Bats in Costa Rica.

I have just returned from leading a trip to Costa Rica with Mark and Nature’s Images. This is the third time I have been to this fantastic country and I loved this trip as much as the first.

The subject range is amazing from hummers and other stunning birds to bats, snakes and frogs. I love photographing them all but I realised on my last trip that the thrill of working late at night in the damp rainforest with bats buzzing all around is hard to beat.

So, in this, the first Costa Rica post, I have concentrated on the bats.

These are leaf-nosed nectar feeding bats that visit flowers for their sugary, food.

Whilst this is clearly important for the bats, it is also a vital pollination mechanism for the plants.

In some of the images you can actually see the bats upper body ‘powdered’ with yellow pollen.

Mozzies were occasionally a nuisance but the spectacle of the bats even outweighs this troublesome little pest.   

And before anyone asks, my sensor is dirty! but the white dots are actually raindrops.