Spirogyra butterfly garden in Costa Rica

Yesterday I went to a tiny, rather unknown, little butterfly garden in downtown San Jose, the Costa Rican capital.  In a backyard on a slope down towards a river a family has developed a net-enclosed butterfly forest, with host plants, nectar-bearing flowering plants, and many, many butterflies. I was alone there, and in this tranquil place the butterflies didn't mind me - you could get inches away from them and take the most amazing photos. 

They rear their own butterflies, and the garden is a complete ecosystem with eggs, larvae, and pupas present.  This is nice, much different from butterfly houses where they buy the pupas (chrysalis) from other places and then let them hatch.

Here are some of the native butterflies of Costa Rica, all photographed yesterday and with a little quick snapshot camera, not with a macro- or telelens.  It was amazing how close you could get to the insects.