Blog - Paul Hobson Wildlife Photography

Date: 03/03/2016

Costa Rica rainforest.

Keel-billed toucan

As a general rule I am more drawn to the wildlife and environments of the cold north than the hot tropics. Saying this, however, I have a real love affair with Costa Rica and its rainforests.

green crowned brilliant

There are draw backs; I am not keen on the heat and humidity of many rainforests but those we visited on our recent Nature’s Images trip tended to be at higher altitudes and much cooler. The wildlife here though retrains its tropical feel with incredible colours and variety.

Red-legged honey creeper

Birds often feature high on many peoples wish list and I am no different but I also have a tremendous love of invertebrates and herptiles and Costa Rica definitely does not let you down in this respect.

Most rainforests are difficult places to work. I have been in both the Amazon and Congo rainforests and whilst I knew I was surrounded by an incredible diversity of wild creatures it was another matter to actually see many.

White-nosed Coati mundi

Costa Rica, if planned well, is different and the lodges we stayed at provided fantastic opportunities. In many cases we had to find our own animals but the lodges provided hummingbird and other feeders that attracted a good array of species.

Owl moth

Another aspect of this trip was that we took a couple of high speed flash set ups to work with the hummingbirds. These are not essential and in many cases I actually preferred the non-flash images or ones that combined natural light and a dab of fill flash.

However, I do like the high speed stuff, it does have an air of artificiality about the images but it also added a new dimension to the trip.

Oropendula

Perhaps, well definitely, my favourite work was done with the snakes, frogs and bats. I loved these particularly the latter (which will be shown in my next blog). The pit vipers are fantastic creatures, form, function and colour just blow my mind.

Agouti

We visited a number of lodges and each offered a different set of species and climate. Travelling is not difficult and bar the odd dodgy road driving is straight forward.

My last trip to Bulgaria had been a difficult, though very enjoyable trip. This one was just brilliant from beginning to end, the group were fantastic, thanks to one and all, the wildlife performed to order and a few unexpected bonuses added a fantastic layer of icing to an already scrummy cake.