COSTA RICA

After a hearty breakfast, we drive to our first destination, a rainforest lodge with feeders that offers unmatched opportunities to photograph Toucans, Oropendolas, Tanagers, Honeycreepers, and Parrots among many other birds. After a quick lunch at the birding deck, we set off for our first birding session. Review sessions would be conducted in the evening, tips and techniques regarding photographing rainforest birds would be shared with the participants along with some photo editing techniques. Dinner followed by overnight at lodge.

We will start our day shooting from the deck in early morning light. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn how perches are selected and set up for photography at feeders. After breakfast, we will prepare for the next session – shooting king vultures from a specially designed hide by the award winning Bence Matte. Return for lunch and head to the lodge managers house for a session at a blind – one for honeycreepers and one for a multi-flash hummingbird setup. Birds targeted during this session will be Green Honeycreeper, Red legged Honeycreeper, Shining Honeycreeper, and Blue Dacnis. At this time, we will also keep an eye out for the occasional Chestnut-colored Woodpecker and other surprises. Review session in the evening followed by dinner and overnight at the lodge.

On this day, we will have multiple options. After breakfast, we will spend some time shooting more birds at the feeders. In the meantime, we will work on a setup to photograph rainforest frogs like Strawberry Poison Dart Frog, Green and Black Poison Frog, Red-eyed Tree Frog and few more. There is also a possibility to shoot Eyelash Vipers and other reptiles during this session. We will end this day with an exciting session of photographing bats at night. Breakfast, lunch and dinner inclusive.
There is an option to add a session of boating on this day in the San Carlos river. This is an optional trip and has an additional cost.

Today we will leave the Atlantic rainforest early morning and reach our next location, a private farm with restricted access to look for some endemic specialties like the Honduran White Bats, Spectacled Owls among many other local rarities. We will enjoy a homemade lunch today with the local guides and then proceed to our lodge. A short afternoon siesta and then we will head to a location famous for photographing frogs. This afternoon we will try to make great macro images of the Red-eyed Tree Frog, Glass Frog, Eyelash Viper and many other species.
For the next 2 days we will visit some private farms for Macaws and look for other birds on walking trails as we try out several different things. This is the period that truly makes our trips different from the others as we try to maximize opportunities with rare birds from different altitudes. Breakfast, lunch and dinner inclusive.

After an early breakfast this morning, we head across and then up into the Talamanca Mountain Range en route to our last destination, the high cloud forests just on the Pacific side of the Continental Divide. The farms here are run with a collaborative effort between the family that owns the lodge and the local farmers. We will spend the afternoon photographing the amazing high-altitude hummingbird species like Fiery-throated Hummingbird, Green Violet-Ear, and Magnificent Hummingbird. Breakfast, lunch and dinner inclusive.

Before breakfast, we will head out with the lodge owner to look for the Resplendent Quetzal, the highlight species for all birders visiting Costa Rica. The lodge owner and his family have started a project to work with local farmers in the area to monitor and protect the Quetzal, and this network raises our probability of seeing this beautiful species. After breakfast, we will work on our multi-flash hummingbird photography and also photograph the local birds at our feeder setups. Breakfast, lunch and dinner inclusive.

This would be our last birding session at Talamanca Cloud Forest, we will spend the morning shooting outdoors. Later depart for San José. Post a sumptuous lunch we conduct another review session, here again you will get all your queries answered by our tour leader. Please note that dinner is not inclusive in the package for the last night.

In the morning, private transfers to the airport for your flight home. After ten days of intensive and thrilling photo tour at the Cloud Forests of Costa Rica, it is time to head home with a lot of memories to share and stories to tell.