Costa Rica and Panama over New Year 2010-11

My latest holiday with Claire, and her brother Dave, took us to Costa Rica and Panama.

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It was not just a wildlife holiday, but we did pack in the excursions.  C-R and Panama still support primary lowland rain forest as well as significant wetlands.  These are very rich in bird, mammal, reptile and, of course, plant life.
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I only had a small Ricoh R8 with a 7x optical zoom and 10M pixels resolution, so these photos show how close we got to the birds particularly.  It was a fantastic holiday and I would highly recommend it.  Unfortunately it was impossible to photograph the many hummingbirds and my camera did not cope well with the dark forests.
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Bocas Del Toro, Panama

We went to the following places:

Costa Rica: San Jose, La Fortuna, Santa Elena, Manuel Antonio, Puerto Jimenez and Tortuguero

Panama: Bocas Del Toro, Boquete, the Panama Canal and Panama City

Anyway here are the best animal images from the three weeks, with a few plants thrown in too!

(Please note that the naming convention for the birds is the American Ornithologist's Union Check-list of North American Birds 7th Ed. - so don't complain if you disagree!).

Some of the birds seen but not caught on camera:

• Chestnut-mandibled and Keel -billed toucan
• Boat-billed heron
• Ringed kingfisher
• Rufous tailed hummingbird
• Scarlet Macaw
• Crimson-fronted Parakeet
• White-winged dove
• Semipalmated Plover
• Gray-necked Wood-Rail
• Great Kiskadee
• Lineated woodpecker

I won't go on...!

 

 Green heron

 Yellow-crowned night heron (during the day!)

Magnificent Frigatebirds

Great Egret

Bare-throated Tiger-heron

Three-toed sloth

 

Caimen

 

 

American crocodiles

Lots of egrets

Great Egret

Northern racoon

Two blokes with starfish

Laughing Gull (1st winter)?

"Royal" Terns (school boy error...)

 

Two toed sloth

 

 White-throated capuchin

Agouti

Lizard sp. (look closely)

Black Vultures

Large iguana sp.

Northern Jacana

Black-bellied Whistling-duck

Not banana - Heliconia

Roseate Spoonbills and a Great (White) Egret

 

Roseate Spoonbills

Jesus lizard (can run across water)

Bare-throated Tiger Heron

Brown Pelicans

Egrets

 Anhinga (a type of cormorant)

Black-necked Stilts

Terrapin

Red-kneed tarantula

Black Guan

Cloud forest

Howler monkey

 Cloud forest

Cloud forest

One-day orchid

Magnificent Frigatebird above the Panama Canal

 

 Egrets

A local boar (not the only bore in Panama)

Flycatcher sp. (poss. Tropical Kingbird)

 Weta sp.

White-nosed Coati

 Collared Aracari

Harlequin beetle

False Fer-de-Lance?

 

Cloud forest tropical leaves

 Tropical beach