Paraiso Quetzal Lodge stands high on the Talamanca ridge above San Gerardo de Dota, about 90 minutes from San José. This was the last birding stop on my trip and by far the greatest birding experience of my life. I cannot praise this hotel and its facilities enough. The staff, the hotel location, the facilities and the room were all absolutely exemplary.

The hotel is in a stunning location, and my room had the most beautiful mountain setting of the entire trip, but that is not what sets the hotel apart. What made this place completely memorable, if not astonishing, was its unique access to Quetzals. The lodge has an arrangement with a farmer nearby, in an area popular with Quetzals.

Eight years ago, they set up a special nest for these extraordinary birds, in a tree trunk located around 30 m from a small but simple viewing platform attached to the farmer’s house. Two chicks had hatched two days before I arrived, and this was the perfect time to see these extraordinary and magnificent birds.

From the viewing platform, you can see the ritual as the male or female Quetzal emerges from the hole in the trunk and flies off to forage for food. Both the inward and outward journeys offered unmatched opportunities for flight shots, particularly of the male Resplendent Quetzal with its extraordinary tail feathers.

Seeing the birds at all was by no means guaranteed and you might only get a couple of fleeting glimpses in a two-hour session, but it was a world away from the zoo down in the valley. This was such an incredible opportunity with such fleeting moments of extraordinary beauty that I went three times to the farm to photograph the Quetzals.

Both the arrival and the departure of the male and female birds were over in a matter of seconds and you had to be continuously alert for hours to be able to capture them. Their speed of travel and relative closeness to the viewing platform made panning with the birds' flight paths technically quite hard and really good technique was required along with the highest possible shutter speed. The OM-1 responded magnificently and I got shots that I am really very proud of and which I think I will never be able to repeat in my lifetime.

The last session was my final bird-photography experience in Costa Rica on this trip. I was able to put all the learning I had got in the earlier two sessions to use and got some extraordinary images of these truly mystical birds in the last minutes of my tour. The feeling of elation and wonderment was overwhelming even for a cynical old coot like myself.

I cannot recommend this lodge and its sensitively managed and ecologically sound Quetzal-viewing experience enough. This alone is sufficient reason to come to Costa Rica in my view.

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