A blizzard rages at home in Duluth, but thankfully Molly and me got out of Dodge a day before the storm hit. Instead after 13 hours of travel we arrived at La Carolina Lodge in the rain forest near Costa Rica’s Volcano National Park. This is our third visit to this fantastic eco lodge, which raises most of the food eaten by guests, and has super birding. If you want air conditioned luxury La Carolina Lodge is the wrong place for you, but if you want to truly experience Costa Rica Pura Vida, visit! A few years back, I even wrote and photographed a birding guide for the NW region of C.R. While the printed version is out of print, anyone may download for free a PDF version of my book.

Back to the birds … sunrise was about 6 am, and although the golden orb was hiding behind clouds, by 6:15 am I was “birding the bananas”! I have only processed a few of my photographs, but I decided to focus upon the Yellow Throated Toucan. While I really wanted flight shots, I also ended up with “hopping images” which I think are very funny. The toucan looks like it is photoshopped into the hopping photos, but the pics are real. This large bird has strong legs and often hopped rather than flew between perches.

At the end of the post I have just a couple more photos of three other species … one a lifer which I was amazed to capture with the camera given the dark light and the lightning quick subject.

Hopping Yellow-Throated Toucan

Flying Toucan

Stationary Toucan

And the lifer … Long-Billed Hermit Hummingbird

Blue-Gray Tanager

Chestnut-Headed Oropendola

One final note, I brought my OwlSense birdsong listening device south with me. It is listening outside my cabin.

In closing, the Toucan told me it wanted to be in the movie! (video link for blog email subscribers)