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November 25, 2019 by Kurt Buzard

Hummingbirds, Butterflies and Flowers of Costa Rica

Nymphidium onaeum, a beautiful butterfly from Costa Rica

Nymphidium onaeum, a beautiful butterfly from Costa Rica

I have a few photographs that depict flowers found wild in Costa Rica (including the famous Hot Lips or Hookers Lips flower) some photos of butterflies and hummingbirds found on Porterweed and Lantana. One fine early morning on my most recent trip to Costa Rica, we visited a patch of wild Porterweed. This area was alive with small hummingbirds, maths and butterflies. In particular we saw the Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird (Amazilia tzacatl), the Violet-Headed Hummingbird (Klais guimeti) and a variety of moths and butterflies. In my estimation, there are no greater nectar producing species than Lantana and Porterweed. Every morning in Las Vegas, I have 5 to 10 hummingbirds waiting to feed at my various lantana beds. With the preferences of hummingbirds in Costa Rica, I plan to plant several patches of Porterweed to enhance my garden. As for the rest of the post, beautiful orchids and unusual plants will hopefully excite and amaze you. As for the butterfly at the top of the post, I found this butterfly at Frog’s Geaven. Nymphidium is a genus in the butterfly family Riodinidae present only in the Neotropical ecozone. Some Nymphidium are obviously secondarily transformed by mimicry, otherwise the almost exclusive colors are brown and white either of which being now and then preponderant.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Animals, Aquariums and Zoos, Birds, Bugs, Bees and Butterflies, Costa Rica, Plants and Gardens Tagged With: Bamboo Orchid, Banded Peacock Butterfly, Brunfelsia pauciflora, Butterflies, Cochliostema odoratissimum, Columnea purpurata, Coral Tree, Costa Rica, Dendrobium nobile Orchid, Epidendrum radicans, Flowers, Gulf Fritillary Butterfly, Hot Lips Flower, hummingbirds, Huntleya vargasii, Ipomoea setifera, Ixora coccinea, Ixora macrothyrsa, Julia Butterfly, Lyside Sulpher Butterfly, Malvaviscus concinnus, Mimosa, Nymphidium onaeum, Odontonema srictum, Odontonema tubaeforme, Palicourea elata, Polydamas Swallowtail Butterfly, Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird, Two-Barred Flasher Moth, Violet-Headed Hummingbird, Water Hyacinth

May 13, 2019 by Kurt Buzard

Exquisite Hummingbirds in Costa Rica

Male White-Necked Jacobin Hummingbird (Florisuga mellivora). Flores, Guápiles, Costa Rica

Male White-Necked Jacobin Hummingbird (Florisuga mellivora). Flores, Guápiles, Costa Rica

I can honestly say that the hummingbirds of Costa Rica are the most beautiful birds I have ever seen and I will share them with you in this post. Hummingbirds are from the New World and constitute the family Trochilidae. They are some of the smallest birds in the world and have the greatest metabolism of any animal. To keep energy when food is limited, and nightly when not foraging, they go into dormancy, a state similar to hibernation, slowing metabolic rate to 1/15th of its normal rate. They are known as hummingbirds because of the humming sound generated by their whipping wings which wave at high frequencies audible to humans. They flutter in mid-air at rapid wing-flapping rates, typically around 70 to 80 times per second, allowing them also to fly at speeds exceeding 34 miles per hour. Hummingbirds fall into nine main groups or clades, the Topazes and Jacobians, Hermits, Mangoes, Brilliants, Coquettes, the giant hummingbird Patagona, Mountain Gems, Bees, and Emeralds as established by DNA evidence. These clades also define their relationship to nectar-bearing flowering plants and the birds’ continued spread into new geographic areas. The brilliant, iridescent colors of hummingbird plumage are caused by the refraction of incident light by the structures of certain feathers. Like any diffraction grating or prism, these structures split light into its component colors, and only certain frequencies are then refracted back to your eyes. Thus, you have to be in a particular location with respect to the light and hummingbird to see the bright colors of the head and neck or gorget. I have arranged the hummingbirds in this post roughly by elevation with the highest elevations first and the lowest elevations last.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Animals, Aquariums and Zoos, Birds, Costa Rica Tagged With: Bronze-Tailed Plumeleteer Hummingbird, Costa Rica, Fiery-Throated Hummingbird, Gray-Tailed Mountain-Gem Hummingbird, Hummingbird Clades, hummingbirds, Lesser Violetear, Long Billed Hermit Hummingbird, McGuire et al, Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird, Sapphire-Throated Hummingbird, Scaly-Breasted Hummingbird, Stripe-Throated Hermit Hummingbird, Striped-Tailed Hummingbird, Talamanca Hummingbird, Violet-Headed Hummingbird, Volcano Hummingbird, White-Necked Jacobin Hummingbird

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