Alarm Bells

I had been exploring the far corners of Costa Rica for the best part of 2 months, immersing myself in the vast array of wildlife this viridescent country has to offer, constantly stunned at not just the quantity of life but the quality. This story is set way up high in the Puntarenas Province, approximately 1440m above sea level. Here sits one of the best kept cloud forests in Costa Rica; Monteverde - green mountain.

As I think back in awe the mind’s eye is still fuzzy, so I will start with that that a camera cannot capture. You rise to a symphony of birds at the high end, the echo of their songs multiplying their presence to dizzying heights. The punctuation of the howler monkey’s Jurassic roars, brings you back down to Earth. The humming and thrumming of insects levels out the soundscape with cicadas providing additional decorations. The star of this story is bells chiming, the final alarm to drag me out of bed. The air is viscous as I sit up, the smell is thick with life… and death. The two intertwined like that ancient eternal snake. The morning air is full of mystery, shrouded in a bright fog. The humidity is intoxicating but I am alert. Nocturnal creatures sleep somewhere. The true colours are dulled down like my senses. You can quickly feel at one with the rainforest. A slave to its cycles, you must submit. As the mist of the morning starts to settle, ecosystems vast and tiny reveal themselves.

But this photo was borne from the night. Beasts big and small emerge as the curtain of darkness falls, as if the light of day is reserved for the remarkable flora and trees and waterways and skies which are their home. The expert local guide, Oscar, was due to pick me up at midnight. The mountain road is treacherous but the jeep coped easily with the bumps and bends. I step out into a wall of cool mountain air. The smell is so fresh up there, removed from the pungent odour of decomposition below. In the hot basin the forest is struggling to breathe from deforestation and it slowly digests what is left. In the mountains you get a true sense of the trees’ respiration. The thin air so fine and pure. If everyone could sample this air and breathe, really breathe, and heal, the future may not look so bleak for our forests, for us.

The darkness set a totally different scene to that of the daytime. The atmosphere was familiar but not welcoming. For why would you be welcomed into a home that you are steadily destroying? Where you have killed half of its occupants. Stolen its possessions. You burn its walls. But if you approach with care, with openness, with love, I find that you are always rewarded. Following the single cone of light emanating from my torch I was immediately confronted with one of the most feared creatures in the jungle – bullet ants. Oscar was eager to inform the group that a sting from one of these guys is worse than being shot, hence the name. An instant reminder to be aware and that to the uneducated explorer, in the jungle danger can come from the most unassuming places. Some snapping twigs overhead startled me and I shone the torch up to find a Two-toed Sloth staring down at me. As she slowly raised her spare arm to shield her sensitive eyes, I turned my torch away, pleased to have spotted this magnificent mammal.

A little more rambling over roots and through thicket and Oscar signalled for us to stop. Wrapped around a thin branch was a Green Pit Viper slithering away from us. A rustle in a bush below made my heart drop, this beast was big. We waited for what felt like a minute. In the near distance I could hear the deep thud of my heartbeat, my breath held tight in my chest where my heart should have been. Out of the bush dashed an armadillo, out of my mouth a sigh of relief. A blurred photograph was taken, most likely due to my trembling hands. Still, I was determined to get some good shots in this unpredictable scene.

We ventured deeper into the unknown. There was the bell chiming telling me I was nearing the prize. The chiming turned to giggling as the creature evaded the torchlight, taunting me. Then the light settled on a large leaf and a moment later two smirking ruby red eyes popped open. Usually enough to startle the predator and leap to safety. However this time he seemed to be as mesmerised as me. His body was a near perfectly camouflaged leafy green with a yellow throat and belly and powerful apricot thighs. “A Red-Eyed Stream Frog” Oscar quietly exclaimed from behind me. “The little fella sure doesn’t seem phased. He is critically endangered. You should snap him up before climate change does.” I did and here I present him to you. How privileged I feel to be able to share this once in a lifetime shot of such a beautiful and charismatic little creature for there may not be many more opportunities to see his species. We are feeding him a lethal cocktail of factors that include pollution, habitat loss and climate change which weaken his immune system. The garnish of a fungus is dealing the final blow. We are perpetrating a mass extinction of frogs. 200 species have already gone extinct and hundreds more including the Red-Eyed Stream Frog are extremely threatened. This gradually tips the delicate balance of this ecosystem as insect eating frogs disappear. It’s time for those striking red eyes to startle us. It’s time to hear the alarm bells.