Not new for me, but an understated, simple beauty, I think – the Great Southern White, Ascia monuste (my gallery link) and here are 3 recent photos from my garden . . .
Great Southern White
Garden Walk
Yes, I know, I’ve done this post before, several times, but every time the flowers are different and I see or photograph them differently. And this time it is a collection of favorite shots from the previous few weeks, late March and early April. Below this one shot for the email version is a gallery of 18 photos, all different flowers and species repeated only when each flower is quite different. Enjoy God’s beautiful jewels from my tropical Costa Rica garden 🙂 . . .
A Rare Butterfly – Leuce Yellow
I’ve seen and photographed a lot of Yellows, but not only is this one new to me, there is only one other on butterfliesandmoths and it was submitted from the Dominican Republic, West Indies. I got several shots almost identical to this one on the tiny wildflower and then he was off, not to be seen again! 🙂
Butterflies of America has photos only of the old-fashion pinned specimens while iNaturalist has several live photos from South America & West Indies, if you click on “View More” after their first little photos. Both of those sites have a little bit of info on the species though they don’t include it being in Costa Rica! 🙂 But that is okay because being in the geographical center of the isthmus between North & South America, we get migrants of all species from both continents! (And West Indies!) Maybe my photos will change the ranges for this butterfly on some of these “official” websites! 🙂 Right now they all say that it is only found in the West Indies (Caribbean Islands) and South America. I fooled them, didn’t I! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Juan Santamaria Day
Juan Santamaria was a young man from Alajuela who became one of the few ever “war heroes” in the only significant battle Costa Rica fought in the 1800s when a renegade army of southern Americans came down to claim Central America as slave states and a part of the confederacy. Well, they had temporary control of Nicaragua above us and so the Costa Rica army marched in to keep them out of Costa Rica. Young Juan sneaked behind the enemy line with a torch and set fire to all of the American tents and barracks that had been set up. They all ran and that was the end of making Central America a slave state!
Juan Santamaria Day is actually April 11 (once de abril) but like the U.S., government workers and bankers have moved most of such holidays to the nearest Monday, thus this year is today, Monday, 15 April 2024.
The hometown of Juan still celebrates it on the real day, once de abril, and I happened to be in Alajuela on April 11 getting a letter from Aeropost and on my way to my favorite Mexican Restaurant, Jalapenos, I had to cross the parade street and phone-snapped these two shots of the band from private Catholic High School, Colegio Gregorio Jose Ramirez Castro. Work that name into a ball game cheer! 🙂
The Mexican food was better than the parade, so glad I kept walking! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
More . . .
- My photo of the Juan Santamaria Statue in the Juan Santamaria Park of Alajuela (in my photo gallery)
- Christmas Tree in Juan Santamaria Park in 2017 (a blog post)
- Juan Santamaria Park (a blog post in 2015)
- Photo of Juan Santamaria Museum in 2015 (in my photo gallery)
- And note that the main national airport or San Jose Airport is named the “Juan Santamaria Airport” and is located in Alajuela which is near San Jose. Airport code is SJO.
Lineated Woodpecker
The Lineated Woodpecker or Dryocopus lineatus (eBird link) is one of the more colorful woodpeckers found throughout Central America and in most of South America, standing out with their bright red head of hair! Here he is often confused with the less frequent Pale-billed Woodpecker, found only in Central America and southern Mexico, but his black face and the white neck line running all the way to his bill quickly distinguish him from the Pale-billed which cannot be identified by the bill because both have pale bills! 🙂 My Lineated Woodpecker Gallery shows that I’ve seen him all over Costa Rica including more than once here in my garden where this one was photographed in my Cecropia Tree last week, my favorite bird tree! 🙂
Introducing A New Bird Book!
To celebrate what will be 10 years of living in Costa Rica come December, I decided to publish a coffee table book of my favorite bird photos that turned out to be a lot! 174 photos! Each includes both the English and Spanish common names of that bird plus the location where I photographed it. Whether a birder or a lover of “Nature As Art,” I think you will like this 86 page photo book printed on premium matte paper. It might even become a collector’s item some day! 🙂 It will definitely become the book that I gift to the birding lodges I visit over the next year or two! 🙂
You can see a free electronic preview of all 86 pages by clicking the above image of the book cover or go to this web address: https://www.blurb.com/b/11961281-costa-rica-birds
¡Pura Vida!
The Promise!
¡Pura Vida!
My Most Memorable Semana Santa
Semana Santa is Spanish for “Holy Week” or “Easter Week” if you prefer and my most memorable and colorful one since moving to Costa Rica was 8 years ago (2016, my 2nd year here) while on a birding tour of Nicaragua and during Semana Santa I was for 3 days in the historical colonial town of Grenada where from my old hotel across from the oldest church I could watch the nightly processionals that along with architecture and the later 87 species of birds photographed made it my most colorful and memorable Easter Week here! (Linked to my photo gallery of that week.)
He is Risen!
¡Pura Vida!
Villa Lapas/Carara Park Photo Gallery
Though I have another week+ of blog post photos already scheduled, I have now also got my “Trip Gallery” completed for the two-night visit to Villa Lapas Hotel (hotel link) in Tarcoles and it was a productive trip! 🙂 You can see all the photos from that visit last week by clicking the first page of the gallery below or go to this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2024-March-11-13-Villa-Lapas-Tarcoles-Carara-NP
And the FYI about why I re-visited this older local hotel in Tarcoles now (2015 was my other time) is that next year (2025, Q4) Villa Lapas (hotel link) will become a Marriott “Signature” hotel, whatever that means, and of course the prices will increase significantly as they modernize the very old rooms and restaurant. So it will be interesting to see what happens! 🙂 It is adjacent to Carara National Park and across the highway from Tarcoles Village with the Rio Tarcoles Boat Tours, so a lot to do there for the nature lover like me, including on their own significant chunk of forest on the hotel grounds. I recommend it if you can put up with older facilities, often needing maintenance. Lots of nature there! See the gallery! 🙂
But ALSO NOTE: even though I’m glad I revisited Villa Lapas, my favorite hotel in the area is still Macaw Lodge on top of the mountain above Villa Lapas and Carara Park for much more nature on the lodge grounds! I encourage you to try Macaw Lodge (lodge link) even though the drive up the mountain, partly on a gravel road, is much more difficult. It is worth it!
¡Pura Vida!
Turquoise-browed Motmot
I had a good birding hike this morning with Vicktor as my guide and got a lot of birds but haven’t had time to process all the photos yet, so here’s just one – the Turquoise-browed Motmot, Eumomota superciliosa (eBird link), one of the two main motmots in Costa Rica and this one is only found in Costa Rica north to Southern Mexico!
I will eventually share the photos of the other birds photographed this morning and eventually some photos from the Sky Way Bridges and Trails (a lot of steps!) from the 2 km mountain walk with a family of 5 from the states (the Mom born in CR) and our guide Stephanie. It was a nice, brisk, hour and a half mountain walk with pleasant people and I was hot and sweaty when we returned. 🙂
Tonight is the night hike for hopefully some good frog pix and in the morning I changed from the jungle wagon to another birding hike, this time in the Carara National Park when they open at 8am. Then leave for home at noon.
See my gallery of Turquoise-browed Motmots.
¡Pura Vida!