Informations about Costa-Rica

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Informations about Costa-Rica

Postby Robin Duborget » Sun Jul 10, 2016 8:50 am

Hello,

I'm going to Costa Rica for three weeks with my wife and two friends. The aim is to go hiking the day, and go herping some nights.
We have have already reserved in some classic places, like La Selva and the CRARC.

Have you any herping sites near Monteverde and Osa for the night ?
Of course we will go to the national parks in daytime, but during the night it's forbidden so we need to find some "herp friendly" places for our night-time search for frogs :)

If you have some advices ..

Thanks,
Robin
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Re: Informations about Costa-Rica

Postby Guillaume Gomard » Sun Jul 10, 2016 10:45 am

Robin Duborget wrote:We have have already reserved in some classic places, like La Selva and the CRARC.


Very good choice, I had a very interesting night session with Brian last February. Not only because of his experience in the field (i.e in his "garden") but also because of his knowledge about the current taxonomy. You will enjoy it for sure!

Regarding the rest of your message, in short:

- Monteverde: driving in the direction of the Santa Elena park you will find a river, just check around. Also along the park during a rainy night I'm sure you will see some frogs. To be honest I did not stay that long in Monteverde (only to look for B.lateralis) because the place was too touristic for me.

- Osa: Again, no particular spot because Osa is in itself an huge herping spot ;) I focused on areas close or along the rivers and it always paid off (for frogs but also for snakes, so watch out the Terciopelo :twisted: ).

Enjoy your trip.

DSCF5560.jpg
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Re: Informations about Costa-Rica

Postby Robin Duborget » Sun Jul 10, 2016 11:36 am

Guillaume Gomard wrote:Regarding the rest of your message, in short:

- Monteverde: driving in the direction of the Santa Elena park you will find a river, just check around. Also along the park during a rainy night I'm sure you will see some frogs. To be honest I did not stay that long in Monteverde (only to look for B.lateralis) because the place was too touristic for me.


Ok, along the park, but not "in". What do you think about these "guided night walk" of Monteverde ?

Thanks for your advice ! I would like to see a Terciopelo, but not to close of my feet ;)

Robin

ps : Beautiful Agalychnis callidryas !
Did you saw Agalychnis annae ?
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Re: Informations about Costa-Rica

Postby Guillaume Gomard » Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:26 pm

"What do you think about these "guided night walk" of Monteverde ?"

I think some of them are pretty OK if you are not familiar with finding animals in the wild, but keep in mind it's a quite touristic place and it's not that cheap + most of them just guide you at known locations so it's like an open-air zoo but not really a naturalist experience to me.

I would keep my money and rather pay for a guide in Osa. I think that with some trained eyes you will enjoy the nature much more if you walk peacefully in the forest with your family. Of course it's just my opinion and I don't know all the guides there.

"Agalychnis annae": No but I also did not try to.
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Re: Informations about Costa-Rica

Postby Peter Engelen » Mon Jul 11, 2016 11:43 am

Is it for taking pictures or just see the animal.

Don't do the a night tour in the reserve. You can see snakes and frogs, but you have first to listen at least 30 minutes to a story about bats. When you find something there they normally let you take some pictures.

You also have night-tours from private people outsite the reserve. There you see a lot more cause they know the places for the frogs and snakes, And the don't talk about history, just walk. But no flashes are allowed for frogs and you can just make one or two pictures. But you have a big chance to see B. lateralis.

I found several B. lateralis behind and near a small path between the houses. I was lucky to find B. Nigroviridis at daytime in Santa Elena.
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Re: Informations about Costa-Rica

Postby Robin Duborget » Sat Jul 16, 2016 9:58 am

Ok thanks guys for the precious advices. I hope I will come back with a lot of pictures to show to you :)

Peter Engelen wrote:Is it for taking pictures or just see the animal.
I found several B. lateralis behind and near a small path between the houses. I was lucky to find B. Nigroviridis at daytime in Santa Elena.


Houses from Santa Elena ?
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Re: Informations about Costa-Rica

Postby Leonard Zammit » Fri Jul 22, 2016 4:56 pm

Hi Robin. I did a trip to Costa Rica in May 2012. The first stop was Punta Leona (only a night and a morning unfortunately) in a nice beach resort. On arrival at night I had a walk around the lodging and saw some mammals . The next morning we had a very good time walking around the resort and photographed Spiny Tailed Iguanas, Brown Basilisk and various other wildlife inhabiting the resort grounds and coast. We then went to Savegre cloud forest, mainly for birds, but managed to find 1 snake in the daily rain during the 3 days we were there. We moved to Rancho Naturalista from where we visited nearby river areas and observed anoles, frogs, green basilisk, a viper, caymans etc. Next we went to La Selva biological station. This is a really exciting place, bursting full of basilisks, even just outside our lodging. We saw a couple of small snakes, not the more dramatic ones unfortunately, blue jeans frogs in abundance, green iguanas and a Spinotes sneaking up on a bird of prey plus other stuff I cannot remember clearly without going through the pictures. From this base we went to Heliconia Island, which is a beautiful place to stay run by dutch owners and full of wildlife. We also visited Selva Verde which is a resort where we were allowed to take some pictures of quite a few frog species on the property during the night. There is another place where you can photograph Dendrobates and other frog species close by (more like a farm environment than natural forest). A two hour taxi ride away takes you to a popular restaurant and souvenir shop on a busy road where there is a large population of Iguanas which live in a creek next to the restaurant and are fed by the owner every day. The sizes and colours are impressive and there are plenty of photo opportunities because they are used to people and traffic going past. We were sorry we did not spend more time on the coast (either side of the country would have been nice) and we did not visit the volcano area. But that is on our bucket list for the near future. I hope to have given you some ideas. If you want any further detail, feel free to enquire. Leonard Zammit, Malta
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