SUNDAY 1 | APRIL 2018
>> Continued from page 10 But we’re now approaching the most critical part of the tour — up in the Talamanca Range Cloud Forest in pursuit of one of Earth’s rarest and most spectacular birds: the resplendent quetzal. I’ve been blessed in the past to have enjoyed multiple and leisurely views of it, and have come to believe that living without seeing and photographing it is one of life’s great losses. For the quetzal is a bird that makes you fall in love with it at the very first sight, and I’m anxious to see if my group will get to be in love.
We arrive at the site, and hit pay dirt with such startling ease; I’m taken aback with a paroxysm of pleasure. A male, attired in his long green tail, red belly and green ‘jacket’ on a picturesque perch sits supreme. I’m stunned! His beauty is all-pervasive, and despite having seen and photographed the bird on several occasions in the past, I find it hard to believe that something as lovely as this can possibly exist. And it occurs to me that the tour that has reached its zenith with this sight of nature at the apogee of design.
Now, the white-naped jakobin is another bird I’ve been expecting to photograph, and next day, it turns out we haven’t exhausted all our luck, and are fortunate enough to encounter this avian beauty as well. As we see it hover in the air, it feels like time itself has learned some stillness.
We take a breather from all the frenzy, and in the lap of the induced calm, I cannot help but rave about the beauty of the Costa Rican wilderness. I can almost feel the textures of the numerous different trees, growing riotously densely, etching themselves on my memory. This exquisite allure then hauntingly hurtles through my memory space and contends for my attention.
It’s as if my vision helps me transcend my own unclear understanding of what nature means, and a singular tranquillity settles upon my mind like the mist enveloping the waterfall before us.
The sight slowly sinks in and seeps through all the crevices of my heart, and as I look back at the tour, I see all the snakes and the frogs we’ve seen and photographed; all the variety of wildlife that lives and thrives on this blessed land. And when the snakes have been slothful and not always slithered away, and the little adorable frogs have stayed and not leaped off, they’ve been a boundless joy to watch and photograph.
And yet again I return with great memories, memories birthed by the womb of this great country with its myriad life forms. I return with their soul-stirring innocence, their formidable beauty, and the trust that exists between my reverence and their power to enchant having grown my love for it a bit more. I know it is a steadfast love that will keep me returning time and again in search of good light, and in its wake, a glimpse of the world beyond. — The writer is a wildlife photographer