While green dominates the landscape, there are many colors to welcome the wildlife photographer to Costa Rica. Just as winter is kicking off here in North America, Costa Rica offers a throwback to a more productive era of bird photography and summer-temperature shooting. While many of the migrant birds that enriched our summer landscape here in the north have sought winter grounds in the tropics and beyond, Costa Rica promised a revisit to the colorful bird photography of these and the tropical avian residents that call the lush forests of this tropical country home.
Starting in San Jose, our small photo tour group of eight photographers headed for the lush, mountainous cloud forest of the Talamanca range. Our photography journey began with the many species of tropical tanagers and hummingbirds. The ruggedness and beauty of these mountains are only enhanced by the ever-present clouds drifting and filtering through the heavily treed ridges surrounding our locations.
The cloud forest of the Talamanca mountains was an excellent place to set up and photograph resplendent quetzals as they visited their favorite wild avocado trees. Our group of photographers had the opportunity to capture images of at least five splendid males and several females as they perched in and around the trees.
After our days photographing in the lush highland forests, it was time to relocate. Heading down from the mountains, it was time to focus on some new species of birds and nectar-feeding bats. While the diversity of hummingbirds was ever-present, our following location gave us an unexpected bevy of opportunities to photograph one of the more difficult hummers to find and photograph, the snowcap hummingbird. While each of our chosen shooting locations provides complementary photographic opportunities, this location would be our best spot to set up and photograph nectar-feeding bats. This opportunity is one of my favorite aspects of our tour. With favorable weather, we spent two evenings out in the forest, capturing hundreds of images of nocturnal forest dwellers.
Besides bats and hummingbirds, we located a resident sun bittern that called the area home and captured excellent images of this elusive tropical wader.
Continuing farther down in elevation brought us into the tropical Caribbean lowlands, where we encountered new bird species, including toucans and aracaris. This would also be our first foray into searching for and photographing some of the tropics’ herptiles. This location would put us into a great setting to place our sights on photographing the colorful scarlet and green macaws in flight and perched around a local farm. We took our time photographing these amazing birds against the emerald backdrop of the tropical lowland forest. We finished up our macaw shoot just in time for a visit from a local troop of curious white-faced capuchin monkeys. These furry entertainers kept our cameras clicking with their shay antics and inquisitive personalities.
Our lowland locations would go on to offer opportunities to see myriad other colorful birds, and to introduce our photo group to the world of tropical reptiles and amphibians. From wild poison dart frogs to an evening photographing tree frogs on the lodge property, there was plenty to train our camera on. We also used one of our Caribbean lowland locations to set up and safely photograph some of the forest’s snakes, such as the beautiful eyelash viper and the well-camouflaged ver-del-lance snake, under the guidance of a professional handler.
Our photo safari would not be complete without a photo walk around a tropical lagoon, where we found a mother caiman with nearly a dozen young under her protective watch.
If you have been lucky enough to have visited the wilds of Costa Rica, or even more fortunate to have participated in a photo tour of this fantastic place in the world, you will understand why I do not tire of photographing the beauty and diversity of its nature. This green season was no different, from the smallest of hummingbirds to the largest of king of vultures. Our small group had some of the most amazing photographic encounters. I have come to count on our Costa Rica tours as among the most reliable safaris we offer for bird and wildlife photography.
