Finale to Costa Rica

Agouti

As I sit here at my computer, writing the final blog about Costa Rica, I am enjoying fresh pineapple slices from a whole pineapple that came from Costa Rica.  Almost as good as the fresh pineapple that we had in Costa Rica.  In Costa Rica the pineapple we had came right out of the fields, while the one that I ate this morning had a travel up to the states and then into the supermarket where it was bought.

For a final full day in Costa Rica, waking up early, packing the bags and then going out and photographing before breakfast to capture the final images of Bosque De Paz.

Black Guan

Yellow-thighed Finch

Chestnut-naped Finch

The View in Front of the Dining Hall at Bosque De Paz

Waterfall at the Bridge

The Dining Hall, the white sheet is used at night to attract insects and moths

The Cloud Forest

Boarding the bus, we traveled to Greg's hometown of Zarcero where the St. Raphael  church is very beautiful and the park in front of it has many toparairy animals, which is great for photography.  Greg also has friends that produce organic coffee, but they were close today, however, the grocery store in the town did carry their coffee and I was able to pick up a couple of bags to bring home.

Toparairy Monkeys

The group in the park in front of St. Raphael church

St. Raphael church in the fog

Altar of St. Raphael's Church

Statue in St. Raphael's Church

We then traveled back to San Jose and the hotel.  Because our rooms were not quite ready.  I explored the gardens again and took more photographs.  After the rooms were ready, we all met for lunch.  During lunch, there was a very heavy severe thunderstorm for a good period of time.

The Garden

Prior to our final dinner, we were going to meet Greg and hopefully out in the garden be able to photograph some tree frogs.  I noticed a beautiful sunset and photographed it through the a window on the third floor of the hotel.  Meeting in the lobby we walked out with our flashlights and looking around the water areas for frogs.  We did find Costa Rican leopard frogs, a giant toad and a yellow eyed tree frog all available for photography.

Sunset over San Jose

Giant Toad, it will eat everything and was imported from Brazil

Costa Rican Species of Leopard Frog

Yellow Tree frog-eyed

Part of the enjoyment of this trip was the great camaraderie that everybody developed.  A number of times all five of us or six would sit around a table with a drink in hand and discuss trivial matters.  Such as what certain things are called in different places in the world and in the states such as what is Coke known as.  It could be soda, soda water, tonic soft drink and just plain Coke.  What made it interesting is we had two people from Scotland, one from Chicago, one from Washington state and me from Massachusetts.  In this way friendships were were made.

Everybody was sad and leaving Costa Rica and everybody also wanted to stay.  We were all planning on figuring out how to return in the coming year.

“Pura Vida"

Flora, Fauna and Macro at Bosque de Paz

Black Guan

Well, sadly, it is our last full day at Bosque De Paz.  We spent the day photographing various flora and fauna and the landscape.  We also had a great time with macro photography, both during the day and at night.  Another thing that makes Bousquet De Paz so great, is the employees. Not only do they do their job, but are always telling us about new birds that they have found so we could see them, and they would also bring subjects for us to photograph.

Yellow Ladyslipper

The River and Falls at Bosque de Paz

Aloe Flowers from Below

Coatimundi 

Black Phoebe

Now how we learnt how to do it.  Because Costa Rica is filled with jungles.  In these areas the light can be dim, partly dark and partly dark to to the sun filtering through the leaves of the trees, which makes the use of flash very helpful.  We used our flash on the camera or on a flash bracket attached to the camera plus a Better Beamer and varied the intensity of the light to give us fill flash and not overpower the natural light.

Normally at home for macro work.  I use dual flashes attached to the lens and they are controlled by a controller on the hot shoe.  Greg taught us how to use off-camera flash, so we could vary the direction the light illuminated the subject.  To accomplish this, methodology included a flash cord, remote flash controllers or if you have a Nikon with a built-in flash, it can be used as a controller for your handheld flash.  Also, a flash the fusion is helpful.  During the day you want to use the flash only as a fill flash where at night the flash power should be  on full  power as it will be the only  illumination.  Also at night, a headlight or LED torch is very useful along with an assistant.  The assistant is used to position the flash.  We used our torches to locate subjects for us to photograph and light up the subject, so we could focus on the subject.  Depending on the subject and which lenses we had, people either utilized a macro lens, a zoom lens or a zoom lens with a Canon 500 dual lens macro filter.  Not only did we use our torches to find subjects, but it also helped us walking on the dark paths.

Now on to pictures!

Caterpillar 

Fly

Katydid

Caterpillar 

Katydid Moulting

Back-lit Cricket

Walking Stick

Owl Moth

Giant Silk Moth

Brown Walking Stick

Spider

Spider

Glass Tree Frog

Family Cracidae

Plain Chachalaca - notice no rufous in its primaries

Because a good friend of mine is traveling shortly to Costa Rica to go birding I am dedicating this blog to him. Cracidae are a family of large, chicken like birds that occur in tropical and subtropical Central and South America. The Plain Chachalaca is present in the United States, in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. There are 50 different species in Cracidae and I have seen four of the species and photographed three of the species. Usually, you see these birds foraging on the ground for fruit and other food items. However, these birds are a boreal in nature and spent much of their time feeding nesting in roosting in trees. My first encounter with the Plain Chachalaca was on a photo shoot in Texas, where we were doing setups to photograph passerine's and flocks of the Chachalaca's would come in, land on the perches, and because area size and weight knocked down the perches and disrupting our photography. However, in their own right, they are interesting birds to photograph. One of the Cracidae a that I did see, but was unable to photograph because everything was packed the way, as we were getting ready to leave the Lodge for our trip to the next location was a Great Curassow. In Costa Rica, I was able to photograph the Gray-headed Chachalaca and the Black Guan.

Black Guan

Close-up of a Black Guan's head

Black Guan standing in the pouring rain

Gray-headed Chachalaca

Gray-headed Chachalaca - notice the rufous in its primaries

Plain Chachalaca

My Diary of My Trip to Costa Rica. Episode Three

Agoutis

What a difference a day makes, especially with a change in location.  We have traveled from the low lands rainforests would all it's heat in humidity to the cloud forest, where we were at 5000 feet and the weather was much cooler, requiring us to use extra layers of close.  Upon awakening, taking our cameras with us.  We went out to explore around the lodge and to photograph anything we could see.  On the hillside agoutis were rummaging around looking for food. Hummingbirds were flitting all over the area at the feeders that was set up, and also feeding on the native flowers.  Fresh coffee was available at 6 AM, I love Costa Rican coffee, drink it all in time, and have it shipped to me at home.

Settin up for Hummingbird Photography

The meals at the lodge were excellent, 3 courses and for breakfast, the first course was fresh fruit.  After breakfast, we were given information instructions on how the next few days would be conducted, and which equipment, we would need. We were divided into three groups, far our turns at the multi-flash hummingbird setups.  Each session would consist of one half-hour and they would be 2 sessions in the morning and 2 sessions in the afternoon.  We were shown how to set up the wireless flashes and their location.  What the settings should be on manual for the flashes and how to set up camera camera.  Some of those species that we were able to photograph were the violet sabrewing (Costa Rica's largest species), the purple-throated Mountain jam, and the green-crown brilliant.  In between sessions.  We try to photograph the elusive black-bellied hummingbird and the scintillant hummingbird (The Scintillant Hummingbird is the smallest hummingbird within its range, which includes only the mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama).

Green-crowned Brilliant

"Waiting"   Green-crowned Brilliant waiting for the sugar water

Violet  Sabrewing

Black-bellied Hummingbird

Scintillant Hummingbird

In between sessions, we photographed the landscapes, macro subjects, and other bird species. 

Running water

Black Guan

Caterpillar (A number of Costa Rica's Caterpillars are Poisonous)

Bromeliad

Rufous-naped Sparrow

Moth

After supper, there was opportunity to photograph the moths and other insects that gathered at on the white cloth that was hung on the side of the building illuminated with a blue light.

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