Category: Garden

Both my gardens and ones I visit

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Bountiful Butterflies

This trip to Xandari I photographed more butterflies than birds, which I think is a first for anywhere I have visited in Costa Rica. Xandari has always given me a lot of butterflies, partly because of their lush gardens, but today I have photos of 16 different species, a new record! Multiple are new species for me, bringing my butterfly collection up to somewhere near 120 in my Butterfly Gallery. Check it out! Quite a variety!

The only WordPress inline Gallery that now allows labels, which I want to include, is their “regular” gallery which crops each image to same size/shape, meaning you need to click on an image to see the full-size presentation of each and I prefer my framing than their boxes. Clicking one also can start a manual slide show of all 16.

  • Heart-spotted Heliconian
  • Guatemalan Ithomia Glasswing
  • Malachite
  • Double-white Satyr
  • Erato Heliconian or Postman
  • Mottled Longtail or Silver Spotted Skipper
  • Unidentified
  • Blue-winged Sheemark
  • Unidentified Skipper
  • Carolina Satyr
  • Yellow-tipped Flasher
  • Actinote Anteas or Doubleday’s
  • Black-bordered Tegosa
  • Lemon-patched Oxeo
  • Variegated Ticlear
  • Unidentified Eyemark Butterfly
Bountiful Butterflies at Xandari Nature Resort

A part of the “Colourscape” of the place:

Xandari Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Flowers Close

My first afternoon at Xandari was mostly in the rain, but I managed get these close-ups of a few of their many flowers plus a toucan and a butterfly which I will share later. For now enjoy the beautiful art of flowers! CLICK image to enlarge . . .

Some of the best gardens I’ve visited and you can meet one of the gardeners in this video:

Fertile ground!

Xandari Costa Rica!

¡Pura Vida!

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Breakfast Butterflies

This was yesterday at breakfast and today I will be leaving by noon today for Xandari where I expect a lot of different types of butterflies along with the birds.

I apologize that I cannot give an exact ID on all these guys, but as frequently happens there is not an exact match in my two butterfly books and the Skippers are particularly difficult, but still fun to watch! 🙂 CLICK image to enlarge.

  • Brown or Teleus Longtail Skipper
  • Ridens Skipper Maybe
  • Banded Peacock
  • Green or Emerald Flasher
  • Giant White
  • Unidentified Skipper
From a quick walk through my garden after breakfast yesterday.

Expect some “X-factor” Xandari Nature as Art the next few days! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

2 minute introduction to Xandari, my “Oasis!”

Xandari is my Nearest “OASIS.”

GALLERIES FOR MY 3 PREVIOUS VISITS TO XANDARI:

AND MY TWO PHOTO BOOKS ON XANDARI:

Find out why I like Xandari so much – check out the above video, galleries & books.

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White-winged Dove

This is the most common or most frequently seen dove or pigeon in my garden. (The Inca Dove is the second most common in my garden.) To learn more about White-winged Doves, see The Cornell Lab “All About Birds” Article. Or White-winged Dove Gallery for more of my photos of this regular visitor to my garden. In this photo he is perched on the stump of a tree top where my Yellow Bell Tree was recently pruned so I can maintain my terrace vista.

¡Pura Vida!

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Morning Skippers

There are dozens of species of Skipper Butterflies and in fact I have 17 plus species in my Costa Rica Butterflies Gallery. This morning after breakfast I walked into the garden to see what I could find and though I saw more, here are 4 different species of Skipper Butterflies I got usable photos of – CLICK to enlarge:

  • Esmeralda Longtail Skipper
  • Chisos Banded Skipper
  • Plain Longtail Skipper
  • Yellow-rimmed Skipper
Four Skippers at Breakfast this Morning

Border Opens to More Countries: Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and China. So if you live in one of those “safer” countries, you can be a tourist in Costa Rica! Come on over! The water’s fine! 🙂 You will have to be certified free of Coronavirus and follow a few new health rules, but everything else is great as always here!

¡Pura Vida!

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Dina Yellow

Another repeat butterfly species for me on the same flowers I saw the Simple Patch butterfly the other day while walking to town. Observing and enjoying NATURE is the best way to survive the world-wide pandemic, in my opinion! 🙂

See more in my Dina Yellow Gallery that includes one of my favorite butterfly shots against a dark blue sky. 🙂 Also see my others in the Costa Rica Butterflies Gallery. Pura vida!

Dina Yellow

 Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. —Khalil Gibran

¡Pura Vida!

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Another New Butterfly Species!

New species for me that is – Scientific Name: Chlosyne hippodrome, and two common names: “Simple Patch” in A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America, my only good printed guide, while several websites are calling it “Simple Checkerspot,” with checkerspots and patches being “cousins” in the larger “Brushfoot” family of butterflies or maybe checkerspots being a type of patch butterfly – not clear to me yet. Confusing? Yeah, labeling butterflies has always been difficult for me and I still have several “unidentified” butterflies in my gallery. There doesn’t seem to be as much world-wide coordination of butterfly naming and following like with birds.

But anyway, this one is similar to Crimson Patch which I already had a photo of and also similar to the Banded Peacock of which there was one flying near where I got this guy on a zinnia at the Corner of Avenida 8 & Calle 3 while walking to town. Butterflies continue to amaze me! 🙂

See all 3 of my “Patches” butterflies along with about 112 other species in my Costa Rica Butterflies Photo Gallery.

And CLICK an image below to see it larger.

  • Simple Patch or Simple Checkerspot
  • Simple Patch or Simple Checkerspot
  • Simple Patch or Simple Checkerspot
  • Simple Patch or Simple Checkerspot

¡Pura Vida!

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Color!

On a walk to town I’m energized by red, orange, yellow, green, blue – the colors of the rainbow found in the yards of Atenas houses as I walk by them. Truly . . .

“Color! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams.”

~Paul Gauguin

See also my Flora & Forest Gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

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White Angled Sulphur

Another repeat butterfly for me today, though I only got a side view. The top view of this guy is a lot different – white with two yellow splotches plus the little brown spots you can barely see here, though I was unable to photograph the top this time. See more in my White Angled Sulphur Gallery. Another interesting butterfly I can enjoy in my garden during this rainy season.

White-angled Sulphur

My Costa Rica Butterflies Gallery has many more!

Never bored with butterflies! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!