by Todd Gustafson

Our lodge is right by the Tarcoles River as it meanders to the Pacific Ocean. It’s my first time on this coast in 8 trips to Costa Rica and I love it!

Our day started at 5:30 AM heading for the boat that took us out on the river. There were lots of birds that are common in North America but there were some local specialties too. We had great shots of Yellow-headed Caracara, Groove-billed Ani in golden light, and dramatic shots of a HUGE American crocodile. The highlights were a fly over of Scarlet Macaws in the morning light and a Spectacled Owl.

The rest of the day was spent at the lodge doing macro photography of frogs, iguanas, and leaf-cutter ants carrying bits of pink flowers. I’m calling today “Day of the Reptiles.” Every species we photographed is unique to this area. The red-eyed tree frogs have completely different side bar coloration than the Caribbean species, while the iguanas in the area are black iguanas instead of green. They have the brown basilisk lizard and the powerful American croc. We ended our day on a Pacific beach and watched the sun go down in orange fire behind Isle Nebular where they filmed a lot of Jurassic Park. It was really cool!

Tonight is a macro frog shoot!

It was the frog march to end all frog marches. Yehudi and Luis had stopped at a grocery store and got me Maria's cookies and a cold coke so I was ready to go. We hiked to the end of the hotel road and then a mile up a rocky mountain stream where we found a dozen frogs and toads of different species. They all had different and wild eyes and the coolest one was a baby glass frog. You could see his little heart pumping when you put a flashlight under the leaf he was on.

Next day >>