Costa Rica

My wife and I had a wonderful adventure in February 2020 to visit the amazing country of Costa Rica. Our main mission was to see the wide variety of unique birds and wildlife that live there. The birds in the top row are the Potoo (related to owls), Great Kiskadee and Keel-billed Toucan. The second row shows a hopping Collared Aracari and a Red-legged Honeycreeper with the bottom row showing a Gold-hooded Tanager, Barred Antshrike and a Blue-gray Tanager. So many birds I've never seen before.

The variety of hummingbirds in Costa Rica is amazing. The first sheet shows some taking a rest and the next shows hummingbirds in flight.   I haven't had a chance to ID them all.

The monkeys were very entertaining to watch in Costa Rica. We saw White-faced Capuchin monkeys (top right/bottom) and Howler Monkeys. It was especially entertaining watching a mother Howler Monkey trying to hold back her young explorer (mid right) as you can see she's about to grab his tail to hold him back…he eventually pulled out of her grasp.

One animal I looked forward to seeing in Costa Rica was the Sloth (saw 2 and 3 toed). The first three photos are a juvenile male; the mid-right image is a male who climbed to the very top of a tall tree (bottom right) while we watched - only to find that he couldn't reach the branch on the next tree he had his eye on - poor spatial acuity; and bottom left is a baby laying on its mother's chest high in a tree. Sloths have an entire ecosystem on their body - there is a green algae that only grows on their fur and helps to camouflage them and a moth that eats the algae that only lives on sloths. There are 26 different organisms that depend on the sloth.

Some more of the wildlife we saw in Costa Rica (below right): A Scarlet Macaw, a Frigatebird in flight, a very large (6') Iguana, and an Agouti who was munching grass outside our patio. We hired a guide one night to take us on a jungle walk near Manuel Antonio NP with headlamps to look for tree frogs and found this red-eyed tree frog. We felt very lucky to find the tree frog at night with the help of a guide since we were there in the dry season.

During our boat trips in Costa Rica we saw 4 different types of kingfishers and 9 different herons.  Shown here (L-R) are the American Pygmy Kingfisher, Amazon Kingfisher devouring a fish and Green Kingfisher.  Some of the herons were the Boat-billed (center with the big eyes), Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Fasciated Tiger-Heron and Green Heron.  The diversity of birds and wildlife was almost overwhelming, but so encouraging to see in light of all the news about declining bird populations.

Some interesting creatures in Costa Rica. Leaf cutter ants (top left) are the only farmers other than people. They bring leaf pieces back to their nest and wait for a fungus to grow on the leaves which is what they actually eat. There are many interesting spiders - the golden orb spider and the Long horned orb-weaver among them - the latter had just caught a beetle. The black wasp's blue wings really stood out on the path we were hiking. The owl eye butterfly was cool, though not as spectacular as the blue morph (difficult to photograph). We saw quite a few long nose bats hanging on trees. 

The beautiful landscape of Costa Rica is typified in the top image with a newly born colt and its parents (there was still blood on the mother's leg) and Mt Areal, an active volcano, is in the distance.  The sunsets are from Monteverde (upper) and Manuel Antonio NP (lower).  We visited a school on Valentine's Day and the students made us cards which we brought home with us (bottom left).



Some of the birds were just beyond description.  My two favorites were the Turquoise-browed Motmot (top 2 images) and the Resplendent Quetzel.  The male has these amazing, long tail feathers that stick out of the hole in the tree when he goes inside.

California Condors

The California Condor chick sits on the ledge at the bottom while Mom and Dad sit up above.

While in Zion National Park in October 2019, I took the shuttle bus towards the end of the canyon. At the next to last stop, the driver announced that there was a ranger with a scope who was looking at a family of California Condors. My wife in I were on our way to hike the Narrows, but I made a mental note to come back and bring my camera with the 500mm lens and 2x teleconverter. That evening we went back and saw the Condor chick sitting on a ledge on the canyon wall - about 1/4 up the 2000’ face. After a short time the father came soaring into the canyon and slowly made his way down to feed the chick.

The Condor has a 9-1/2’ wingspan and looks majestic as it soars in the thermal currents near the cliff. The chick at this point is almost as large. Several decades ago there were only 22 Condors left in the world. After capturing them and running a breeding program there are now about 400 Condors - and here are almost 1% of them.

I noticed that the Condor’s shadow was showing up from time to time on the canyon wall as the condor glided down to the chick. I patiently followed the condor with my camera hoping that the shadow would fall into the same frame as the Condor. My wish came true and I got this photo.

This is an overview of what we were looking at and the arrow shows where the chick was sitting. The canyon wall above the arrow is where the adult Condor was flying and casting its shadow. You can see the zoom achieved with a 1000mm lens equivalent.

Grand Canyon Sunrise and Sunset

The Grand Canyon is very difficult to capture in a photograph because of its sheer expanse and the overwhelming feeling of insignificance one feels while standing on the rim. All I could hope for was to try and capture the amazing colors which are most evident at sunrise or sunset. When we first arrived at the canyon in mid-April, it was completely engulfed in clouds and fog. There were only brief moments when we could see that there was something down below.

The next morning we got up at 5am to drive into the park and walked out to Mather Point. The clouds were now up above the canyon, but they were very thick and extended to the horizon so I feared that the sunrise would not be visible. Finally we could see some hints of light and then the sun exploded through a hole in the clouds which I was able to capture in the image below with my 16-35mm lens. I wanted to include as much of the canyon as I could so this was shot at 16mm and I also wanted a starburst effect for the sun so I set the lens at ƒ/16. Using ISO100 I needed a 1.3 second exposure.

Sunrise over the Grand Canyon from Mather Point.

That evening, after exploring all of the western lookout points using the amazing shuttle bus system, we drove back to Yavapai Point where the geology museum is located. It became quite evident that the sunset was going to be a disappointment since there were only a few thin clouds in the sky. So, I turned 180 degrees and looked to the east to see the canyon’s many formations lit by the setting sun which cast wonderful shadows. I also noticed that the full moon was rising above the canyon, but with the sun still above the horizon, it was washed out by the sky.

The sun setting with the full moon rising at Yavapai Point. (ƒ/11 1/160 22mm ISO800)

So, I waited until the sun had set and turned my attention to the moon, framing the shot and setting up my tripod. The glow from the setting sun cast beautiful tones over the canyon and the sky darkened so that the moon shone brightly with lots of contrast. The photograph below was shot at ƒ/16 to get as much detail as I could with a 15 second exposure to ensure capturing the subtle colors that were being highlighted by the reflected light. (19mm ISO100)

The moon rising over the Grand Canyon at Yavapai Point.