Category: Atenas

Posted on

Unnamed Skipper

And I continue to be frustrated by the difficulty of identifying many of the Skipper Butterflies. this one is patterned similar to 3 or 4 of the longtails but does not have a long tail! The white pattern is similar to some of the Poans, but none of them have the dark brown or black pattern. If anyone knows for sure the ID, I would love to label him! 🙂 Just click CONTACT on the menu to message me with the name. ¡Muchas gracias!

My Butterfly Gallery

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Ant Carries Leaf

I’m not positive that this is a Leafcutter Ant, though they are usually the ones carrying leaves like this or pieces of leaves. But they are usually a group of hundreds marching in a line like a well trained army! This guy was solo and when he go to my doormat at entrance to my terrace, he did not go around but marched right over it, moving to the left, holding the leaf in his mouth! The ant house is underground next to my terrace.

The little things in nature can keep you occupied for hours if you wanted! 🙂

“If an ant carries an object a hundred times its weight, you can carry burdens many times your size.”

― Matshona Dhliwayo

¡Pura Vida!

See my Leafcutter Ants gallery.

Posted on

Missed Chachalacas

After breakfast on the terrace 2 juvenile Chachalacas were playing in my Guarumo Tree, so I got up and retrieved my camera, coming back to empty tree limbs – they flew away! 🙂 And that was to be today’s post, but you can see lots of them in my Chachalaca Gallery. 🙂

So then I walked through the main part of my garden looking for butterflies and the one I saw would never stop for a photo, so as happens so often, I photographed flowers. I love the tropical flowers here! And yes, all are repeats but today’s flowers were each a delight to me this morning anyway and a lot prettier than Chachalacas! 🙂

More flowers in my Flora & Forest Gallery!

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Morning Fog

A fog — Covering — My hills

In nature, everything has a job. The job of the fog is to beautify further the existing beauties! ~Mehmet Murat Ildan

These photos were made on an early morning walk yesterday above my house looking for birds but finding a different beauty. I leave at noon today for Bajos del Toro, checking in at about 1:30 this afternoon. I hope for another post this evening and at least one a day from there this week.

See my Vistas Galleries

¡Pura Viida!

Posted on

Cabanis’s Wren + 5

I left about 5:30 this morning for a walk to help me shape up for the coming week of hikes and to maybe get some birds on the hill above my house, always hoping for a “lifer” or first time bird. It was cool and very foggy and so I wrote my first blog post on the fog which I’ve already scheduled for tomorrow morning.

THEN I went through my bird photos and found that I did indeed get a “lifer” this morning, even if not a good photo. It is the featured photo, a Cabanis’s Wren (eBird article link) in bad light and too far away with lots of limbs and leaves, but I got it! 🙂 Another new bird in my gallery and that now makes 5 different wrens and a total of 344 identified birds in Costa Rica plus a few unidentified ones. So a nice surprise this morning in my neighborhood. All the other birds today are fairly common, except maybe the Yellow-faced Grassquit which I have photographed in two other places (better photos) plus one juvenile here earlier.

  • Gray-capped Flycatcher
  • Clay-colored Thrush or Yigüirro
  • Cabanis’s Wren
  • Yellow-faced Grassquit
  • Variable Seedeater
  • White-winged Dove
My morning walk birds today. CLICK image to enlarge.

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Chisos Banded Skipper

My Central America Butterfly book has 119 pages of Skippers, some barely differentiated by the size or shape of a dot or dash on the wing, meaning that I am seldom 100% sure of my identifications and I have a whole folder of photos labeled unidentified skippers and another of unidentified other butterflies, but this is the closest match in the book and online plus I’ve photographed him before in my garden and given this same ID, so I will stick with it or be consistent! 🙂 See all my butterfly photos in CR Butterflies Gallery OR more of my photos of this Chisos Banded Skipper.

This is my last post from home before going to Bajos del Toro (Reviews of town and area on Go Visit CR site, My Tan Feet an expat couple’s folksy site and travel site Anywhere Costa Rica) & where I stay at El Silencio Lodge tomorrow, when/where I hope to post something from there tomorrow night and at least once a day during this week. The nature adventures continue! 🙂

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful. –Alice Walker

¡Pura Vida!