Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

Sloths are one of the oddest creatures I’ve encountered, but they always have a smile on their face. While their smile is easy to take note of, if you look closer you’ll find their fur is green from algae and is home to its own ecosystem of insects. This mobile ecosystem develops as sloths move so slowly. In this photo you can see the green in the fur of the adult sloth, but the baby looks quite brown.

A Brown-throated Sloth (Bradypus variegatus) and her baby - Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica

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Ever have the feeling that someone is watching you? While traveling in Costa Rica earlier this year I made my way to Santa Elena to visit the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Here my wife and I woke up for a classic Costa Rican breakfast only to find a troupe of White-headed Capuchin monkeys gawking at us as we ate. Apparently they knew when breakfast was served and would show up for the start of it in the hopes of getting a hand out. They didn’t stick around long, as they had places to see and food to raid else where. It was quite the experience.

White-headed Capuchin (Cebus capucinus) Monkeys Look in at a Tourist at Breakfast

On a side note there’s a lot to be said for serendipity. My wife set the alarm for us to wake up at 7 AM, so we could catch a shuttle to the cloud forest reserve. It turned out my wife is time zone challenged and we woke up an hour early. Little did we know we arrived for breakfast just as it began. The monkeys only stuck around for 20-30 minutes. Had we got up when planned an hour later we’d have missed the monkey encounter.

Technorati Tags: Costa Rica, travel, photography, White-headed Capuchin, Cebus capucinus, monkey, breakfast, tourism, tourist, stock photo, Monteverde, Cloud Forest, Santa Elena, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve

White-headed Capuchin monkey and baby

Photo Details: Canon 1Ds Mark III, 420mm (300mm + 1.4TC), ISO 400, f/7.1, 1/320 sec

Since I’ll be away for a shot while monkeying around I thought why not post a photo of a monkey. This White-headed Capuchin monkey with her baby (Cebus capucinus) was taken in Costa Rica this past April. They were part of a troupe of 50+ monkeys that moved right on by me in the jungle. Is it me or does the baby’s expression make this photo?

And before I forget I wanted to be sure to announce the winner of the free lens rental from BorrowLenses. After all this photo was taken using one of their Canon 300mm lenses. And the winner is….

Technorati Tags: wildlife, photography, Costa Rica, Cebus capucinus, White-headed Capuchin

One of the many things I love about wildlife photography is finding an animal to photograph that is so interesting it’s hard to take your eye off of them. One of such creature that I photographed during my recent trip to Costa Rica was the Vine Snake (Oxybelis fulgidus). The intensity of green color in this snakes scales is like nothing I’ve seen before. Not necessarily evident in this photo is that the shape of its head is nearly identical to the most common leaf shape in Costa Rica making it well camouflaged. This camouflage helps it hide from predators and hunt other animals. This is certainly one of the more amazing animals I’ve seen let alone photographed.

Vine Snake (Oxybelis fulgidus), Costa Rica

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