Costa Rica: A Photographer's View

In August 2014 I spent a fortnight in Costa Rica with my partner Helen, as part of a group on an organised “Exodus” trip. Costa Rica is very much a place to visit for tourists interested in its incredibly rich and diverse wildlife and environment, although it also offers excellent surfing and sun-soaked Pacific beaches. However, as befits a country with tropical rain forests the weather can be extremely wet! Whilst I was strictly on holiday I did, of course, record (where possible) the wildlife that we saw and, in the light of the “why feed the birds” subject of my major project, I was particularly interested in recording the Costa Ricans’ use of bird feeders to attract (mainly, but not exclusively) hummingbirds. During our fortnight I took 3300 photographs, ultimately keeping around 1000 as a photographic record of our visit. The following is a very brief commentary on our adventures.

Red-eyed Tree Frog, Manuel Antonio NP

The People

I’ve never been to an “exotic” country before where the people treated me as “part of the scenery”. They are not rude (quite the opposite), but they are presumably so used to seeing tourists that we don’t register as being unusual in any way. This was quite a revelation on the holiday. I also felt completely safe everywhere I went, although there is a small amount of petty crime at some of the major destinations. The Costa Ricans are clearly peace-loving people (they don’t have an army and have largely escaped the [civil] wars, which have recently affected some of their neighbours, unscathed).

The Landscape

Costa Rica has volcanoes and mountains reaching almost 4000 metres. But it also borders both the Caribbean and the Pacific oceans. The high rainfall (particularly in the east and in the mountain regions) produces lush vegetation (no deserts here!), which carpets large tracts of land and virtually all the mountain regions. As a consequence the landscape can start to look rather “samey” after a while: there are few exposed rocks or lone trees. This is not ideal habitat for landscape photographers! Upland areas are often hidden in a layer of cloud or mist, which can produce some atmospheric effects if you are happy to put up with a visibility of 10 – 50 metres. The limited numbers of landscape scenes that I photographed whilst in Costa Rica were mainly produced as representative images of what it was like to be there, rather than for their artistic or aesthetic qualities.

The Wildlife

Now you’re talking! Costa Rica has an incredibly rich, diverse and (importantly) colourful wildlife. It is possible to get close to monkeys, sloths, birds, snakes, frogs, spiders, crabs, butterflies and dragonflies. Not to mention all the orchids and other plant life. You name it, Costa Rica has it! With the exception of its secretive “big cats” (Puma, Ocelot and Jaguar), it is possible to find and take decent photographs of pretty much anything. The diversity of species reflects the diversity of habitats, so animals that are common at sea level may not occur up in the mountains and vice-versa.

Male Resplendent Quetzel, Savegre NP

So is Costa Rica the wildlife photographer’s dream? Well, not completely. For a start it rains heavily throughout the year and particularly in the summer and early autumn months (i.e. when we visited!). This causes problems with water getting into the camera lens (as happened to me on more than one occasion) and steaming up: good waterproofing of your equipment is strongly recommended! Also, much of the wildlife is found in and around forested areas, which are shady at the best of times and particularly when the weather is overcast and/or wet. Consequently you have to rely on the subject being static or, if it is moving, using a high to very high ISO setting (say 1000+) to capture the action without blurring. I mainly used my Nikon D7000 camera in these conditions. The camera has many qualities, but does exhibit some graininess at higher ISO settings. Images would not print up well under these circumstances.

A second problem was evident when we made a nocturnal visit to watch green turtles laying eggs on a Caribbean beach at Tortuguero. Strictly no photography! This rule was essential, because taking photographs may disturb the turtles and cause them to abort laying, but watching the huge female turtles emerging from the sea, digging holes, laying eggs and then covering them with sand was an amazing “once in a lifetime” experience, which would have produced a dream photographic sequence….

The Hummingbirds

During the first part of the holiday hummingbirds were in short supply. However, we had the opportunity in Monteverde National Park to visit a “hummingbird garden”, equipped with sugar feeders, where several species of hummingbird were zooming around, sometimes within a few inches of our faces. What an amazing experience, and definitely one of the highlights of the trip! However, we only had limited time and the light was very poor (overcast with light rain in a forest clearing), so I had to settle for some static images of various species, taken at high ISO values. Fortunately the final lodge we visited, in Savegre National Park, had several (mainly hummingbird) feeders and attracted good numbers of three main montane species (we were situated at 2200 metres altitude). The staff had gone to some lengths to provide natural perches for the hummingbirds and I was finally able, on the penultimate day of the holiday, to get some decent photographs of the hummingbirds at rest. The commonest (and most photogenic) species was the Green Violet-ear: I took over 100 photographs of this bird, one of which is shown below.

Magnificent Hummingbird at Feeder, Savegre NP

Green Violet-ear Hummingbird, Savegre NP

Photographing the hummingbirds hovering and feeding on nectar proved challenging, even though they kept their bodies still during the process. My favourite portraits were all of static birds.

Do the hummingbird feeding stations in Costa Rica provide any insights for my project work? The feeders are easy to set up and common throughout the Americas, obviously benefit the birds and provide pleasure for tourists and locals alike. Monitoring birds coming to feeders provides useful information for conservationists and there is commercial gain for the manufacturers and lodge/hotel owners (the latter would attract fewer visitors if they did not provide feeders in areas where hummingbirds are common). The provision of “natural” perching posts close to the feeders encourages wildlife photographers. Unfortunately we don’t have hummingbirds in the UK, but many of the reasons for feeding the birds in Costa Rica are equivalent to our own reasons. Perhaps the biggest gain of all would be the personal pleasure gained by the private home owner or tenant, in the UK or overseas, who can get close to the birds and enjoy watching their activity by providing them with the food that they need.

Madagascar: A Photographic Tour (September 2013)

In September 2013 I spent a fortnight in Madagascar with my partner Helen as part of a group on an organised “Exodus” trip. Of course I was particularly interested in seeing and photographing the unique wildlife of the island (and in particular its lemurs), a high proportion of which are endemic.

The wildlife did not disappoint: we saw 13 species of lemurs together with a bewildering array of birds, reptiles (including some spectacular chameleons), amphibians and invertebrates. However, we also had plenty of opportunities to observe and interact with the Malagasy people, both on the long bus journeys that were involved with crossing the island from east to west and during rest and overnight stops.

During our fortnight on the island I took over 3000 photographs, ultimately keeping around 1000 as a photographic record of our visit. The images below give a flavour of the wildlife and the people that we came across.

Wildlife

Madagascar is most famous for its lemurs, a family of mammals that exists in the wild only here and on one or two other small Indian Ocean islands. It is now possible to track some of the rarer lemurs in Madagascar’s reserves using transmitters and receivers, together with the knowledge of the excellent local guides. As a consequence we were able to observe two of the rarest mammals in the world, the Golden and Greater Bamboo Lemurs. However, photographing lemurs in the wild proved, in most cases, to be incredibly difficult. Animals were often high in the tree canopy, in the shade, but adjacent to bright patches of light as the sun shone through gaps in the foliage. I had to resort to manual focussing and bracketing images: even so, most were unusable. Fortunately the commoner lemurs (in particular Ring-tailed Lemurs [Image 1] and Verreaux’s Sifakas) proved to be rather more photogenic: consequently, a high proportion of my lemur images feature these two species. A few nocturnal lemurs, including Hubbard’s Sportive Lemur (Image 2) were also seen in the daytime.

Image 1: Ring-tailed Lemurs, Anja NP

Image 2: Hubbard’s Sportive Lemur, Zombitse NP

Madagascar has more species of (endemic) chameleons than the whole of Africa and we were lucky to see several of these including Parson’s Chameleon (Image 3), the largest in the world. Birdlife seen included a high proportion of species endemic to Madagascar, together with familiar birds such as Great White Egret and Common Myna. Madagascar Hoopoes (Image 4) look very similar to European and African Hoopoes, but are a separate species. We also saw some amazing invertebrates, including giant spiders (non-venomous!), praying mantises, stick insects, scorpions, crabs and the bizarre Giraffe-necked Weevil!

Image 3: Parson’s Chameleon, Perinet NP

Image 4: Madagascar Hoopoes, Anakao

People

The Malagasy people are, with a few exceptions, incredibly poor yet very dignified. The country has recently been rocked by political upheaval, whilst corruption and economic mismanagement amongst senior officials have made matters worse. Birth control is virtually non-existent in a country where Catholicism (introduced by the French, who colonised the country from 1895 to 1960) is the major religion, and AIDS is rampant. Half the population is under 20 years of age, but the average life expectancy is only 62.

 Our tour involved several long bus journeys and I became habituated to taking photographs of the landscape and the people through the bus windows as we drove along, or at the various stops along the route. Images 5-8 are representative of the many hundreds of photographs that I took along the way.

Image 5: Broom Wholesaler and Traders, Antananarivo

Image 6: Malagasy Boy with Coke Bottle

Image 7: Rum Factory Worker near Tulear

Image 8: Malagasy Couple on Traditional Boat, Anakao

Some parts of the capital, Antananarivo, were designated as “no go” areas for tourists, but otherwise our movements were not restricted and we enjoyed interacting with the people, bartering for souvenirs and learning about the culture. This was a fascinating holiday, both for the traveller and for the travel photographer, and I have had no problems putting together a slide show that shines a light on this unique country, its wildlife and its people.

Learning Points

·         Photographing subjects in forests where there are extremes of contrast is extremely tricky! To stand a chance of getting decent results it seems best to shoot entirely manually and I should consider bracketing exposures using the D7000 in order to under- and over-expose by (say) two shots.

·         Concentration is required at all times to capture that “decisive moment”!

For a selection of other wildlife images, see my gallery at: www.roystonwildlife.com