Our Costa Rica Quetzal and Macaw photo tour offers superb opportunities to photograph both Scarlet Macaws and Resplendent Quetzals. Our tour will be led by nature photographer Laura Fellows and accompanied by an expert birding/naturalist guide who will take us into rainforests and cloud forests to find and identify the birds and animals we photograph. The tour also offers excellent opportunities to photograph hummingbirds drawn to feeders at the lodges where we stay. All our lodges are first rate and provide excellent meals throughout the tour.
OSA PENINSULA
Our tour begins with a short flight from San Jose to Puerto Jimenez on the Osa Peninsula in southern Costa Rica. From there we'll travel by hired 4-wheel-drive vehicle through lowland forest to our first destination, Lookout Inn, near Carate. The inn is located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and provides environmentally sensitive accommodations in this pristine place. The area supports a population of several hundred wild Scarlet Macaws, and the inn's veranda is the best vantage point to photograph these beautiful birds from above and at eye-level in Costa Rica. The macaws fly back and forth along the bluff below, landing in the almond trees, courting, and feeding their young. We'll have a full day to photograph these fantastic birds as they carry on with their daily lives.
During our stay at Lookout Inn, we'll have an opportunity to photograph several species of hummingbirds at the lodge feeders. Among the possiblities are Scaly-breasted Hummingbird, Charming Hummingbird, and the elegant Purple-crowned Fairy. Below the lodge are some ponds where we can photograph Bare-throated Tiger-Heron and other birds. We may also have a chance to photograph some raptors such as White Hawk soaring overhead and Roadside Hawk perched in trees along the road.
From Lookout Inn we'll transfer further up the road to upscale Luna Lodge. The lodge owns 150 acres of tropical wilderness including 75 acres of primary rainforest. During our stay we'll enjoy exquisite cuisine and enjoy very comfortable accommodations. We'll have ample opportunity to explore and photograph a variety of tropical birds and animals on the lodge property. Our expert birding guide will help us find and identify subjects for our photography along the forest trails. Among the possibilities are several species of hawks and eagles such as Crested Eagle, Ornate Hawk-Eagle, Double-toothed Kite, the beautiful Swallow-tailed Kite, Bat Falcon, and Laughing Falcon. A variety of parrots can be found in the area, including Mealy Amazon, Red-lored Parrot, Brown-hooded Parrot, and Orange-chinned Parakeet. Within the forest it's possible to photograph several species of colorful trogons including Slaty-tailed Trogon, Baird's Trogon, Northern Violaceous Trogon, and Black-throated Trogon, plus various species of woodpeckers like the photogenic Linneated Woodpecker and Pale-billed Woodpecker, a variety of tanagers including Golden-hooded Tanager, Bay-headed Tanager, and Cherrie's Tanager, and other tropical birds such as Chestnut-mandibled Toucan, Fiery-billed Aracari, White-whiskered Puffbird, a variety of antbirds and flycatchers, the fascinating Red-capped Manakin and possibly also Orange-collared Manakin, and various wrens, warblers, and other birds.
The lodge operates several hummingbird feeders that attract species such as Band-tailed Barbthroat, White-crested Coquette, Violet-headed Hummingbird, Blue-throated Goldentail, and Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. We'll have time during our stay to make photographs of them as they stage in nearby plantings and at the feeders.
In addition to birds, we should have opportunities to photograph colorful frogs such as the Blue Jeans Poison Dart Frog and monkeys such as White-faced Capuchin, Central American Squirrel Monkey, Black-handed Spider Monkey, and Black-mantled Howler Monkey. We won't run out of subject matter, and we'll not want to leave. Nevertheless, the mountains south of San Jose will be beckoning and will provide a stark contrast to subtropical Osa Peninsula as we continue on our tour.
TALAMANCA MOUNTAINS - CENTRAL COSTA RICA
Following a flight back to San Jose, we'll transfer to the high mountains south of the city. Our destination is the scenic mountain valley of San Gerardo de Dota, where we'll be staying at one of our favorite places in Costa Rica, Savegre Mountain Hotel. Here we'll enjoy scrumptious food including fresh trout and other excellently prepared meals and sleep well in our private cabanas. This area is the best place in Costa Rica for seeing and photographing the Resplendent Quetzal, considered by some to be the most beautiful bird in the world. We often see quetzals directly behind the lodge, as well as in nesting areas in the forest along the river. We typically see a dozen or more quetzals in the area at this time of year. Our tour is timed for us to photograph quetzals in their full breeding regalia and before they are spending most of their time inside nest holes, so we should have ample opportunity to photograph this majestic bird.
Savegre Mountain Hotel operates several hummingbird feeders in the adjoining gardens. Here we'll be able to photograph several specialty hummingbirds found only at higher elevations in the mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama. Species we see and photograph include Violet Sabrewing, Purple-throated Mountain-gem, Gray-tailed Mountain-gem, the very tiny bee-like Scintillant Hummingbird and Volcano Hummingbird, and the larger, more widely-distributed Green-crowned Brilliant and Magnificent Hummingbird. Also at the feeders and nearby flowering plants is Slaty Flowerpiercer, a slaty gray bird that makes a wonderful subject among the pink flowers.
During our stay we'll walk through the forest along the river where we'll have opportunities to photograph other bird species. Some of the more photogenic birds we usually encounter are Collared Trogon, Common Tufted Flycatcher, the handsome Long-tailed Silky-Flycatcher, Collared Redstart, Yellow-thighed Finch, and Black-faced Grosbeak. We may also be able to photograph Black Guan, Fiery-billed Aracari, Black-billed Nightingale-Thrush, and Silver-throated Tanager in this area.
On our last day we'll visit some higher elevation sites before heading back to San Jose. We like going up Cerro de la Muerte where we can photograph Volcano Junco, a nicely patterned finch found only at high elevations. We also like to stop at Georgina's Cafe along the highway, where hummingbird feeders attract Fiery-throated Hummingbird, a species we usually don't see at the lodge in the valley. Georgina's is also a good place to find Large-billed Finch and Fiery-billed Aracari. From there we drive back to San Jose, which takes about 4 hours to reach the western side of the city where we'll stay near the international airport the last night of our tour.
