On my hike up the mountain to the waterfalls here at El Silencio Lodge I ran into a Land Crab or Gecarcinidae on the trail. A first for me in Costa Rica or maybe anywhere in the mountains! For those interested, see the Wikipedia Article or I found a more specific online book article The Land Crabs of Costa Rica which seems to have more about the ones closer to the ocean. This place is nowhere near an ocean!
As I continue to see more butterflies than birds in my garden, I found this one yesterday morning after breakfast which I haven’t seen in awhile, the Banded Peacock. He is very common all over Costa Rica and I was seeing more in May and June here. I do have better photos than these in my Banded Peacock Gallery, if interested.
Or is it another type of White? Yellow? Sulphur? You butterfly enthusiasts, especially in Costa Rica, let me know if you know for sure. It was in my garden in Atenas this morning. The closest match in my Swift Guide is the Common Melwhite (though the yellow-white color placement seems a little different), while the flying photo looks a little bit like the White-angled Sulphur, the yellow is greatly different and it doesn’t have the four brown spots, eliminating that option. For now I’m sticking with Common Melwhite (Melete lycimnia isandra) (Butterflies of America link). Whew! Butterfly ID is hard sometimes! 🙂
The “4” can mean my 4th trip to Xandari or the 4th Gallery on Xandari or the fact that I was there for 4 days this time! 🙂 The featured photo is on my walk to the restaurant from my villa.
It is a magical getaway every visit and I tend to photograph many new things or the same things in different ways each time, like this time I didn’t even hike to the waterfalls but spent more time with flowers & butterflies and a feature on the bamboo forest. So if considering a visit to Xandari, check out each of my photo galleries from 4 different trips there with 4 different perspectives:
2020 August 21-24 – A Weekend Retreat during a World Pandemic with masks & solo activities in nature. Most butterflies & flowers this time.
2020 January 12-16 – Five days when I installed my photo books library and photographed all kinds of nature with more birds than above.
2019 July 1-6 – My birthday week with them providing a cake and great celebration and me making another different set of nature photos all over. A very good week! Or see the Photo Book,Brilliant! My Birthday Week at Xandari!
Merriam-Webster defines “bewitching” as “powerfully or seductively attractive or charming” which well-describes the effect of over 900 species of birds in Costa Rica on me, along with my love of alliterations! 🙂
I usually photograph more birds than this at Xandari, but with rain and fog blanketing that mountain most of the time this past weekend, I got usable photos of only 9 species, but as indicated yesterday, I made up the difference with butterflies and flowers! 🙂 I’m never without something to photograph at Xandari! 🙂
No new species this time, but as always, I love trying to get a different view, perspective, or activity of a bird to make my bird galleries more interesting. CLICK image to enlarge.
Melodious Blackbird
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Keel-billed Toucan
Rufous-naped Wren
Turkey Vulture
Lesson’s Motmot
Great Kiskadee
Keel-billed Toucan
White-eared Ground-Sparrow
Gray-headed Chachalaca
Whether perching, flying, eating or singing, they continue to bewitch me!
Meet some of the Xandari family . . .
AND . . . They treat me like family! I love this place and these people!
I return to my home in Atenas today but will have more posts about this weekend trip to Xandari and a gallery of the best photos from the weekend posted by the end of the week. In the meantime you might be interested in some of my other Costa Rica Travel galleries at CR Trips. Some of my Tico friends tell me that I’ve seen more of their home country than they have. I love it all!
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.
Doing some things on impulse is part of being retired in Costa Rica I think and I’m tired of being cooped up at home in Atenas. One of my favorite nearby get-a-ways announced they were open on weekends only for now with special discounted prices, so I took the bait and will go to Xandari Nature Resort this weekend, an hour away, Friday afternoon to Monday morning; to hike their forests, waterfalls and most beautiful gardens. Hope to get some good photos and will avoid group hikes or any other interactions with people, eating alone, maybe even relaxing in their solo hot tub by reservation. But mainly some new nature experiences, some with my mask and face shield as we continue to fight the spread of COVID19 here. I will stay safe! And I forgot to say yesterday that I now have my “Permanent Residency” in Costa Rica! 🙂
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!
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.
This is my first of this particular Cattleheart and I got them mating! In my CR Butterflies Gallery I have 4 other species of Cattlehearts but not this one until now. It is found from Mexico south to Costa Rica with supposedly fewer this far south, but they were in my garden and for this photo on the outside wall of my house. I’m up to 110 species of butterflies here now! 🙂
