by Todd Gustafson

Early up and early out on the boat. Tortuguero doesn't fail to deliver. Little Blue and Snowy Egrets, White-faced Capuchin Monkeys, Gallinule, Spectacled Caiman, and black river turtles posed in the forest shadows on the river’s edge. Everything we saw was in a great position and stayed around forever! Highlights were a fantastical Boat-billed Heron with his otherworldly bill agape, turtles with colorful necks pointing to the sky, and a brilliant green basilisk lizard. Lots to talk about at breakfast.

Our afternoon boat ride was OK… lots of large orange male iguanas sunning in the trees. Green Herons, Snowy Egrets, Tiger Herons, and Great Egrets were out in abundance. This morning’s shoot was so spectacular that we just sort of enjoyed the cool breeze and the boat ride. At 4:30 we were near the air strip which is our access to the beach and the green sea turtle nesting sites. Knowing there was no way we could be lucky two days in a row, we found a nest that had hatched at most a half hour ago. We just missed it. There looked like 100's of baby turtle tracks leading to the sea. RATS!

The sun was near the horizon and we started to walk up the beach when our guide yelled at us to get to a turtle nest that was just erupting. There were hundreds of baby turtles floundering in the nest working to get out of the nest.  It was crazy as they broke over the top and headed for their new life in the ocean. We had to be incredibly careful to avoid stepping on them. It was another amazing chance to photograph one of nature's legendary events.

Every single night walk has something new and amazing.  Tonight we had a huge red wolf spider with an egg sac, frogs and geckos, but the most interesting were frog eggs. Inside the clear water chambers you could see the tadpoles moving around. Lighting them from behind and from on top of the leaf gave the photos a super detailed look.

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