Hello iNatters,
It may seem as if I have dropped off the face of the iNat world (was that a distant cheer I heard? :-), and in a very real sense, that has been true since I’ve had no Internet connection (or even a useable cell phone signal) since the evening of January 26. But I have been taking lots of images which will get posted on iNat when time and Internet conditions permit. I will make this initial blog (I guess this is a blog?) post and sort of keep it as a running journal of this trip for those interested.
I have a friend, David Ferry (who is not on iNat but an O.K. guy anyway), who I have known for 38 years. He is a retired physician from southern California and a superb bird/wildlife photographer. Every now and then David gives me a call and we abandon our wives for a while and take off to do some bird photography someplace. This time Dave’s idea was Costa Rica. I have been in Costa Rica several times before, but the most recent trip was more than 20 years ago, so I was well out of practice with Costa Rican birds, etc. We planned out a three-week trip back in the summer of 2015, and on January 26, 2016, we met up in the Dallas airport and then flew down to San Jose, Costa Rica. We spent the night in a hotel in the city, then on the morning of the 27th, we picked up a rental car and launched off toward the Nicaraguan border. We were headed toward an eco-lodge named Laguna del Largarto in northern Costa Rica about 10 miles from Nicaragua. We had a Garmin GPS road navigator, several maps as well as driving directions sent to us from the lodge, so we should be fine…..right? Well, not so much. It was a total of perhaps 150 miles or there-abouts, but about 1/3 the distance was on very rugged dirt roads (read 15-20 mph max) with few signs and many roads going in many directions. The poor little Kia Sportage we rented (less than 4000 kilometers on the odometer) never before saw such roads, I’m sure (but we have only had one flat tire…so far). We arrived at our destination, after a few roadway adventures, about 6 hours after our departure from San Jose. Laguna del Largarto is in a lowland forest location, so it is quite warm and humid. It is near the Rio San Carlos which flows north into the Rio San Juan at the Nicaraguan border, just a few miles away. Our room at the lodge was spartan and utilitarian but quite clean and it had a fan! All three meals each day are served on a large open-air deck with a roof with lots of perches set up at eye level where a host of toucans, parrots, a few tanagers and many other birds come to feed on bananas put out for them, much to the delight of bird photographers! Every now and then a troop of 12-15 Coatimundis comes into the area like a military assault unit to grab the bananas which is always a riot to watch. We had arranged for a guide at the lodge who caters to photographers so we had access to several photo blinds and other photo opportunities which was a special treat. I will mention a few details about the photos with the photo records themselves when I post then rather than going into it all here. Suffice it to say the image quality will range from quite high-end images that I consider among the best stuff I’ve ever taken, to some quick “iNat photos” taken from a great distance, from a moving boat, or out of the car window along roadsides or in some cases from a Land Rover. Although designed as a bird photo trip, I tend to get distracted by butterflies, dragonflies, frogs, etc., from time to time as some of the images will illustrate. Dave and I are fortunate enough to have professional quality photo gear and on occasion we manage to use it correctly, so some of the shots I would consider of excellent quality. I hope you will agree.
We left Laguna del Largarto this morning, February 2, headed toward another eco-lodge called Bosque de Paz which is where I am now....with Internet for three nights! I will add comments to this posting as we go along the trip and as Internet availability and my time permit. I had 393 emails waiting! We will visit two additional locations after Bosque de Paz. We are often busy all day with barely enough time to download images at night, so it will take me some time to catch up. We plan to be home February 14, and at the rate things are going now, I will have many very nice images from the trip (along with many images destined for iNat eyes only :-).
Greg