Rufous-tailed Jacamar

Rufous-tailed Jacamar: La Selva Biological Station, Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica — We switched our visit to La Selva Biological Station from our fist day in the Sarapique rain forest to our last day…since it was predicted to pour rail all day that first day, and La Selva is not nearly as much fun in the rain. La Selva is a large preserve at the foot of the mountains, and it connects to a continuous swath or protected land that runs all the way to the summit. The reserve itself has one of highest levels of biodiversity on the planet…one of the highest number of bird species for the size of the area of anywhere you might go, and the scientists who visit there to study tropical biology have access to every tropical climate zone. La Selva is owned by the Organization for Tropical Studies, an international consortium of universities, and exists only to protect the land and habitat and provide accommodations and field sights for researchers from all over the world. The road into La Selva is one of the top birding destination in the world, as are the (mostly paved) paths within. (They are paved because the station covers such a vast area that the only practical way for researchers to reach their sites each day is by bicycle.) While I love the diversity and access La Selva provides, I have to say that I have yet to visit the station when we did not get rained on…and pretty wet. 🙂 The up side is the bird variety you can see in a few hours around the grounds and on the first mile or so of some of the trails. This Jacamar was perched under deep cover right at one end of the famous foot suspension bridge over the Puerto Viejo river. If you have ever tried to photograph from a suspension bridge when others are crossing, you can imagine the difficulty level of this shot 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with wildlife modifications and multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Pixomator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/160th.

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