Posts in Category: rain-forest
Costa Rica! Both sides now
Collared Aracari: Selva Verde Lodge and Reserve, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, December 2023 — I began to think we were going to get through our whole time at Selva Verde without seeing an Aracari…which would have been very strange for December…but a small group finally showed up early one morning in the rain. Toucans in general were in short supply while we were there. Facebook friends tell me they are coming to feeding stations in their normal numbers now, so maybe it was just some heavy crop of fruit they like in the rainforest that was keeping them busy away from the feeders. I hope so. OM System OM-1 with ED 100-400mm IS zoom at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Costa Rica! Celebrity
Red-eyed Leaf Frog: Selva Verde Lodge and Reserve, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, December 2023 — One of the “poster” species for Costa Rican conservation, the Red-eyed Leaf Frog, in its more colorful Caribbean slope variety. They are easy to find right at the foot of the stairs going up to the dining hall at Selva Verde. Flash is not allowed on the Selva Verde grounds, but the frogs do not seem disturbed by led flashlights and even small video lights, and they often sit in one spot for ten or fifteen minutes, so they are relatively easy to photograph. I always use a long lens with close focus so as to disturb them as little as possible. OM Systems OM-1 with ED 100-400mm zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my birds and wildlife modifications. ISO 6400 @ f6.3 @ 1/200th. -0.7EV. Processed in Photomator.
Costa Rica! Crested Quan
Crested Quan: Selva Verde Lodge and Reserve, Sarapique Valley, Costa Rica, December 2024 — Another find from our morning photo walk at Selva Verde Lodge: the Crested Guan. Bigger than a chicken, slightly smaller than a turkey, this is a large bird of humid forests all through tropical Central America and the lowlands of northern South America. They forage both on the ground and on tree branches, generally in small groups and pairs. This shot was from quite a distance. OM Systems OM-1 with the ED 100-400mm IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Costa Rica! Focus stacked frog
Red-eyed Leaf Frog: Selva Verde Lodge, Sarapique Valley, Costa Rica — the poster child for Costa Rican conservation, the Red-eyed Leaf Frog (or Tree Frog) is one of the main attractions of Selva Verde Lodge. They have a healthy population right at the foot of the stairs leading up to the dinning hall. They are nocturnal and sensitive to flash so you have to photograph them with led movie lights or with flashlights. This year I got to try the OM Systems OM-1’s in-camera focus stacking…which takes 8 images and stacks them to get the whole frog in focus at the same time. Quite a trick. Especially working from my monopod beanbag. I cannot argue with the results though! Perhaps my best Red-eyed Leaf Frog shot to date. 🙂 As noted the OM Systems OM-1 with the ED 100-400mm IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications and in-camera focus stacking. Processed in Photomator.
Geoffroy’s Tamarin
Geoffroy’s Tamarin: Canopy Tower, Panama, July 2022 — Tamarins are among the smallest of primates, and the Geoffroy’s is small for a Tamarin (1.1 pounds). It is also the only Tamarin in Panama. There are at least three families of Tamarin’s who live on Semaphore Hill and visit the Canopy Tower several times a day. The kitchen and dinning staff enjoy putting out bananas for them, sending the bananas out on a kind of pulley string to a branch at eye-level, or swinging a banana out on a string to drape over an even closer branch. If there are no bananas out, a single Tamarin may come and wait for one, but as soon as the banana appears the whole family comes running through the canopy to join in. At first glance the Tamarins are more cat-like than monkey-like, but they have long prehensile tails and definitely use their “hands” as we do, for grasping and grooming, and generally holding on to things. They are always calling to each other, and their habit of pulling their lips back to show their row of tiny, very sharp teeth, give them a somewhat fierce appearance. They are great fun to watch as they clamber over the trees, and each other. One of the families had a two “toddlers” and they are, if possible, even cuter than the the adults. Sony Rx10iv at various focal lengths for framing. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos.
Black-crowned Antpitta
Black-crowned Antpitta: Canopy Lodge, Panama, July 2022 — The Antpittas are all smallish birds that stay pretty close to the ground in the dense undergrowth of old growth rainforest through Central and South America, where they follow Army Ant swarms and feast on other ants of the forest. Most are listed as “rare”, but I think that is due mainly to how difficult they are to see. The Black-crowned ranges through most of Panama, and is found in Columbia and Costa Rica as well. We found this one in dense forest on the edge of the huge chicken farm above Canopy Lodge. And of course, photographing an antpitta is always a challenge…down low in heavy undergrowth, with limited lines of sight,and never enough light. They do have the habit of hopping up on a log and running the length of it…every antpitta I have seen, we first spotted when it did that. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications and multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/20th and 1/25th. Plus .3 EV.
Riverside Wren
Riverside Wren: Danta Corcovado Lodge, Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica (Osa Peninsula) — Today marks the transition from my first December trip of 2021 to my second, as we flew from San Jose to Puerto Jimenez in a small 12 passenger plane and reached Danta Corcovado Lodge just before noon. We had time for short hike to show us “something really special” before we sat down to eat. The something special turned out to be a Fer-de-lance snake coiled up at the base of a tree right by the trail. They rushed us out to it because, of course, there was no telling when it would disappear into the forest (I posted a photo in December), but the first bird of the Osa of note was this Riverside Wren in the deep understory of the rainforest. The Riverside Wren, as it turns out, is a fairly common bird, and not hard to see, but you have to be in the Pacific Lowlands of Costa Rica and adjacent Panama, where the bird is endemic, to see it…and this was my first journey to the Osa Peninsula and its unique habitats. Like most wrens, it has a wonderful song. Sony Rx10iv at 371mm equivalent. Program mode with wildlife modifications and multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/200th (very dark in there). + .3 EV.
Right place, right time, ready!
Red-legged Honeycreeper: Donde Cope, Gaupiles, Costa Rica — When I teach wildlife and nature photography I tell my students that 90% of wildlife photography is “being in the right place, at the right time, and ready”. Donde Cope…Cope’s home in Gaupiles, Limon, Costa Rica…is one of the “rightest” places I can image. Cope has created a miniature bird and wildlife sanctuary on the tiny village plot around his home, where you can see and photograph birds, lizards, and frogs (and some years sloths) at incredibly close range. And most days are the right time to be there…some better than others of course…dry weather is nice (or at least not pouring rain…or maybe better, not dark rain), but then a gentle rain will make the birds more active, and deepen the colors…so, yes, most any time is a good time to be at Cope’s. That only leaves “ready”. And by “ready” I mean a whole bunch of things that the photographer can do, and should do, in advance…but I also mean the sum total of the photographers experience brought to bear on each moment. You need, of course, a camera that you are comfortable with and which you know well enough so that you no longer have to “think about how it works.” You either need to have set it up for a variety of situations, and have those settings stored for easy access, or you need to know how to set it quickly as conditions change. To my way of thinking the best camera is the one you have to think about least while taking photos. You need to be able to read the light well enough to know which program to set on the camera. At Cope’s the canopy is close and heavy, so light levels are always low. I set my camera for my “low light” program…which includes multi-frame noise reduction, and hope for the best. Then it is all about seeing the subject and framing. And taking a lot of photos. Birds, especially are always moving. You need to keep them in sight and in frame. Then you just press the shutter button and let the camera do its work (or that is my theory anyway). This honeycreeper, one of the brightest and most active birds at ground level in the rain forest, landed on a stump only a few feet from me. I got it in frame and shot off a series of photos. I have the focus set to a small movable spot in the center, which I trust to put the bird in focus if I can get it anywhere on the bird. Because you can not use multi-frame noise reduction and continuous shooting at the same time, taking multiple shots meant pressing the shutter button repeatedly while the bird was still in frame. All three of the shots I saved from the sequence are keepers. This is perhaps my favorite, and I, personally, think it is stunning! I love the color, the detail, and the dynamic pose. I love what it says about the bird…how absolutely Red-legged Honeycreeper it is! Just right time, rights place, and ready. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 561mm equivalent (I must have zoomed back a bit to keep the bird in frame, but that is almost instinctive at this point and with this camera, and I trust the zoom to be tack sharp at whatever setting I need). Program mode with my low light modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/320th. (And again, I am confident enough of the my low light program to just let the camera do its thing…I did not choose those settings…the camera did. 🙂 So, right place, right time, and ready.
Toucans!
Yellow-throated and Keel-billed Toucans, Collared Aracari: Dave and Dave’s Costa Rican Nature Park, La Virgen, Costa Rica — We spent our second full morning in Costa Rica, and our second day of heavy rain, safe and dry on the covered observation deck and the back porch at Dave and Dave’s Costa Rican Nature Park. In fact, Dave and Dave accommodated us by rescheduling our visit so that we could avoid getting soaked a second day in a row (it happened to be the last of the heavy rains for the trip). Dave and Dave, father and son, have, over the past 40 years, created a birder’s and photographers paradise on their property on the high bluff that overlooks the Sarapique River. Once a banana plantation, they have carefully reintroduced native plants and trees to attract a wide variety of birds and wildlife. Because they are on the bluff, right at the edge of the drop to the river, they are also at canopy level on one side, which gives them a unique mix of understory and canopy birds. It is a reliable place to see 3 of the 6 species of Toucans in Costa Rica…Yellow-throated and Keel-billed Toucan, and the Collared Aricari. (We had already seen a 4th, the Emerald Toucanet, the previous day higher in the mountains where they hang out, and 3 of us would see the Fiery-billed Aricari at the mid-elevation Wilson Botanical Gardens on the Pacific Slope the following week…leaving out only the somewhat harder to see Yellow-eared Toucanet for the two trips.) Though it rained hard off and on all morning, and we were very thankful for the cover, it did not discourage the Toucans. At times we had all three in view at the same time. Where to look?! I have said this before, but if you are into bird photography at all, don’t miss Dave and Daves on any visit to Costa Rica. Tanagers, Saltators, Honeycreepers, Woodpeckers, Toucans, Manakins, and one of the best selections of Rain Forest hummingbirds any where…and all from sheltered observation. It does not really get any better. Sony Rx10iv at various zoom settings for framing these large birds. Program mode with multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Black-cowled Oriole
Another infrequent visitor to the feeders at Selva Verde Lodge in the Sarapiqui valley of Costa Rica is the Black-cowled Oriole. The most common Oriole there in December is the Baltimore, wintering from North America, but you do occasionally see the resident Black-cowled. A striking bird by any standard! Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications, plus Multi-frame Noise Reduction. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.