Every time I've seen heliconia before, they have looked something like this. In Costa Rica, I saw a type of heliconia that was soft and fuzzy! The first time I noticed it was right after it rained. There were water droplets clinging to the fuzz. It should have made for good pictures, but the light was very bad that day. The next morning, I got some better photos of the fuzzy (but dry) heliconia illuminated by bright sunlight.

I took some photos today, and I hope they turned out. I had good subject matter, at least... I hope to post them when my hard-drive issues are sorted out, whenever that may be!

These mosses and lichens were growing on a tree right on the beach near where we stayed in Costa Rica. I didn't actually notice the lichens until our second-last day there. I have other lichen photos that are more colorful, but I like this one because you can also see the texture in the wood.

I'm still lacking hard drive space to upload my new photos. I went back through my archives and pulled out a couple from Costa Rica.

This beetle stayed with us in our beach house for a couple of days. I took over 100 photos of him, but unfortunately none turned out. This is probably one of the better ones. The beetle hated light and would immediately scuttle toward the nearest dark corner. It's hard to take a 1/20 second exposure of a moving creature, so I opened up the aperture to shorten the exposure time. The consequence of this was shallow depth of field... meaning I never really got all of the beetle in focus at once.

The beetle had so many interesting parts to focus on - the hooks on his legs, his anter-like antennae, and his fuzzy underside just for starters. I was eager to search the net when I got home to try to find out exactly what kind of beetle this was. The result was kind of anticlimactic: "Dung Beetle".

I was sitting on the ground trying to photograph lizards, when I heard a sound like a small motor right above my head. I looked up, expecting to see some kind of model helicopter (I don't know why I was expecting to see a model helicopter in middle-of-nowhere, Costa Rica). Instead, I saw this hummingbird! He was moving pretty fast, but I was lucky enough to get a few good shots.

This moth was a very cooperative model. Not only did it allow me to get very close to it with my macro lens, it chose an interesting, colorful flower for its lunch.

This is a female golden orb spider. As you may see in subsequent photos, the males are much smaller.

The place where we stayed in Costa Rica was peppered with little holes in the ground. The holes were inhabited by crabs, although you wouldn't have known it during the day. The stealthy crustaceans came out at night, and we managed to take one by surprise walking back to the cabin from the beach. Graem illuminated him with a flashlight while I took pictures. He seemed to be doing some sort of comical dance on stage under a spotlight as he scuttled back to his hole.

I took sunset photos every night in Costa Rica. This is one of the few where I managed not to screw up the exposure for the water or the sky.

This baby sloth fell out of a tree and was separated from his mom. The gardeners were taking him around in a wheelbarrow to protect him from the snake that was patrolling the premises. I'm not sure how, but he was eventually reunited with his mom... we saw the two together in a tree.