, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Tropical Greenstreak

This is not the most common of the Hairstreak Butterflies, but I have seen it 3 other times before these two in my garden the other day. These photos of two different individuals show the variations in shades of green they can have. And yes, there are other species of green hairstreaks that are different in design from this one and their IDs are also not based on the shade of green which seems to vary in all the green ones.

Tropical Greenstreak, my garden, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Tropical Greenstreak, my garden, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

See my Tropical Greenstreak, Cyanophrys herodotus Gallery for more photos and more shades of green! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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My Iguana Neighbor . . .

The Black Spiny-tailed Iguana,  Ctenosaura similis (my gallery link) is called “Garrobo” in Spanish and lives only on the Pacific Slope, which is also where I live. Here’s just two shots from one recently in my garden (living there or nearby) and the only neighbor I have who walks on my roof! 🙂 See more of this interesting fellow in the above-linked gallery.

And what about the Green Iguana? Well, he lives on both slopes, but I’ve not seen one in Atenas, I see many in the Caribe.

Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

My Favorite Quote Today . . .

“Hitching the evangelical wagon to Donald Trump has meant unhitching it from the life and teachings of Jesus. It’s a bad trade.” –Peter Wehner, Writer, The Atlantic

Thanks to Ellie for sharing that article in The Atlantic! It is at:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/evangelicals-trump/681450/?gift=qFEJ9LdWpG_UQ02zpyrhX2xpGq7ImcdmeknHDgHmMlk&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

And a Related Bible Verse . . .

From last night’s devotional . . .

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy. Colossians 2:8

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Yellow Warbler

I used to see a lot more of these but that was back when I saw a lot more of all birds than now. It is the Yellow Warbler, Setophaga petechia (eBird link) which is found in all of the lowlands of Costa Rica but be aware that some books are now separating the American Yellow Warbler (Setophaga aestiva) and the Mangrove Warbler (Setophaga petechia) which is the one that is a resident of Costa Rica while the American are migrants from the north and also here. The Mangrove Warbler is best known to birders as the one whose male has a chestnut red head. The females seem to be identical. You can see both in my Gallery of Yellow Warblers. And eBird has kept them together as I do in my gallery. Here’s 3 shots from my garden . . .

Yellow Warbler, my garden, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Continue reading “Yellow Warbler”
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Blue-vented Hummingbird

A new regular that’s seen about as much as the Rufous-tailed! See more photos in my GALLERY: Blue-vented Hummingbird.

Blue-vented Hummingbird, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Birding Today!

I’m out birding with friends from British Columbia, Canada today and expect to have a lot of photos to share over the next week or so. Stand by! Starting with blog in two days. 🙂

Our plan is to have breakfast in Orotina, which is not far from Tarcoles where we will check in at 8am for the birding river boat trip on the Tarcoles River. I usually get a lot of birds on that trip with my prefered “Jungle Crocodile Safari” boat. They generally do a lot better job finding birds than their several competitor boats who focus mostly on the crocodiles. 🙂

After two hours on the river we will go to the nearby coast and beaches of Punta Leona which is a private development and hotel, but the government requires all beaches to be public and Walter knows how to get in free. At these beaches he has seen sloths and monkeys in the past plus the usual seabirds. We will then eat lunch somewhere and travel the hour or so back to Atenas. That is the plan.

Hope you have a happy day too! 🙂

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El Arte de las Flores

The Art of Flowers! There is no limit to the creativity in flowers!

Morning Glory! – Nature as Art!

See the flower slideshow below . . .

Continue reading “El Arte de las Flores”
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Hanging on in Off-season

This Banded Peacock, Anartia fatima (my gallery link) is the most obvious butterfly to still be around during these months of fewer butterflies. Here in the Central Valley the best time for the most butterflies is May-October which is the bulk of the Rainy Season, which I cannot explain, because they do not usually come out when raining. But now, the wind is just as big a problem and it is more frequent than the rain is during rainy season. The irony is that this is the peak tourist season until May and thus tourist see very few butterflies except those captive in the butterfly gardens. 🙂

Banded Peacok, in my gardens, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!