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This is my third sighting of a Little Banner, Nica flavilla (my gallery link), all in my garden and another tiny fingernail-sized butterfly with intricate details and bright colors. Here’s two shots from August and click the above linked gallery to see more.
¡Pura Vida!
This has always been one of my favorite butterflies since I photographed my first back in 2005 in the Everglades National Park, Florida USA. And we even had a slightly different species in Tennessee called the Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia). I like the exoctic look! 🙂 Here’s just one shot from my garden earlier this month and see other photos in my Costa Rica Tropical Buckeye GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
This Many-banded Daggerwing, Marpesia chiron (linked to my gallery) is one of only 4 daggerwing butterflies I’ve seen in Costa Rica and three were here in Atenas, though this is the first one seen in my garden. 🙂 I saw another Many-banded species at Chachagua Rainforest Lodge. I’ll link to the other daggerwing galleries at the bottom of this post. Here’s one of the four photos I got of this species in my garden.
¡Pura Vida!
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
– Lord George Gordon Byron, 1813
9 more photos below . . .
Continue reading “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods”
After the Oxcart Parade last Sunday, I walked home and of course had my cameras, including the one with a telephoto lens, so as always I walked by the Zinnia garden at 8th Avenue and 3rd Street and this time was able to photograph several of the always numerous butterflies with something better than my cell phone! 🙂 Though hot and tired at midday, I still was able to quickly photograph 9 species, 7 of which I’ve identified. One of my two favorites was this Golden Melwhite, Melete polyhymnia (linked to my gallery of them). Tomorrow I will share another species from that sidewalk stop that I like, a seldom-seen Swallowtail.
For today I share 4 shots of this delicate Yellow and White tiny butterfly, plus you can see more in the above-linked gallery . . .
My “best” butterfly ID book has 5 whole pages of butterflies identified as some kind of “Sister” (about 32 species or in human comparison, “cousins” with all having similar markings). Before this month I’ve seen or photographed only three of these “Sisters,” the “Pithy Sister”, the “Iphicleola or Confusing Sister” and the “Cytherea Sister” (links to my galleries) and all were seen away from home on both the Caribbean and Pacific Slopes. But this month I added my home garden as another sighting place for at least 3 of the many Sisters! 🙂
The one that overlaps with my garden is the above linked “Iphicleola or Confusing Sister.” And the two new ones, now also with galleries, are the “Band-celled Sister” and the “Iphiclus or Pointer Sister” (linked to their galleries). And that’s my five sister butterflies now in my collection of about 300 species photographed here in Costa Rica! 🙂 And I’ll make them in honor of my real sister, Bonnie, whose birthday is this month! 🙂
This year’s rainy season has been one of my best butterfly years yet with new species almost every week! Butterflies have turned out to be as much fun as photographing birds, which for some reason have been more scarce this year for me. But I still like both and all other nature! 🙂
And for anyone wondering what happens to all these photos after my death (the blog & gallery will go when I go unless someone wants to pay the “rent” on them after my death). I thus also post all of my butterflies & moths on butterfliesandmoths.org, all of my bird photos on eBird, and now I’m posting all other nature on iNaturalist Costa Rica (Naturalista Costa Rica). All three sites provide data for research and the photos to be used for science in posterity. Available to the public and all researchers.
To show that the “cousin” butterflies do associate with each other, the first photo is of two different species together and then another photo of the third species seen in my garden the other day.
And how can a butterfly named “Apricot” not be cool? 🙂 This Apricot Sulphur, Phoebis argante (my gallery link) I saw just a week ago in my garden for my fourth sighting! One other time in my garden and once each at Xandari and Banana Azul, my two best butterfly hotels here! Check out the different looks in my gallery linked above or study them online. Here’s two shots with more from that sighting in the above gallery.
The Brown-banded Skipper, Timochares ruptifasciata, is another new species for me as my collection continues to grow! It is found in the southern USA, Mexico and Jamaica and now I’m the first to report one from Costa Rica.
¡Pura Vida!
The Plain Longtail – Urbanus simplicius (link to butterflies & moths) is one I’ve seen a lot of as you can see in my Plain Longtail GALLERY or in the top link to butterfliesandmoths that I’ve reported the most of this Central American butterfly. Here’s just two shots. See my gallery above for more . . .
There were oh so many more hummingbirds at Maquenque, but I’m getting too “slow on the draw” to capture these fast and constantly moving birds. And these four shots aren’t real good, but at least I got some that aren’t Rufous-tailed H, which is all I get at home now. 🙂 Here’s a shot of each of four different species of hummingbirds and only a tiny sample of what’s at Maquenque throughout the forests and gardens.
See more in my Stripe-throated Hermit Gallery.
Continue reading “4 Hummingbirds”