All photos were taken on a single night walk in situ in Drake Bay, Costa Rica on 22 February, 2026.
My wife and I met our tour guide Karen from https://osaoutdoorsadventures.com/ in Drake Bay early evening to get a potential head-start of other groups. Luckily, we were the only guests, so our group size was minimal. The night walk led us up a creek, mainly in the river bed. My wife wore the rubber boots given by Karen; I had my Guyana-proven jungle boots on.
The previous days had been unusually wet, especially considering that it was supposed to be the dry season. Furthermore, the village’s fresh water supply is taken from the very same creek and the pipes were leaking at several locations along the way, creating a very humid, misty and wet environment. This provided some great photo opportunities for glass frogs, normally only seen during the wet season.
Our guide Karen was a very knowledgeable naturalist and helped us spot several frogs and snakes, as well as spiders, ants and other insects.
The highlight of the night walk was the encounter with the Red-eyed Tree Snake, which is rarely seen in Costa Rica, especially in the dry season, and normally lives up in the trees. Even our guide Karen had seen this species only once before.
None of the animals were touched or relocated for photography. All images were taken in situ with an Nikon Z8, NIKKOR Z 105mm ƒ/2.8 VR, an off-camera Godox V860 III flash, a Godox X3 transmitter and a softbox by Hähnel.
If the terrain and vegetation allowed it, the flash was held directly above and very close to the subject to create a soft, moon-like illumination. Of course this wasn’t always easy, holding the flash in one hand and the camera in the other and, at the same time, shining a light on the subject to be able to focus, considering that the trigger in the flash shoe mostly blocked my headlamp. Sometimes, my wife or Karen assisted with holding the flash which facilitated things considerably 🙂
I was taught this trick to hold the flash as close as possible in a photo workshop organized by Foto Verde Tours at the beginning of this vacation. You can read about that workshop in the post Hummingbird Photography in Costa Rica and see more photos of birds and other wildlife. If that is still not enough, there are even more animal pictures in the photo database.