Costa Rica is a tropical, Central American country, bounded by Nicaragua in the North and Panama in the South. Its Eastern coastline faces the Caribbean Sea whilst the Western coastline faces the Pacific. Sitting on the edge of the Caribbean tectonic plate it has a central mountain range reaching over 10,000 feet and it is actively volcanic. This great range of geography creates six major life zones: which in turn explains Costa Rica’s incredible wealth of fauna and flora. Despite having less than 0.1% of the world’s land mass it has over 5% of the World’s species: there are thought to be over 500,000 species in Costa Rica. 900 species of birds, 400 species of reptiles and amphibians, 1,250 species of butterflies, 1.200 species of orchid, 250 species of mammal, 2,000 species of higher order plants – all in a tiny country the size of Denmark! Costa Rica is one of the most important Biodiversity sites in the World and this is recognized by the Costa Ricans themselves – over 25% of the country is protected by National Parks. Despite this amazing biodiversity photography in Costa Rica is not without its challenges: finding many of the animals and birds is surprisingly difficult – many are small and all elusive! The frogs are nocturnal, as small as the little finger-nail, and move very fast! The Hummingbird’s wings beat 3,000 times a minute and the snakes are poisonous. It is surprisingly dark under the forest canopy requiring extremely fast ISO settings and long shutter speeds. Combine this with photographing from moving boats or struggling through dense forest carrying 15 kilos of optics in 30 degree temperatures and 100% humidity and you have some idea of the challenges – not to mention the mosquitos! We were extremely thankful to have the professional guidance of Andrew Newcomb and Marco Morales (aka Niño) without whose expertise we would have never found anything interesting to photograph. We hope you enjoy our images of the natural world in Costa Rica – if you do please leave positive comments in the guestbook and spread the word amongst your social media contacts.
Birds
Animals
Plants, Flowers and the Landscape
Humming Birds
© Gigi & Robin Williams Photography