This morning we awoke to cold air temperatures, two inches of snow on the deck, heavy overcast skies, and some areas of fog. The ship was heading into the Lemaire Channel, a narrow passage between the Argentine Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula mainland. The temperatures here were at freezing, and the amount of ice floating in the channel was surprising compared to what we had witnessed so far. 

Small icebergs, bergy bits (smaller than 5 meters in height) and brash ice (small pieces floating together) littered the passage and the ship just pushed them away; smaller pieces of ice rafted together in the currents and created patterns.  Even with the dark grey skies, the blue ice of the icebergs was surprisingly vivid. At the end of the Lemaire Channel there were many large icebergs in the distance.

The morning stop was Peterman Island, inhabited by colonies of Adelie and Gentoo penguins as well as a small colony of Antarctic shags. The snow here had large areas of greenish or reddish snow; the color due to algae that grows in areas of permanent snow. The landing on a rock shelf was easy, and paths led to Gentoo penguin colonies to the right and left, with the Adelie colony further up the hill on the right.  A path on the left led uphill to an overview of a small inlet that had an accumulation of grounded icebergs or various shapes.

The afternoon stop was six miles further South at Vernadsky Station, a Ukrainian research base.  While waiting for our arrival time at the station, we spent time exploring the nearby waters which were filled with icebergs of every shape imaginable. These large icebergs were carved by currents, flipped over as the center of mass changed, and carved again. We never witnessed a large iceberg turn over, but it was easy to imagine how impressive it would be.

The station was originally established at this site on Galindez Island, part of the Argentine Islands chain, as a British facility in 1954 and was sold to the government of Ukraine in 1996 for one pound.  The UK had no further need of the station, and the cost of dismantling the base due to Antarctic agreements would be costly.  Scientists from Ukraine lost access to Antarctic research facilities with the dissolution of the USSR, so it was a win-win situation. The Ukrainian Antarctic Center conducts projects in geomagnetism, seismology, upper atmospheric physics, meteorology, biology, and physiology research. Expanded to house 24 people, and operates the world’s most southern gift shop and public bar serving homemade vodka. One of the scientists conducted a tour of the facility which ended at the gift shop and bar, where we sampled the vodka.

After our visit here, we returned to the ship and started our two-day journey across the Drake Passage.  It started off with high seas; I spent most of the time the first day in bed, which was not a loss since the fog was fairly thick and the horizon could not be seen until two days later when we approached the Beagle Channel.

In early February, we had a pair of bluebirds come to our feeders. Bluebirds generally eat insects and there are not many around this time of year. They watched the other birds eating and gave it a try. It was amusing to watch a bluebird pick up a piece of bread and try to get it past its beak. One beat it against a branch until it was long and round then ate it. Over the next several weeks the number of bluebirds grew to four pairs. They would only visit on days that were cold; up to five of them on the suet feeder at a time. In the past, such visits by bluebirds in the winter were brief, only a day or two. This year they visited for more than four weeks. All the images in this post were captured in February 2023, with the exception of the two images of Robins which were made in December 2022.

My initial photographs were through the kitchen and lavette windows with the target areas being the bird feeders and birdbath. Once it was clear that they would be staying a while, I set up two light stands with natural perches attached to them with plastic straps. To increase my chances of getting the birds to use the perches, I strategically placed them between one of their favorite spots and another. One perch is between the bird bath and the suet feeder, and the other is between the suet and the tray feeder.  At some times of the day there could be 20-30 birds visiting the feeders and the perches provide some convenient places to wait for a spot on a  feeder to open.

I choose the perches to have a vertical and horizontal branch to provide variety. If you intend to photograph  over many days, it makes sense to change the perches every so often and even change the position so that you have an assortment of images with a variety of branches and backgrounds.

The perches are about ten feet from the windows and placed to have a distant background. All the photographs in this post are captured with a handheld Olympus O-MD E-M1 Mark III camera body with the Olympus M.Zuiko 300mm f/4 PRO lens, mostly at f/4 and shutter speeds as slow as 1/15 sec. Because of the small sensor size of the Olympus camera, the 300mm lens has a field of view equivalent to a 600mm lens on a camera with a full size sensor. I photographed through the double pane window glass; although it did take some experimentation to discover which window sections offered good results. When the weather is warmer, I will also shoot with the lavette window open, ensuring that the door is closed should a bird investigate the open cavity.

When photographing through a window it is important to be aware of two optical effects: distortion through the glass and reflections on the glass. Check for distortion by shooting through various parts of the window at a bird feeder or the perch and review the images with magnification to ensure detail is preserved. Reflections will most likely be caused by brightly lit objects in the room or from the windows across the room. By positioning the camera lens perpendicular to the glass you may solve both problems as I have found less distortion when shooting straight through the glass. Getting close to the glass also blocks reflections. If you have storm windows, you may want to open the lower section to reduce the amount of glass between your camera and the subject.

Photographing birds from a window in your house can very productive, and especially so in winter when the birds’ need to eat is necessary for their survival. They are acclimated to people being the window watching as they visit the feeders and ignore anyone standing there for the most part.

Make your plans now to take advantage of the springtime migration bringing new birds to backyard feeders, all hungry as they need the energy to build new feathers and to fly on to their summer areas.

After meeting the workshop attendees and leaders at the Quito Marriot we headed off to our first nature lodge, the Guango Lodge in the high cloud forest west of Quito. The accommodations were basic and clean, the food was great, and the photographic opportunities wide ranging.  Macro subjects included insects and amphibians and the birds consisted of mostly hummingbirds with a good opportunity behind one of the buildings to photograph a mountain cacique feeding a chick in a hanging nest. There was plenty of rain, downpours at night with some relief during the days. One day we had a day trip to two waterfalls west of the lodge, stopping at a bridge over a river where torrent ducks are sometimes seen.  We weren’t disappointed.

You may notice that there are many “clown frogs” and “rain frogs”, all of different colors and appearances. Also, the images are organized in the order they were captured.

Our second lodge was WildSumaco Wildlife Sanctuary in the Amazon foothills of the Andes. The lodge was modern, with a large library, lounge, sitting area and large comfortable rooms.  Hummingbirds were abundant, with at least 10 species regularly spotted. The surrounding environment also provided many species of frogs, toads, lizards and insects to photograph.

The third and final stop was at the Tandayapa Lodge in the Western Andes, and east of Quito. On our drive to Tandayapa we passed thought Quito, stopping at the Ciudad Mitad del Mundo, or Middle of the World City, where a French expedition in 1736 to conduct experiments to determine the shape of the earth. This site afforded the scientists a location on the equator which had sufficient altitude for the astronomical observations required. The site is host to several museums, restaurants and shops. The Tandayapa Lodge has many bird feeders attracting hummingbirds on a large patio, and has a covered porch where we set up multiple flash setups and wildlife setups for the lizards, snakes, frogs and toads that Lucas and Frank would collect for us at night to be returned where they found them the next evening. While some of the images appear to be taken at night, they are actually photographed during the day using flash techniques. The booted racket-tails here were like flies, they seemed to be everywhere.

Our stay in Costa Rica starts at the Bougainvillea Hotel near San Jose. The hotel boasts several acres of garden with a variety of macro subjects; plants, flowers, bromeliads, and orchids. A few birds frequent the gardens although the predominant subjects are the flowers and the insects that visit them.

Central Pacific Coast

Our days at the first lodge are divided between river boat trips on the Rio Tarcoles where egrets, herons, kingfishers and other water birds can be found, and the hotel grounds where there are opportunities to photograph iguanas, basilisk lizards, leaf cutter ants, acacia ants, poison dart frogs, and the local birds.  In the evenings, we concentrate on locating and photographing red-eyed tree frogs and golden eyed tree frogs.

South Pacific Coast

Further south along the coast we settled in to our next location with plenty of time for a trip to a nearby beach for sunset photography.  The next day we visited Manuel Antonio National Park to photograph white-faced capuchin and squirrel monkeys, iguanas, and crab-eating raccoons. The park contains a variety or trails and beaches that provide multiple opportunities for wildlife encounters, even though there are a lot of people visiting the park. Our days at the lodge included macro setups of several insects as well as a small land crab.

Pacific Cloud Forest

We leave the coastal area to a significantly different environment at 9,000 feet where oak forests of the Talamanca mountain range, the high cloud forests just on the Pacific side of the Continental Divide, offer chances of finding the Resplendent Quetzal.  Our time is divided between searching for this neotropical bird, and photographing perches set up near bird feeders and at two high speed flash setups for Fiery-throated Hummingbird, Green Violet-ear and Magnificent Hummingbird. One day we had a road trip to the Savegre River to stop at a lodge with known locations of Quetzal nests and hummingbirds. At this location we had two active nests to observe. On one occasion where we are all photographing with 500mm lenses, a male resplendent quetzal flew to a different perch to wait for the female to leave the nest so he could feed the chick. I don’t think anyone else saw where he went and I picked up my tripod and quietly but quickly moved to a better location.  I was so close that to capture the bird with its long tail required that I capture images with the intent of constructing a vertical panorama. On the last morning of our stay here, we set up for some landscape photography at a Jurassic-looking paramo swamp forest near the lodge.

Bougainvillea Hotel

We finished our trip at the Bougainvillea Hotel near San Jose with a farewell dinner.

The day started with heavy overcast as we cruised toward Orne Harbor, where a large glacier is the main feature at the end of the harbor and a large hill of exposed rock is on the south opening to the harbor.  This is the location of the Chinstrap Penguin colony we were scheduled to visit. A few chinstraps were in the water near the shelf of rock that served as a landing area, but there were thousands of penguins along the ridge. The path to the ridge was on the other side of the ridge, which we saw when the ship rounded the point on the way to the afternoon landing area. Oceanites reported 1000 chinstrap penguin chicks on the ridge.

Although these small penguins climb this hill (on the other side) perhaps several times a day, I found I was too unsteady on the climb up the hill to make it worth it and decided to stay near the landing area to photograph penguins in the water and on shore, an Antarctic Tern that stayed in the area, and a few landscape images. The zodiac cruise that followed went deeper into the harbor, up to the glacier at the end.  There was a large amount of brash ice here, and several reports from some of the zodiac drivers of whales flipping their fins near the kayaks and zodiacs.  By the time we arrived in the area it was over.  We did see images of the whales approaching the boats as well as some underwater images of the whales swimming by the boat.  There was a report, and later some shared images in a slide show, of a leopard seal playing with its food, a penguin.  We also cruised to the mouth of the bay, following a humpback whale hoping it would breech or take an interest in us. The vista of huge icebergs and nearby 3,500 foot mountains across the Gerlache Strait was spectacular.

 Our afternoon landing was on Cuverville Island, a rocky island in the Errera Channel between Rongé Island and the Arctowski Peninsula on the Antarctic Peninsula. The island is an important birding area as the large breeding colony of Gentoo Penguins resides here.  It is the largest Gentoo colony on the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Oceanites counters reported approximately 5,000 Gentoo chicks on the southern part of the island.  To my untrained eye, there seemed to be at least as many penguins nesting on the north end of the beach.

The skies were open overcast with patches of blue sky and the temperature here was warm, just above freezing with no wind so our waterproof coats came off to be more comfortable.  The coats are necessary in the zodiac because the speed of the zodiac causes a wind chill that is surprising for the low speeds involved. One the way from the ship to the beach we stopped to examine a relatively small iceberg that had an interesting shape. The icebergs are shaped by environmental forces; air temperature, wind, water currents.  Only ten percent of floating ice is above the surface, and when the center of mass of the iceberg changes due to erosion of the submerged portion, or a large piece breaks off, the iceberg reorients itself revealing a portion that had been submerged and carved by the ocean currents.

Gentoo penguins were everywhere; large colonies at either end of the beach, on the rocky slopes of the hill, and on the ridges high on the hill.  The rocky ridges are the first to show as the summer approaches, and those that make a nest here are able to lay eggs earlier, and the chicks have a greater chance of survival if the weather is severe during the summer months.  Bringing food up to the chicks on the ridge, adults develop trails of compressed snow that are chest deep.  Often there are two parallel paths, one up and one down. There were great opportunities to photograph penguins on the beach and at either end.  Prior to leaving the beach to cruise around the island, the hearty souls in the group took the opportunity to take an Antarctic plunge off the beach. We finished out visit to Cuverville Island with a cruise around the island where a few spectacular icebergs were found.

Day 4 – February 3 – Perterman Island and Vernadsky Station

Chris and I cruised the Antarctic Peninsula with her cousin Beth Devlin and her husband David Vandyke. Beth, a veterinarian, wanted to see penguin chicks, did some research, and asked if we would like to go along.  We booked the cruise with Polar Cruises, who provided excellent advice and considerable help in making our way to Argentina to board the ship. After a rough start (our first flight was cancelled causing a one day delay and a lot of rescheduling) we arrived in Ushuaia, Argentina to board our ship, the Akademic Sergey Vavilov which was designed for acoustic research by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and converted to a polar adventure ship.

The ship is operated by OneOcean Expeditions.  We were pleasantly surprised at the ship and the accommodations, considering the ship was a working research vessel.  The members of the expedition crew were diverse in their areas of expertise, with specialists in birding, wildlife, kayaking, two professional photographers and even a historian.  All had extensive experience in the polar regions and were extremely helpful.  The ship’s Russian crew were friendly and eager to help, even across the English-Russian language barrier.  Most of the crew certainly knew more English than we knew Russian, except for Dave, who got to practice his Russian and learn a few new words from the waitresses.

The cruise of the Antarctic Peninsula starts with a trip through the Beagle Channel and across the Drake Passage, a voyage that typically takes two days.  Unfortunately for us, we were caught in two storms where the captain had to “heave to”, point the ship into the wind and ride out the storm, resulting in taking three days to complete the transit.  We were briefed on the storm conditions, which apparently were a first for this particular itinerary; Beaufort Nine conditions (50 mph winds, 35 foot seas). The expedition crew regularly adjusted the programs and sites to visit based on weather and time available.  After the stormy transit we were blessed with two days of clear skies and flat seas, one day of party cloudy, and the last day of heavy overcast skies.  Our transit of the Drake Passage back to Ushuaia was also stormy the first night but nothing like our trip down; however, the entire return trip was in fog, with no view of the horizon.

Our late arrival at King George Island led the expedition staff to adjust their itinerary since we had one fewer day than normal, but it’s likely not a unique situation. 

The rest of this post will be divided by each day, with images taken at the sites visited. There are links below the gallery thumbnails to each post, and a link at the bottom of each subsequent post to the next.

 Day 1 – January 31 – King George Island 

Day 2 – February 1 – Paradise Bay and Neko Harbour

Day 3 – February 2 – Orne Harbour and Cuverville Island  

Day 4 – February 3 – Petermann Island and Vernadsky Station

I also did a bit of bird flight photography in preparation of a presentation, Birds in Motion, I made at the Photographic Society of Rhode Island.  I was very pleased that I was able to capture a Bluebird in flight with an insect in its beak.  He was bringing it to his chicks in a nest box.

Enjoy the images.

This was my second visit to the Galapagos Islands.  My wife and I visited in April of 2005, and I never figured I’d return since I have a lot of other locations on my list of places to visit and photograph. 

This trip was one of the prizes awarded to me as grand prize winner in the 2010 Audubon Magazine photography contest.  The cruise was provided by Lindblad Expeditions aboard the National Geographic Endeavor. Lindblad and Nat Geo do organize a great trip, with top notch naturalists, including a few trained by National Geographic photographers to provide advice and guidance to the less experienced photographers among the passengers.

Each day was similar in schedule, but widely different in experience.  We’d awake anchored in the location for the morning excursion.  Occasionally a choice of activities was offered which might include a long walk, a short walk, or just a stay on the beach but mostly one walk was offered.  There was always an alternative activity, usually a zodiac ride along the coast, for those not wishing to take the offered hike.   Most landings (all but two) were wet landings; the zodiac would get close to the beach, and the passengers in turn would get off into the water and wade to the beach.  The water was never more than knee deep, and towels were provided on the beach to dry off feet and put on shoes for the walk.  Upon embarking the ship from the morning excursion, we’d sail during lunch to a second location for the afternoon activity.  Between shore excursions were afternoon lectures, occasional deep water snorkeling or kayaking opportunities.

The weather was mild and cloud covered for sunrise, with the clouds burning off as the day went on, with the afternoons mostly sunny.  Seas were mostly calm even when on the edge of the archipelago north of Isabella Island.  Sunrise photography was not great, and only one evening was good for sunset, with the exception of the last evening at sea, when we were circumnavigating Kicker Rock, unique rock formations which are the remnants of a volcanic cone.  Just before we sailed away from this rock, the light turned golden and the rock appeared on fire.  Based on the week of dull evening light, this last evening was spectacular.  The ship was sailing into the sunset, I hurried to the bow of the ship, where both feet slipped out from under me, I landed flat on my face spread out on the deck, my camera skidded across the deck  . . . and no one noticed.  I dragged myself up and looked around; everyone was intently watching the sunset and hadn’t noticed my acrobatics at all.

This small lodge, located in a valley between the Poas Volcano and Juan Castro Blanco National Parks offers a diversity of subjects to photograph. The owners, Federico and Vanessa González-Pinto are working hard, and succeeding in, developing an ecological corridor linking the two nationally protected areas.  They are amiable hosts and are truly concerned for the nature of Costa Rica.  In addition to the variety of landscape opportunities of the cloud forest moss-covered trees and rushing streams, the place is teeming with hummingbirds.  There is also an extensive collection of orchids located near the main building that hosts hundreds of orchids, and the owners sponsor orchid research supporting preservation efforts.  On the afternoon of our arrival, I spent some time photographing in the forest, and captured a few images of hummingbirds hovering near the feeders.  The first orchid in the series is a stacked focus images, made from six images that have different zones in focus.  I’ll be writing a blog post on the technique soon.

In addition to the local photographic opportunities, two setups for high speed flash photography were made available on the second day of our stay here and a schedule for use by the participants was established.  Initially we set up hummingbird feeders to attract the hummers to the sets, but switched to flowers after the first round.  While high speed flash set ups make photographing crisp images of hummingbirds possible, it’s difficult to predict exactly what the image will look like until you view the image.  It’s a simple matter to take a photo of the hummingbird with its beak in the flower since it stays there for a few seconds, although you never know what the position of the wings will be.  It’s much more challenging to catch the hummingbird approaching or departing from the flower, or if there is an altercation with another hummingbird. On several occassions the birds were landing on flower pants and breaking them off, making for a not-so-attractive flower.  I walked over to coax a Green-crowned Brilliant off a flower and it stepped onto my finger where it stayed for a full minute.  Luckily, I still held on to the wireless remote control and was able to capture some images.

On the third day of our stay at Bosque de Paz, we made a day trip to a nearby restaurant that has access to the 110 meter Bajos de Toros waterfall.  There are trails through the forest and a set of stairs that descend to the base of the falls.  Two hummingbird high speed flash setups were placed in the open air restaurant to take advantage of some species which were not found at Bosque to Paz.  This was the first time I had seen a black-bellied hummingbird, a very small bird that fluffs the feathers on its head in a curious way when it is perched.  When it is flying, the feathers are flattened aerodynamically.

After dinner at Bosque de Paz, a few of us ventured out around the lodge and down a path to find insects and frogs for some nighttime macro photography.  We did find a small tree frog which was about ¾ of an inch in length, and we had great opportunities with a cicada which had just climbed out of its shell and was still damp and unable to fly.  We all had our turn photographing this amazing insect by flashlight.

Arenal is the country’s most active volcano, with continuous emissions of lava and incandescent pyroclastic flows since the beginning of the present active cycle in 1968.  In 2010 when I visited this location, the eruptions could be heard day and night roaring, coughing and spitting, but due to the low cloud cover, not seen. I did get a view of the pyroclastic flows through a break in the clouds for about 30 seconds one evening. The weather did cooperate this year with clear skies one evening and clear skies one morning during sunrise.  Unfortunately, the volcano stopped erupting to a great extent three months prior to our visit.  It was quiet. You could still see steam coming from several vents in two locations near the summit, but no fireworks.  The lodge grounds offer many gardens, and there was an extensive garden right outside our room where we could observe hummingbirds feeding at the flowers.

We spent one day at a nearby facility that houses a wonderful collection of frogs, toads, snakes, and lizards. The staff set up several stages with natural vegetation, moss covered rocks and stumps; the vegetation on the nearby hills provided out of focus backgrounds, and we could photograph with natural light or with fill flash as we chose.  It was a great opportunity to photograph species which would be difficult, if not dangerous, to photograph in the wild.  The facility also had a butterfly enclosure which I visited while waiting for the set ups to be ready.  Once the stages were completed, several species were brought out and placed in the setup.  An experienced caretaker stayed with the animal at each set up, repositioning the subject when it moved into a position that was not photographic.  The caretaker would replace the animal when it appeared to be too active, or when photographic interest in that subject diminished.  At the end of the day, one caretaker asked my wife Chris if she wanted to hold the Rainbow Python, which she did.  She was surprised that it was very soft to the touch.

We also spent a morning at the Danaus Ecocenter.  There was a limited number of birds in the area due to the time of year, but quality is often better than quantity.  We had quite a long time with several Collared Aracaris feeding on fruit very close to the path.  And one of the guides showed us the location of a baby three-toed sloth since it was not on one of the main paths, but on a service road.

All in all, Arenal Observatory Lodge is one of those locations in Costa Rica which could easily support a week’s worth of photographic subjects, if you know where to look.  There are trails up through the forest to the lava fields and a large lake that we didn’t explore on this trip.  However, unless you were on a Foto Verde guided trip, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to photograph the variety of reptiles that I did on this trip.

Costa Rica 2011 The Art of Biodiversity – Part 4