I’ve just returned from a month long filming trip to Costa Rica with Nigel Marven Productions. Needless to say we saw a ton of wildlife and to be honest, I don’t know if I’m going to get time to produce my usual daily diary. There’s just too much to write about!
Instead I’ll attempt to give an overview of the areas visited to give a flavour of what we saw. To see the final version of the edited film, keep an eye out on Animal Planet and National Geographic when it launches next spring.
Osa Conservation, Osa peninsula.
We flew to San Jose via Madrid with BA and Iberia, arriving mid-afternoon. All was good until our names were called and we were summoned to the Iberia desk to be told ALL of our baggage (work and personal) had been left behind in Madrid! To be frank it was a massive inconvenience but it wasn’t a huge surprise, the connection time had been 45 minutes and we’d already discussed the possibility that the luggage hadn’t made it.
An unscheduled stopover commenced as we couldn’t risk taking the 8-hour drive to OSA Conservation just in case the equipment was held in Customs when it arrived the following day.
Next afternoon the flight arrived and we are at the airport Customs office to receive the cases, great!...No...The large tripod for the film camera was missing, which mean only hand-held shots could be taken until the tripod was reunited with us. A very apologetic Iberia promised to forward it to us so we finally left San Jose a day late and headed south.
Osa Conservation is a field station for biologists studying various aspects of the local faun. Many of those present are completing projects for their PHD's - one studying a rare poison dart frog, another studying the primates etc. We were there to film a mass breeding event of gliding frogs. Amplexus only occurs after the first heavy rains of the season. Despite spending 5 days here at 'the perfect time' we had no major rain and the event didn't occur. Blamed partly on it being El Niño year and partly on climate change, even the local biologist studying the breeding event was surprised that we had not witnessed the event during our time there. (*we have since learned that the event failed completely this year). Despite the lack of gliding frogs, we did see other wildlife.
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| White-winged Dove, San Jose |
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| Yellow-throated Tucan, Osa Peninsula |
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| Cherrie's Tanager, Osa Peninsula |
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| Coati, Osa Conservation |
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| Bare-throated Tiger Heron |
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| Bare-throated Tiger Heron, sunning itself |
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| Bare-throated Tiger Heron |
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| Golden-naped Woodpecker, female |
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| Turkey Vulture |
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| Spiny-tailed Iguana, juvenile |
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| Spiny-tailed Iguana, juvenile |
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| Scarlet Macaw |
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| Scarlet Macaw |
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| Red-legged Honeycreeper |
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| Hourglass Frog |
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| Wandering spider |
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| Terciopelo - found on a herping night walk |
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| A cryptic scorpion shows best under ultraviolet |
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| An enormous Long-horn Beetle at Osa Conservarion |
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| Golden Orb Spider as big as my hand! |
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| Unbelievable that this stunning beach is completely empty! |
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| Paradise |
Before leaving the Osa Peninsula for good we headed an hour east to Puerto Jiminez, the main town in the region and access point to the Osa. We spent a day filming Spotted Dolphins in the Gulf of Dulce and the evening searching for yellow sea snakes. The latter proved elusive but the dolphins performed well.
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| During filming off Puerto Jiminez |
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| Who's the strange guy with a beard? |
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| Puerto Jiminez as sunset approaches |
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| Puerto Jiminez at sunset |
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| Brown Pelicans, Puerto Jiminez |
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| Pantropical Spotted Dolphins, Gulf of Dulce |
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| Pantropical Spotted Dolphins, Gulf of Dulce |
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| Green Iguana, juvenile sunning itself on the dock at Puerto Jiminez |
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| Magnificent Frigatebird |
After finishing at Osa we left for the Caribbean coast but we spent a night at Las Tardes en route to look for snakes and that's where I'll be heading next...
PS. Our tripod caught up with us on day three of the trip, better late than never.
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