Green Heron: Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica, December 2023 — The community owned dock in Puerto Viejo is home to several shallow bottomed boats with rain and sun awnings that will take you, on a good day, upstream on the Sarapiqui and then up the Rio Puerto Viejo into the heart for the La Selva Biological Station. I say a good day because the water levels have to be fairly high, and yet the current not too strong. On downstream days it is still a nice ride, but downstream is through mostly banana plantations, and upstream in into the rainforest…so you always see more wildlife on upstream days. I was resigned to having a downstream trip this year, but the boat captain decided at the last moment to take us upstream. These boat captains (or this boat captain, I am pretty sure I have always had the same boat) know the river intimately, and can find the resident and visiting birds and wildlife with amazing accuracy. No two trips are the same, of course, but I have seen some very interesting wildlife from the boat. This bird, though a great bird to see anywhere, is not maybe a good example of interesting…as it is bird that you can see pretty much anywhere from the Canadian Border (a few even breed in Canada), all down through the US, south through Central American, to the Amazon drainage and northern South America. Always around water…shallow rivers, lakes, and ponds. We have them nesting around ponds here in Southern Maine. So I can’t say I was over-the-top excited to see this one on the Sarapiqui in Costa Rica…but it is still a good bird and always fun to photograph. This one was nicely posed against the shadows of the undergrowth on the bank of the river. OM Systems OM-1 with ED 100-400mm IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Photomator.