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Not your every day bird! And I’ve seen more here in Atenas than anywhere. This one in my garden a week or so ago. See my other (better) photos in gallery: Barred Antshrike. And read more about them on eBird. It is found only in Central & South America.
¡Pura Vida!
The first seen in my garden since December 2025, plus I saw one earlier the same day on my morning walk up the hill, but it was in bad light and thus no good photos. See my earlier photos at Lesson’s Motmot from different Costa Rica locations. This is another purely Central American bird with the usual overlaps into Southern Mexico.
¡Pura Vida!
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This is my second time to see one of these fungi on a fence post across the street from me. I’m yet to give it a species name and no identifier on iNaturalist has yet, but I like it and will continue to photograph as I see new ones. The other one was in November 2025 and can be seen at this link: Fence Post Fungi and that time there was a little mushroom-type fungus below the disk-type fungus.
And of course I have a gallery for fungi: Just Fungi
¡Pura Vida!
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This Blue-vented Hummingbird (my gallery link) is right now in October more frequently seen than the usual dominant one, the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird.
¡Pura Vida!
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This Orange-barred Sulphur (my gallery link) is a colorful yellow butterfly found from Florida and South Texas south through Central America to Brazil, including every low altitude place in Costa Rica. Read more and see other people’s observations on BAMONA and for specifically Costa Rica on iNaturalistCR.
¡Pura Vida!
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We had a rather dry rainy season May-September, but at the time of this writing October has been fairly normal with rain every afternoon or evening. If it will continue through November, we may not suffer as much during the dry season with this year expected to have public water shortages and more grass fires. This is for the Pacific Slope, while the Caribbean Slope (Atlantic side) has had more than usual rain. Crazy weather this year!
Most, if not all, of the cows that rotate through this neighborhood cow pasture are Brahmas, as most in Costa Rica are. But in my gallery Cows, I haven’t bothered to try and identify all the cow photos made from trips all over the country. And I think a few are other species. They aren’t “wild” life, but have been fun to see and photograph, both in my neighborhood cow pasture and when traveling across the country over these last 12 years!
¡Pura Vida!
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One of my many “favorite” butterflies is this Malachite (my gallery link) which I recently shared one of from Hotel Colinas del Sol nearby and this one was one of the few in my garden this year, on a Lantana flower.
¡Pura Vida!
This little wildflower I saw along the side of the road in front of my house. Upon checking, I found that I had seen it one other time in my garden back in 2023 before I used iNaturalist and had an identification. I’m pretty certain of this ID which has already been verified by a botanist on iNaturalist. To see my 2023 observation, go to my gallery Scrambling Dayflower. You can read more about it on both iNaturalist and on Wikipedia.
¡Pura Vida!
This is another one of those “international migrants” in Costa Rica that grows well here but is native in this case to Brazil, Surinam, & Venezuela. At first glance I though it was a Red Ginger, but on a closer look, there are several differences! It is just one more species I’ve added to my Under Construction CR Flowers by Species with only this photo in the Brazilian Red-cloak gallery now. You can read about and see where others have seen this flower in Costa Rica on iNaturalistCR by clicking “View All” under TOTAL OBSERVATIONS where there is a map showing where. Or read more about them on Wikipedia (en español) or shorter one in English.
¡Pura Vida!
This is one of those peculiar butterflies in the Pieridae Family (whites-yellows-sulphurs) that can sometime appear more yellow (as this one) or in my experiences is usually more white or “whitish.” 🙂 It is the Statira Sulphur (my gallery link) seen frequently in my garden though this one was at the nearby Hotel Colinas del Sol during my overnight there for a house fumigation. It is found mostly in Central America with other Costa Rica sightings seen on iNaturalist Costa Rica where I am the lead observer and for those seen in Florida and South Texas in the states, check out BAMONA where I keep CR represented. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Note that as of today, we are still having a normal October with rain every afternoon and all are hoping that it will be sufficient to bring the water table back up from our lack of normal rain May-September. The dry season starts in December and the amount of water in the rainy season is important for plants, water table, etc. Some fear a shortage of water during the dry season and possibly more grass fires if this rain doesn’t continue through November.