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.