Humming On Cloud Nine

DAY 1: Arrival in Costa Rica; Overnight in San Jose.

Upon your arrival in Costa Rica, you will be met by Tour Skipper, and if you arrive early enough, you’ll have the opportunity to photograph the orchids and other tropical flowers in the gardens of the hotel. Please note that meals are not included in the Tour fee on this day.

DAY 2: Transfer to and Overnight in Atlantic Lowland Rainforest Range.

After an early breakfast, we check out and head to our first destination, a rainforest lodge where we photograph many birds at the feeders. Here you can expect to see Toucans, Tanagers, Aracaris and birds like the King Vulture. Later, back at the lodge, we enjoy a highly enjoyable interactive session with , prior to supper and retirement.

DAYS 3 AND 4: All-Day Photography and Overnight at Atlantic Lowland Rainforest.

We will set out to photograph monkeys, crested guan, and collared aracaris around the lodge. Also, we will take time to photograph the numerous Montezuma oropendolas at the lodge feeders, where the staff will help us photograph colourful animals on natural stages that we will set up on site.The Keel-billed Toucans, the Black-mandible Toucan and some hummingbirds around the lodge will be focus of these two days. We will also set out to photograph bats at night and also try our hands on macro photography where we photograph frogs like the Red-eyed Tree Frog and reptiles like Vipers.

DAY 5: Transfer to and Overnight in Central Volcanic Range Cloud Forest.

Prior to an invigorating breakfast, we enjoy a spot of good bird photography before climbing higher to the cloud forests of the northern Central Volcanic Mountain Range, where we’ll check in to our next lodge. En route, we stop at a nearby farm for a delicious lunch and then photograph macaws in flight and on attractive perches. In the evening we’ll enjoy a highly insightful session on flash-based setup photography.

DAY 6: All-Day Photography and Overnight in Central Volcanic Range Cloud Forest.

After breakfast this day, we get straight down to the highly enjoyable task of photographing hummingbirds with our multiple-flash setups right on the lodge premises. The Skippers will run the setups and provide attractive native flowers to ensure that you capture some fantastic hummingbird images. When not on the setups, we can relax and download images, and photograph the other birds and mammals that frequent the premises. We can also explore the cloud forest trails for macro and landscape photography.

DAY 7: All-Day Photography and Overnight in Central Volcanic Range Cloud Forest.

After breakfast, we visit a nearby waterfall for a round of landscape photography of some lush tropical foliage. In addition, we’ll have the opportunity to set up our multiple-flash ‘studio’ here to capture a few small hummingbird species. We’ll shoot throughout the day, alternating our time between the setups, perched hummingbirds, and landscape photography, enjoying a picnic lunch at the waterfall.

DAYS 8 TO 10: Photography and Overnight in Talamanca Range Cloud Forest.

After an early breakfast this morning, we head 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. We arrive at our hotel for lunch and spend the afternoon in pursuit of the resplendent quetzal, widely recognised as one the world’s most beautiful birds, and quite clearly our chief target over these three days.

Next morning we continue our search for the quetzal regardless of the previous evening’s success, for you can never have enough of this magnificent bird. After lunch we visit a house where special bird feeders will very probably get us some new species.

The third day at Talamanca will be spent visiting another property where bird feeders have been set up along with plants and bushes that attract some great birds. This afternoon, we’ll keep an eye out for the quetzal again, while also focusing on photographing a few different hummingbird species right outside the hotel’s restaurant.

DAY 11: Transfer to and Overnight in San Jose.

After breakfast this morning, we’ll take a last shot at photographing some birds on the lodge premises before checking out and being transferred back to San Jose, arrive at the capital for lunch. We’ll spend the afternoon captioning and cataloguing images to ensure we get the species names right, and learn a bit of post-processing, before enjoying a farewell dinner in the hotel restaurant.

DAY 12: Transfer to Airport and Departure.

You are transferred to the international airport for your flight home, and the Tour ends after you’ve hopefully been introduced to the unbridled bounty of the American wild.