The shrub

The Regal Greatstreak that I found a couple of days ago and reported in the previous post was found on a shrub that is turning out to be very productive for me. I'm here at the Laguna de Apoyo in Nicaragua to make an inventory of the butterflies that are in the reserve, and I've found many species that weren't on the reserve's species list. But once you pass 200 species, it gets harder to find any that you haven't already seen.

That is, until you find a bush that is so incredibly attractive to butterflies that you can go there three days in a row and find several 'new' species every single day. This really is a treasure trove of butterflies, and I've told the folks at the biological station that they should get this plant in their yard. Its flowers produce a lovely fragrance, and attract a ton of butterflies.

The biological station I'm staying at is also a Spanish language school, and the students there now ask me over breakfast "Are you going to the Magic Bush again?" Well, yeah! It's about an hour's walk away, but it's such a productive spot that it's hard not to.

The butterfly at the very top of today's post is a Carousing Jewelmark. (Gotta love those names!) I saw it on the bush yesterday only.

And this beautiful thing is a Hackberry Greenmark. Had it there today.

This is a Clytie Ministreak. It fed methodically and seemingly unperturbed for more than 15 minutes in one spot.

More or less the same goes for this Dusky-blue Groundstreak.

Here's an Orange-spotted Skipper, rather a colorful species for a skipper. I saw one individual on the shrub yesterday, and again today.

This finally is a Many-banded Daggerwing, a common species throughout the reserve, and found in large numbers on the shrub.