Bird life and more in Costa Rica Capturing Hummingbirds in Ecuador
Dennis Craggs March 2025
cember 2024 I visited Costa Rica with David Miles of Natureslens and Wendy, Anne, Jan, Karen, and Vicki, variously from the UK, Guernsey and Denmark. This was a fairly intense two week tour ling the length of the country, staying at eight hotels and encompassing different weather and capes in this beautiful, varied country. Some detailed planning went it to it and it worked admirably
Rica is one of the happiest countries in the world according to the World Happiness Report (?) due quality of life, peace and nature. It has been army free since 1949 having decided to disband its army evote those resources to education, health and social welfare. It is a democracy with a convertible ncy and an open economy. It has more than 5% of the world's biodiversity and is home to more than 00 different species, making it one of the most biodiverse destinations on the planet. Eco-tourism is o the economy and it is a world leader in sustainable tourism, with national parks and nature ves attracting millions of visitors each year. It has over 60 national parks, a mix of rainforests, ne beaches, and breath taking volcanoes ideal for eco-tourism. It borders both the Pacific Ocean and aribbean with beaches for surfing, relaxing and exploring.
our encompassed a range of privately owned gardens, something of a cottage industry in the ry, well set out for attracting birds and enabling photographers to capture them at ease. We also a number of boat trips on the Tarcoles river and at Cano Negro. I have tried in the following pages to ames to the birds by use of Google images and Anne’s wonderfully comprehensive notes but as an eur in these matters, I cannot guarantee total accuracy.
are approximately 366 species of hummingbirds most of which are found in Central and South ica. They have varied specialized characteristics to enable rapid, manoeuvrable flight: exceptional bolic capacity, adaptations to high altitude and sensitive visual and communication abilities. Among ds, male hummingbirds have the widest diversity of plumage colour, particularly in blues, greens, urples. They are the smallest mature birds, measuring 7.5 - 13cm in length, weighing from less than o 18 – 24g. Noted for long beaks, hummingbirds are specialized for feeding on flower nectar, but all es also consume small insects. They are known as hummingbirds because of the humming sound ed by their beating wings, varying from around 12 beats per second in the largest species to 80 per d in small hummingbirds. While most hummingbirds do not migrate, the rufous hummingbird has f the longest bird migrations, travelling twice per year between Alaska and Mexico, a distance of 6,300km. The top recorded flight speed of hummingbirds exceed 54 km/h. During courtship, some species dive from 30m above a female at speeds around 83 km/h. In 2024, 8 hummingbird species classified as critically endangered, 13 endangered, 13 vulnerable, and 20 near-threatened. Habitat glass collisions, cat predation, pesticides, and possibly climate change affecting food availability, tion signals, and breeding are factors that may contribute to declining hummingbird numbers.
are little critters to photograph. I was able to get close enough with my 100-500mm Canon zoom hoto lens with only a moderate amount of cropping. It was reckoned that a shutter speed of 00sec was needed to freeze the moving wings but I found this to be impracticable in the light tions and in any case I found some wing movement gave a better image. I generally settled on about 00sec but even so, this usually resulted in very high ISO (The widest aperture of this lens at 500mm f/7.1). However I achieved fairly good results with Lightroom noise reduction. The capability of the n R5 to spot focus on the eye of the moving bird also proved useful to achieve pin sharp focus but y no means infallible with birds moving at this speed. It was also possible to focus on the flower head ope for a subject flying into the same plane of focus. Ultimately, it proved necessary to take lots and f images, acting on the well established principle that you only need one good one. I took possibly ,000 images on this trip, less than a number of my fellow travellers but enough to give me some nice s for this book!
y nine of our trip, we paid a visit to Frogs Heaven in the Sarapiqui area. The land in the forest here is n parts and it is home to a range of frog and snake species. These are mostly nocturnal and it is ble to visit at night and see the critters in their natural home under leaves by torch light. However, s not ideal for photography. They therefore collect them at night, keep them well moistened in ble accommodation in a plastic box for the next day when they are brought out for visitors. The mens were placed in turn on fresh cut leaves attached to stands with either a plain black sheet or al background and with a pair of adjacent flashlights. Using flash triggers attached to our own ras, with a bit of organisational skill involved which tested David’s patience somewhat, we then took urn to photograph them. The owners gave all the necessary advice on camera settings, so it was simple to capture these amazing images without extensive experimentation, using our macro lenses up (Not so close for the snakes!). The frogs however had a disarming ability to leap off their perch in ections including on to the photographer or camera and so needing to be rescued by the handler. ogs are tiny, often no more than fingernail sized, so the handlers needed to be careful but they had oped techniques to persuade the frogs to walk up a branch and the snakes to stick their tongue out. the session was complete, the specimens were returned the following night to the exact locations which they were collected.
rch 2025 I visited Ecuador with David Miles of Natureslens. We stayed at the wonderful Tandayapa odge high in the cloud forest. The food was excellent, the Ecuador speciality seems to be soup of description. It's a bit damp in the rainy season though! We visited a number of bird gardens with ameras but the highlight of the trip was the 30+ species of Hummingbird to be found at the lodge he skill of Pablo in helping us capture these magical creatures using flash techniques as shown below Each channel has four flash units to right, left, front and on background, triggered from the camera gle shooting mode against an artificial background (Due to use of a small aperture to maximise depth d). It takes a lot of images (About 1,600 per day) to achieve the few I have included in this book.
e included opposite an image of the Andean Cock-of-the-rock taken at 500mm f/7.1 1/250sec 0000. This is the national bird of Peru – one of the iconic birds of the Andes found in dense cloud . We had to walk for an hour or so to reach the hide and spent some time hunting for a sighting in ense cloud forest. And then, voila, I finally spotted one with a more or less clear line of sight.
Lily
is Craggs