April 10 -- Day 1 in Costa Rica

As a culmination of 36 hours of travel, it was exciting to hear that the plane was beginning its descent towards San Jose. We broke through the clouds and my first impression was a bit underwhelming. From elevation I saw rolling hills of green. At eye level I was able to discern the trees touching the clouds which spanned from Nicoya to the Osa Peninsula. We landed in the gray valley of San Jose. Surprised to see the cargo DHL plane was still at the end of the runway when we landed.

It was a short stay in San Jose. We got our car and a meal before starting our long journey south. The first night was spent in Dominical. Nothing serious planned, but it’s a short stay in Costa Rica so why not wander around and herp. With no aim, we followed the road outside where we were staying which followed a river. The trunks and bushes were full of lizards, anoles, and geckos. To my surprise, shining was productive. One eye shine, some hooting and hollering, and scrambling for a ladder later I managed to capture some poorly lit photos of the first snake of the trip. Fair warning, you’ll want to turn up the brightness on whatever viewing platform you’re on.

The first view was of orange eyeshine above a branch. All our combined light yielded a lump on top of the branch.

We observed this snake for about an hour. It was fun to watch it manuever through the canopy on the hunt.

Caught a glimpse of its pure black prehensile tail though don’t have a good photo. Stretched out with much of its weight held by its tail.

Solid pattern shot.

Best head shot we got. Classic boa head shape.

It retreated further into the canopy reminding us that it was near midnight and our adventure was just getting started. Off to be for us.

April 11 -- Day 2 in Costa Rica

With actual plans on the horizon, I woke up ecstatic and ready to get a start to the day despite jet and travel lag. A relaxed Costa Rican breakfast helped us get a move on before leaving Domincal and continuing our drive into the Osa Peninsula. The first stop was Drakes Bay. On the way there we came across some other staples of Costa Rican wildlife: iguanas, toucans, macaws, and our first amphibians (unidentified, pretty common theme when it came to spotting frogs). We stopped at a beach to relax for a bit and my brother wandered up a stream on the otherside of the road. He caught a glimpse of a giant parrot snake escaping up into the canopy. Sweet find even though I did not get to see it.

As we were meandering around Drake’s Bay looking for places to day hike, I was shocked to see the familiar sight of a snake stretched out across the road. With no immediate clue of its identification I was glad to have assembled a snake hook. My first snake handling of Costa Rica really got my heart pumping. I was mostly confident it wasn’t venomous but wasn’t going to take any chances. With snake hook in one hand and camera in the other I tried my best to get photos. Means I wasn’t able to get any full body shots. I’d estimate it was about three and a half feet long.

I was initially set on this being a yellow spotted keelback but after some close looks and the aid of iNaturalist I have settled on it being a bird-eating snake. It looked like it could have used a shed from the dullness and looseness of the skin. Though it may have also been suffering from some health issues. There were at least 4 ticks on it as seen by the following photo. One is prominent in the bottom left part of the photo.

It had a really pretty pattern of light bands that were fairly grey/white with specks of blue throughout and a yellow underside. Would have loved to see a freshly shed individual.

Now for the guided portion of the night! We had planned a single guided night hike and were very excited. It was well worth the money as you will soon see. We got our first taste of the rainforest on this hike. I was not focused on my photography at the time as we were paying for this experience so I wanted to be in the moment and make the most of it. That being said, I obviously still took some shots. On our way to the hiking location we drove by an anteater walking along the road. The hike began walking through some open fields shining the trees. Crossing a stream we came across two Northern Cat-Eyed Snakes. The quickness of these finds made me wonder if they were staged. I was not ready for how productive we would be that night. A later stream in the middle of a field yielded metamorphosizing Fleischmann’s Glass frogs and some young speckled caiman that our guides attempted to catch to give us a closer look. Then came our third snake of the expedition, a clouded snail eater. They are really something in that region. The light pink bands contrast the black body spectacularly.

We soon left the fields behind and entered into a rainforest. We came across a kinkajou, a bird sleeping, and a possum. Frogs were calling from all around and many were pointed out. One particular noisy spot had glass frogs calling and while we were on the search for their location, a coral snake came slithering by us. A torrential downpour of rain also began.

As we continued into the forest, our guides became ever more engrossed in the search. Peering under fallen logs and looking high into the canopy, their paces quickened. It wasn’t long before we stopped again. This time for a snake hanging out atop a palm frond.

A vine snake! This common blunt-headed vine snake was fascinating with its thin oddly shaped head. Its eyes sat further forward on its head,maybe to produce more binocular vision as it looked in front of itself on the branches it climbed through. It also had a striking triangular brown pattern similar to a copperhead.

As the hike continued, I almost descended into a monotanous trance before I was awaken by the call of Terciopelo, Terciopelo Grande!

Felt Like I was back in the state with a thick bodied venomous snake coiled up. Wasn’t long before our presence bothered it and it took off with an alarming speed. On our way out we came across one more snake, another clouded snail eater. One last chance to fail at photographing its striking color.

On our drive back we came across a couple more blunt-headed vine snakes and another cat-eye before arriving at our next rest point.

April 12 -- Day 3 in Costa Rica

We woke up the next morning to some guests occupying our air BnB.

These uninvited guests were most likely doing us a favor and eating bugs that were hanging out in our open cabin. Sleeping with mosquito nets around our beds, I am sure that there was plenty for them to pick off. We took this day pretty slow and got going a little before dusk. The action didn’t begin until dusk, we saw plenty of bats flying around as we hiked. After awhile of little activity, we came across a frog on a palm frond.

To our dismay it was a poison dart frog! We had been hoping to come across one during our journeys and were unbelievably stoked to see it without having to exert effort to focus a hike on it. Looking into it, this frog is diurnal so it was probably preparing to settle in for the night and our stumbling upon it was complete luck. I had been toying with my night photography set up and I couldn’t be happier with this photo.

With a rejuvenated spirit we continued on. Our next encounter was also of luck. We came across a screech owl!

Apparently there has been some species debate and as of 2019 screech owls in our location were now referred to as Choco Screech owls. It was awesome to see such a recently announced species.

Not long after, hanging out on another palm frond one of our final goals was realized. An Eyelash Viper!

I was excited to see the Christmas phase with its green and red pattern with some striking orange as well. It was crazy how the pattern required different colors on the same scale. Seeing the eyelashes up close was crazy as well.

Such cool eyes.

Truly a sit and wait predator, the viper did not move at all during this entire photo shoot. We left it and stopped scaring away its prey.

As we continued hiking we heard some ruckus up in a tree and found some eye shine in the canopy. It was clearly moving through the trees with a prehensile tail and with four legs. My description from that day reads “some monkey with a prehensile tail, two colored face with a grayish center and two button ears with a lighter underside”. We had poor lighting so we will never be sure, but based on the button ears I would rule out 3/4 of the monkey species and based on the size from my memory I would be surprised if it were the remaining, white faced capuchin. Maybe it was a coati though I think my brother would disagree with that. All we know for certain was that it was some canopy dwelling mammal.

As the night wore on we came across one last palm frond find. Another glass frog species.

We departed the rain forest that night and slept on the edge of it in our air BnB.

Due to air BnB troubles, we were exhausted at this point in the trip so we had a more relaxing final few days that did not yield any more herps. It was a great trip and I can’t wait till my next international adventure.

Species Seen: Pacific Tree Boa, Bird-eating Snake, 3 Northern Cat-Eyed Snake, 2 Clouded Snail Eater, Allen’s Coral Snake, 5 Common Blunt-headed Vine Snake, Fer-de-Lance, Eyelash Palm-Pitviper

For a total of 8 species and 15 snakes in a little more than 48 hours!