Costa Rica Birds
Costa Rica is a tropical forest filled with fabulous birds and wildlife. The temperatures during our tour In January 2025 were warm and humid with frequent showers, so bring rain gear for both you and your equipment. The people of Costa Rica are warm, welcoming and most speak English. Our accommodations were lovely, clean, spacious and all air conditioned. Food choices are many, varied and excellent. All in all, a wonderful country to explore and photograph.
The main focus of our tour were birds, frogs and snakes with a few mammals along the way. Our tour leader, Colby Brown, our bus driver, Wilson, and our guide Kenneth Martinez, were incredible the entire trip. All three were available at all times for questions, suggestions, assistance with luggage or equipment, jokes, hugs and smiles. Due to unusually heavy rains one of our planned hotels was inaccessible as the road had washed out in several places and within 5 minutes we were on our way to a new hotel (which was quite lovely) and new photographic stops. It says a lot about a tour leader/group that can pivot so seamlessly and quickly when conditions take a turn for the worst.
As to the photography portion of the tour - it was exceptional! Every stop except one was an abundance of opportunity to photograph quetzals, hummingbirds, toucans, tanagers, water birds, cara cara, and many small birds. Colby was always near at hand for advice about composition, settings, issues with equipment, information on the birds. The one exception was the last day of our tour when we went in search of a leucistic toucan that had been spotted but failed to turn up for us - which is not uncommon when searching for an extremely rare bird. The last three days of our tour we focused on macro photography. For many of us it was a totally new experience and a good one. Colby held a class one evening explaining the differences between taking macro images vs the fast moving birds we had been photographing. The next day we had an entire day with Colby and crew setting up various branches/leaves/logs for us to photograph frogs and snakes that were caught in the forest around us. It was exciting, exhilarating and amazing. We learned how to use off camera flash with soft boxes, multiple soft boxes while all the time closely guarded by Colby and staff to assure we were in no danger.
All in all it was a truly marvelous tour with great photographic opportunities, memories and new found friends.