The closest shopping mall to me is City Mall in Alajuela across the highway from the San Jose Airport, the largest mall in Costa Rica and second largest in Central America (Panama has a bigger one). Like all malls everywhere, everything is more expensive than at little local stores, but it is still popular, especially with the younger generations! I go two or three times a year for things I can’t get anywhere else and to see the new Christmas decorations. I went last week for my annual photo wall calendar by CR Photographer Pucci in the big and wonderful bookstore “La Librería Internacional” and some Avery Labels at Office Depot. 🙂
I never before thought of my garden as a place of carnage, but insects eating other insects is quite normal and helps with the balance and ecology – then I witnessed it first hand this past Tuesday morning as I focused my camera on what I hoped was a new butterfly species (it was!). This, my first Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak (Strymon istapa) was flying and landed on one of my Heliconia flowers (1st photo below) and when I snapped this photo that tiny Jumping Spider (Salticidae) down below him in the photo jumped up on the little butterfly (with attached silk thread) and grabbed the butterfly by its head, biting it with a venomous bite that instantly paralyzed and will soon kill the butterfly which the Jumping Spider will eat. I did not stay around for the full meal, but photos of three stages follow this one. 🙂
Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak above and Jumping Spider below. Yes! He jumped that far!
3 more photos below of the capture, paralyzing and preparing to eat.
My walks to town or “Central Atenas,” as they call it here, always includes passing the house of a family that plants many flowers, including a zinnia garden at least twice a year. As I walk by I often pull out my cell phone and snap a butterfly or flower. To show my appreciation of these who take the time to plant flowers, I made a little 20-page photo book of the butterflies I photographed over the last year in their garden and will take 3 copies to them as a Christmas gift once the books arrive. You can preview every page of the book for free by clicking the front cover image below or go to this address and click the word “Preview” then each page to see the next: https://www.blurb.com/b/11328129-jard-n-de-mariposas
Of course it’s in Spanish. That’s the language of Costa Rica! 🙂
I consider this kind of graffiti “real art” and especially these on the back wall behind Colegio Liceo Atenas where one section was recently replaced with this thought-provoking work of art. I have always assumed that this “Graffiti Wall” is officially sanctioned by the high school and that probably an art teacher is responsible for overseeing it. A great way for adolescents to express themselves!
¡Pura Vida!
Check out some of my earlier blog posts on graffiti art here or see all of my photos of it in the GALLERY: Public Art & Graffiti – Atenas. 🙂
One day they were digging a hole where the playground equipment will go and then another adding big rocks. I thought to myself that the rocks were to help with water drainage underneath dirt they will put on top of them. Then another surprise! They put gravel over the rocks which will help even more with the water drainage, but children playing on gravel? Well, it seems to be a very fine gravel which will not hurt the child who falls on it and of course grass could never grow on an active playground! So it is looking good and hopefully my next update will be photos of the playground equipment. I’m expecting something contemporary and hopefully it will not be concrete like everything else built so far! 🙂 Here’s three progressive photos for this report . . .
The general address for my Butterflies & Moths of Costa Rica stays the same, but all the sub-galleries or individual butterfly galleries will unfortunately have new web addresses. This is because I want this gallery to be scientifically accurate to match my volunteer work with butterfliesandmoths.org. Thus each of nearly 200 individual butterfly galleries will be titled with their common name and sub-titled in smaller letters with their scientific name. Then they have been placed in folders or family galleries according to their taxonomy. Thus the first level of galleries you see on the first screen image below are the families such as Hesperiidae – SKIPPERS (35+) or the largest family in my collection is Nymphalidae – BRUSHFOOTS (79+). The individual butterfly galleries are presented inside these family folders in the taxonomic order found on butterfliesandmoths.org, making my gallery a good research tool for anyone doing research on butterflies and moths in Costa Rica! 🙂 The bad part is that all my old blog posts (before yesterday’s) that have a link to an individual butterfly gallery – that link will no longer work! So sorry! But that is the cost of scientific accuracy. Before I just had them arranged alphabetically by common name – not the best way! 🙂 To check out my Costa Rica Butterfly & Moth Photo collection, click the first page image below or go to this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/Butterflies-Moths
My Photo Gallery: Butterflies & Moths of Costa Rica – CLICK IMAGE to visit.
I have one of, if not the largest collections of Costa Rica Butterfly photos online that I know of at about 200 species. Before getting involved in the butterfliesandmoths website, my primary source was and still often is the excellent book A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffery Glassberg.
And I could say the same things about my CR Birds Gallery which has about 360 species and has always been arranged in taxonomic order by families based on the order found in Princeton Field Guide: Birds of Central America, my preferred bird guide now, other than eBird online.
This morning walking back from the public clinic where I got my free latest Covid booster shot and prescriptions (the public healthcare is simply great here!), I was struck by the interesting face of one of the Brahma Cows in the pasture across the street from my house, snapping this shot on my cellphone! 🙂
Brahma Cow across the street from my house, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.
There’s always more that butterflies to photograph in my garden, so take a walk with me through my Costa Rica Garden on an October day during the “Rainy Season” with one shot here for the email announcement and then a slide show of 14 different flowers photographed yesterday on my walk through . . .
This is for all schools and all public transportation including adults. Read why in the Tico Times article.
I was concerned that the dropping of masks by most might be a little premature and it appears that it was. I will again wear a mask in all public places for a while anyway. And get the latest booster shot! 🙂
