The Itinerary Starts Here

King Vulture (female) - Laguna del Lagarto, Costa Rica

Today we had the first transfer of the trip from the hotel in San Pedro to the eco lodge Laguna del Lagarto. It wasn’t too far to travel and by midday we were checked in and taking our first pictures. On the way we had been treated to the spectacle of thousands of Swainson's Hawks and Turkey Vultures migrating from the USA down to South America.

The beauty of Laguna was the huge deck from which we could shoot, sheltered from any heavy rain showers of which there were a few over the two days we spent there. Our main targets here were Toucans - Keel-billed and Chestnut-mandibled, Collared Aracaris and if we were lucky, some shots of the Caiman that inhabit the lake below the decking.

After our three-course lunch, the afternoon was spent photographing the smaller species. We had plenty of action from Tanagers, Orioles, Honeycreepers, Kiskadees and Black-cheeked Woodpeckers. On the mammal front we had a charming visit from a White-nosed Coati that gave us some amusement and consequently some good images.

Late in the afternoon we were able to photograph a Milk Snake with just enough time before darkness and the set up for Pallas’ Long-tongued Bats. This proved to be quite an interesting new technique for us, pre-focussing, keeping the shutter open waiting for the bat to fire the flash, then closing and re-opening the shutter immediately. Part of the learning process here was not to leave the shutter open too long in order to keep noise under control. Naturally, there were a number of times when the flash fired as I had closed the shutter. I was quite surprised to learn that in the 50 minutes session there were 90 bat passes, out of which I had 30 keepers.

Day two at Laguna started early, we were set up on the decking before 5:30, fully two hours before breakfast was due. Within 15 minutes the first Toucans appeared and after half an hour we had recorded Collared Aracari, Keel-billed and Chestnut-mandibled. All of our targets in fact.

Naturally a lot of the smaller birds showed up in this period, a few Coatis and a couple of perched Black Vultures drying their wings. But it was dominated by the Toucans.

The main focus of the day was actually an extra not in the itinerary, but a unique opportunity to photograph King Vultures from a hide. I’ve got cold in many hides over the years, but this had to be the hottest I’ve encountered by far. It’s fair to say we got some nice images, but in truth there were a lot of Black Vultures present, which made getting clean shots difficult. The perches favoured by the King Vultures were quite distant and they rarely ventured closer. Consequently the Black Vultures on the ground between the hide and the perches were the issue. It was an expensive extra and I’m not convinced it was value for money.

The afternoon session was in the lodge owner’s garden at his nearby house. There was a Hummingbird set up and some natural perches positioned to attract some of the smaller species. Undoubtedly the set up was more productive than the perches despite the fact that there was an influx of Bananaquits that limited the number of Hummingbirds. Not the most productive afternoon, but I probably shouldn’t complain as I have 56 keepers from the set up session.

The day was rounded off with a repeat of the Long-tongued Bat set up as soon as darkness fell. This proved to be a longer session, nearly twice as long in fact and yielded more than double the number of images. Keepers were up too, but not by the same ratio.

Our final morning was another 5:30am start and followed much the same activity as the previous morning, until we were finishing breakfast. It was at that point that some unusual activity occurred on the far side of the lake, Black Vultures started descending in number. Eventually we could see there was one of the Caiman on the far bank and it seems it had a kill, which the vultures were hoping to finish off.

Now this was an opportunity not to miss and a quick couple of hundred metres sprint, all downhill, had us in position. I’ve certainly never been as close to a Caiman as we were this time and I’m really pleased with the results.

Before we left there was just time for another set up, but this time it wasn’t for birds. By now it had started to rain quite heavily, but fortunately we were able to get under cover. This was definitely time to exercise some care, not for the shots of the Red-eyed Tree frog, but those of the Eyelash Pit Viper and the Hog-nosed Viper. Both poisonous and capable of striking out if you get too close. Thankfully we all survived.

That was it for this lodge, time to move on to our next location, with an interesting stop on the way. But that’s for next time.

An Excellent Addition

Yellow Crab Spider

As I wrote in my previous post, our first full day in Costa Rica was an unplanned addition and as such didn’t appear in the itinerary. However, it turned out to be an excellent, if surprising day.

We motored out of San Jose on the tour bus for about an hour before we turned off the main highway and down a rough track, stopping outside a house. We were met by the owner and ushered into the garden where we were to spend the day.

At first I admit I was sceptical about what was in store for us, but we were kept busy the whole day.

The owner of the house is a self-taught and exceptionally talented artist. He has set up the garden so that he can attract plenty of birds and animals to give him an unending supply of subject matter. In so doing, he has also created an environment that satisfied our needs as photographers.

The day was planned around certain set ups that saw each one of us have a number of 30 minute sessions. Whilst not doing a set up, we were in a hide next to a pond where there was a constant stream of birds to capture.

The first set up was for Hummingbirds and introduced us to the techniques involved in capturing sharp and well-lit images as the birds came into a flower. The main species here was the White-necked Jacobin, not altogether a surprise.

Running in parallel with this was another set up where we could get to grips with our macro technique. After all, macro was one of the main subjects for the trip. My first session involved an unusual, but very beautiful yellow Crab Spider. Ordinarily, I’m not a lover of spiders, but this trip introduced me to some beautiful specimens and I’ll look at spiders differently from now on.

A number of the birds we were seeing were the same as those we’d photographed in Trinidad and Tobago earlier in the year, but in my times between set ups I had a number of first sightings.

Outstanding among these were the Grey-necked Wood Rail, Collared Aracari, Orange-chinned Parakeet and the Chestnut-headed Oropendola.

With plenty of activity going on, it was a surprise how quickly lunchtime was reached. A delicious meal prepared by the house owner’s wife set us all up for an equally busy afternoon. There were more surprises to come.

After a time of carrying on the morning programme, we all climbed back on the bus and headed a mile or so down the road to a forest where there were known to be Crested Owls. Once there it didn’t take long to find them, but photographing them wasn’t going to be easy. It was naturally quite dark in the forest and we were somewhat distant from them. We needed 600mm focal lengths to reach them and with a requirement for a degree of flash, the Better Beamers were pressed into service. Even then I was shooting wide open at f/5.6 and an ISO of 6400 still only gave me 1/80th sec shutter speed.

Before we left the forest, our guide took a look around for some Honduran White Bats and to our great good fortune he found some. The final piece of luck we had was reserved until we were all boarding the bus. The guide had spotted a Slaty-tailed Trogon, deep in the forest and quite high up, but a notable sighting.

Arriving back at the house, there was still more to come and as we were preparing for the next set up, word went around that there was a young male Sloth in the tree above the house. Finding it was something of a challenge due to the vegetation and its proximity to the buildings, but two or three of the group managed to get a spot to take some pictures.

The rest of the group started to look around for a better vantage point and we were well rewarded. Further up the tree was an adult female and the gentleman who lived in the next-door house invited us into his garden to take our shots. From there we had an uninterrupted view as she climbed even higher up the tree. As she did so it slowly became apparent that she had a baby clinging on to her fur. We were enthralled for fully thirty minutes.

It’s fair to say that all members of the group had hopes of seeing a Sloth on this trip, but knowing the likelihood wasn’t that great. We weren’t due to travel to the area of the country where they are most prevalent. But to see three on our first full day was very special. We didn’t see any more.

Once this excitement was over, it was back to some more macro shooting and I ended my day with images of a Ghost Glass Frog and a Brown Leaf Katydid.

All too soon it was time to board the bus for the hour back to our hotel after what had been a very productive extra day. It was no surprise that evening that no-one decided to go out after dinner for more macro.