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July 19:
Today was certaintly jammed packed with charismatic mega fauna (yes, I
love that phrase). My day started at 4:30 am. Rachell, Raylene
(they're from Cincinnati, Ohio), and I were meeting a group of researchers
who were mist netting birds in a disturbed area of rainforest and in an
agricultural area (banana plantation). We intended to work with them
as part of a project that we could present; comparing the above mentioned
areas in species diversity. Anyway, after spending 4 hours
in driving rain and ankle high mud with people that didn't speak English
(and we don't speak Spanish), we decided there would not be enough opportunity
for data...they weren't netting for much longer. We only caught
2 birds due to the rain: white breasted wood wren (Henicorhina leucosticta)
and a little hermit hummingbird (Phaethornis longuemareus). I have
decided to concentrate at studying bats with Andrea Whetterer.
After a much needed nap, I made plans with Andrea (and others
in the group) to net bats in the evening. In the afternoon we saw
a sloth in a tree right outside the old classroom building. What
a cool sight! It's arms were stretched upwards, claws grasping the
trunk. It's body was nestles in the crook of the trunk and a lateral
branch. As a crowd gathered 'round, the sloth put on a little show
by scratching its face. It was looking down, I guess wondering what
all the fuss was about. Their faces are so unique...a smile permanently
engraved by genetics.
July 20
I'm working on a bat project
with Andrea Whetterer (a graduate student who is studying bats at Columbia).
She is married to Jim Whetterer whose expertise is in ants and fish.
Did I mention ants yet? I think we are all becoming experts because
of Jim. He's a great teacher and soooooooooooooo enthusiastic.
I love his energy. His excitement about ants and biology in general
is contagious and one can see he trully loves what he's doing. Anyw
July 21
Today was an indoor day.
The bat group finished our data collection in the lab (identifying morpho
species of seeds found in bat guano). Nancy wrote up the results,
Dale wrote about methods and materials, Suzanne did the introduction, and
I wrote the discussion. We all spent several hours in the lab and
classroom and I was still really sick. But we finished and did a
good job. I will have copy of our paper on my site at some point.
I chose to write the discussion because I think it's the most difficult
part. I certainly didn't choose it because I thought I could write
it the best. I really need the practice and wanted to learn alot
about interpreting data. Besides I always feel really good after
accomplishing something that I find hard to do. All the groups gave
their presentations tonight. Let's see, the topics were: 1.
Fecal Analysis and Parasite Load of Frugivorous Bats (ours), Frog on the
Pad! (studying parachuting frogs...Michael was in this group), Bat and
Bird Diversity of Forest vs. Agricultural Field, Ants, Bugs, and Cecropia,
and Bromeliad (a few specific topics here)...
July 22
Today we took a short trip to Teleferico
del Bosque Lluvioso which is an aerial tram ride through the rainforest
canopy. It was a great experience....lots of tanagers, woodcreepers,
hummingbirds, beautiful bromeliads, broccoli trees, palms, etc. We
did see an eyelash viper coiled on a fishtail leaf (Suita). It was
about 60cm long. We took a short walk after the ride an saw a rare
lizard, Choristofalis costatus (picture coming soon) and we saw
a Crested Owl!
We had another unique experience that
day. We visited a local rural elementary school in La Guaria.
The school consisted of a series of concrete rooms that had chain link
fence for walls and corrugated tin rooves. Most classrooms didn't
have enough desks and and only a few had electricity. The social
worker, Kelly Sommers (a Peace Corps volunteer) told us that sometimes
there is enough food for the children, and sometimes the bathrooms work.
Someone stole the school's water pump. We took a lot of video footage and
pictures there. The students love getting their pictures taken and
they were amazed with seeing themselves on video! At one time, about
15-20 kids were piled on and around me trying to get a look at the small
video screen. They were all laughing, screaming, giggling, and making
faces. That was an extremely memorable experience. We all donated
money to the school and took Kelly's address so that maybe our schools
could collect supplies and send them to La Guaria. We then visited
a high school in Puerto Viejo and had a great session with one of the teachers
(chemistry, physics, math). The students were psyched to get out
of class for a while (their school day is from 7 am to 5 pm!). All
students wear uniforms. These schools don't have good facilities
but they do have extremely dedicated teachers.
We ended the day with a fiesta
at La Selva...outside BBQ, music, and dancing. It was really fun.
I danced with Carlos, the Environmental Ed. outreach person. It was
great. We danced the merengue...all kinds of fancy moves! He
was an excellent leader and we danced very well together.
July 23
Right now we are on the bus travelling to
our next stop, Las Cruces. It is 1:20 pm and we've been on the road
since 7:30am. It's supposed to be a 10 hour drive. We are at
about 2500 meters on rocky and curvy mountain roads. We already seen
a vehicle that drove off a cliff. The chances some drivers take around
here are really scary! We are in a montane cloud forest life zone.
None of us were prepared with warm clothes and it's pretty cold.
We just passed a recent landslide that is being moved aside by tractors.
We're not sure but the temperature seems to be about 60 degrees F (15 C).
I took a picture at a species of Indian Paintbrush and St. John's Wort
plants.
July 24
Las Cruces 50 questions, group dynamics, hypotheses
blue crested mot mot
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Roughing
it in the wilderness!
This is the view from the balcony of el comedor. |
July 25
Today our group set up our experiment in the garden (near the
grave of Robert and Catherine Wilson). Our design consisted of a
matrix of bamboo poles that held fake flowers (4 colors) and a vials of
an odor source (honey, syrup, rotten meat, neutral). The whole project
is written up; pictures included. So I won't spend anymore time here.
When we had a chance, Michael, Mary, Rachelle, Raylene, and I hiked to
Rio Jaba, followed the river upstream and went swimming/wading in the water
falls and little pools. It was pretty cold...Michael took a long
time to take the plunge. There's a picture of us on one part of the
falls somewhere on this web page. We stayed for a while, looking
out for snakes and leeches. Mikey and I stayed behind for a bit so
we could have time for a little skinny dipping! That was really fun.
July 26
Las Cruces data, write up, night walk
July 27
Las Cruces presentations, shop, ameiva
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July 28
We left Las Cruces this morning about
7:30 and arrived in Dominical around noon. On the way we stopped
at a Baruca Indian Reservation. It was only a 20 minute stop, but
it was memorable. Most people were buying some of the crafts
they had to sell. Baruca Indians make hollow water carriers out of
the fruit from the callabash tree. I bought one at the gift shop
near Las Cruces. They also sold beaded necklaces, hammocks, and weaved
handbags. Their living conditions were horrible, but they seemed
happy and were extremely friendly. The little stand was run by an
older woman and her daughter (I think that's the relationship). There were
also 3 young kids, I'm not sure if they were the grandchildren. The
kids were so cute. They were shy but really loved having their pictures
taken. I was able to ask their permission in Spanish. Hopefully
I will convert my slides to this web page. I think the children's
personalities and living circumstances will really show in the pictures.
I can't wait to see them!
Dominical is a coastal town
(on the Pacific) that is full of American surfers. It was kind of
funny to see a pizza joint called Gringo Mike's Pizza. There were
green iguanas running along the street (there is one main street...not
paved). The beach is ranked one of the 10 best surfing beaches AND
one of the ten most dangerous beaches in the world! The currents
are so strong that it is very easy to get swept out to sea...but we went
swimming anyway! Well, kind of swimming. We really couldn't
go out past our waists because it was too rough. Riding a wave in
would be suicidal. The bottom of the surf was covered with pebbles
and rocks and lots of sediment was suspending in the waves. So it
was pretty hairy. At one point, Michael and I were sitting on a dead
log near the low tide line. A wave came in and knocked me backwards
off the log like I was a little bug. I couldn't believe how strong
it was!
Well after the beach we went to
the hotel, Villa Rio Mar (which was run by a guy from New Jersey), and
jumped in the pool. At this point, the group coming from Palo Verde
was there (Mikey's Mom's group). They were already indulging in the
alcohol and festivities having survived the heat and primitive conditions
of Palo Verde research station. We all had a great time and had dinner
together in the outdoor resturant. It was relaxing and trully enjoyable...a
little vacation from our expedition. That night about 7 of us sneaked
into the pool after hours and took a swim "la natural". I won't name
names, but it was fun until the guy from NJ booted us out! Our room
at the hotel was really groovy. First of all, Michael and I got one
to ourselves...that's all I'll write.
July 29
We left Dominical early in the morning and spent
about 10 hours on the bus. We stopped in a few towns for ice cream
and goodies and saw lots of great birds along the way. Our binoculars
and bird books were always out. I'll include the species we saw in
my general species list.
We arrived in Palo Verde in late afternoon.
It is seriously in the middle of nowhere. We heard all kinds of stories
about the heat, mosquitos, scorpions, the kitchen, etc. When we arrived
we were trully scared. A few of us went out on a night walk with
Phillippe, and ours fears were confirmed. Well, at least the mosquitos
part. I didn't sleep very well that night because I was really under
the impression that giant insects were going to tear through my mosquito
netting sting me to death and then carry my body away so their relatives
could feed. Well, that didn't happen.
July 30
My fears of Palo Verde have gone away.
This place is beautiful and Phillippe gave us a thorough introduction to
it. Today we hiked to Mirador Guaycon. It was buggy in the
lower areas but we learned about some dominant tree species such as the
pachote tree, or the velcro tree. It is covered in short, thick spines.
Phillippe calls it the medieval tree. We also saw many acacia trees
that have a mutualistic relationship with ants. The ants live in
the hollow thorns and keep other herbivores away from the tree. The
ants also clear the area surrounded the tree so that no other vegetation
can grow and compete! When looking through the dry forest, you could
see open patches of bare ground around some trees. They are acacias.
We also saw a Laughing Falcon and a small troupe of Howler Monkeys!
The destination of our hike was the limestone cliffs, about 115 meters
above sea level. The view was spectacular. We could see the
lagoon area of Palo Verde and the snake like Tempisque River winding
its way out to Gulf of Nicoya. The lagoon area used to bea huge cattle
ranch, supporting about 10,000 heads of cattle! When this area became
a national park, the cattle were removed and the area was left to return
to its "natural state." What actually happened was that the open
water lagoon area filled in with Typhae (cattails) so much that there is
no open water anymore. It used to be an important site for migratory
waterfowl, but now its mostly filled in. It still supports a large
variety of birds and other animals (we saw black bellied whistling ducks,
tiger herons, jacanas, egrets, etc from the bird tower). It's interesting
that the cattle maintained an important habitat. They have been in
this area for 300 years, so it's hard to say what's natural and unnatural
use of the land. Actually we are looking at that very question for
our project (Raylene, Mary, Rachelle, Dale, Michael, me).
Later in the day we climbed up to Mirador La Roca.
From here we could see the mountain that we climbed in the morning and
get another perspective on the lagoon and park area as a whole. I
will try to put these pictures up as well. On the way down, Mark
and Nancy saw a jaguarundi! We went to part of the marsh that had
some open water, deep black, saw large snails congregating to mate, and
several birds including a kite.
In the evening, Phillippe gave a talk about
possible project ideas and everyone very easily divided into groups and
chose a project to work on. It seemed everyone just gravitated to
what interested her/him and the questioning and hypothesizing started.
Our group is looking at the biotic and abiotic soil conditions of primary
forest, second growth forest, active cattle pasture, and abandoned cattle
pasture where African blue grass has taken over. We're wondering
if soil conditions change so much that the soil in cattle pastures can
no longer support the types of species found in primary dry forest.
July 31
This
morning began with a 2 hour horse back ride through primary forest and
out to the lowland lagoon. I was so excited on the ride and couldn't
stop expressing it. I haven't been on a horse in several years and
the scenery was magnificent. I mentioned earlier about not being
able to be in a place without seeing lots of people and human disturbance
(in the US). Well I've experienced that great feeling again.
The lagoon was simply majestic. Each direction towards the horizon
was framed with mountains and volcanos. Beautiful marsh flowers were
in bloom and striking flocks of waterfowl were all around! We saw
a snag full of wood storks (got great pictures), black bellied whistling
ducks, several heron species, cattle egrets meandering around the cattle,
great egrets, and countless other LBB's. It was fun trying
to take pictures on a horse. My horse was pregnant (still is).
I got to ride here because I was the smallest one of the group.
After the horse ride we got
back to our "base camp" to find a troupe of Howler Monkeys in the trees!
Some other folks had been watching them for several hours; they counted
about 30! The monkeys didn't mind being watched and having their
pictures taken. They would come down from the canopy to eat leaves
and then to back up to lazily sprawl along the branches. I loved
watching their tails curl around the branches as they effortlessly manuevered
through the canopy. There were babies everywhere! Baby animals
never fail at making people happy. There was one baby who was upset
and "crying". The mom came over and comforted it until it stopped.
I wish I was able to sit under the tree for an hour or two and just observe,
but the troupe left before I had a chance. I can't wait to see the
pictures I took.
After that, we
went on a boat ride down the Rio Tempisque. We saw crocidiles all
along the way, and I have a lot of pictures of them. All sizes!
It's incredible how well they submerse themselves into the muddy banks
and almost disappear because they are so well camoflauged! We also
saw tiger herons (and chicks in a nest), little blue herons, green iguanas
sunning themselves in trees, white ibis, wood storks flying, egrets, a
tiger heron eating a snake!, and lots of other smaller birds. Phillippe
told us about the mangrove forests that lined either side of the river.
Pelliciera
is
a seductive looking tree, says Phillippe, I have to agree. I'll try
to put a picture of one up.
August 1
At
6:45am our group went out to cattle pastures to start sampling. Noguarro
(I'm not sure if that's how you spell his name) took us to a pasture that
has been active and one that has not had cattle on it for more than a year.
At least that's what we understood. We'll find out exactly what he
meant when Phillippe can translate. Anyway it was a great morning.
The first site took a while because we didn't have our methods down.
But we worked until we agreed how to take samples, what the soil horizons
looked like (trying to identify them was the hardest part; there
were no distinct lines of color and texture to rely on). Once we
got our methods down it was easy. Dale dug the hole, Michael measured the
depth of the humus and A horizon, Raylene took samples at 5 cm for pH analysis,
and I took samples at 5 cm for mass, volume, and density analysis.
Mary marked the areas samples would be taken and helped clear the area
for digging. It was really neat to create sample plots and a sampling
system that worked. We moved to the next site where the African Blue
Grass was really high; about 1 meter. It was a lot harder to
create a plot site but, again, we got a system down and it went fast.
Taking funny pictures of our work and laughing a lot took our minds of
the heat and sun (pastures don't have any shade). Next we went
into secondary growth forest that; an area that has not been grazed by
cattle for about 20 years. This was hell! Acacia trees were
prevalent and the ants were doing a great job of attacking the intruders
to their area. Unfortunately, we were the intruders and we got stung
several times! Ants were all over us and the mosquitos didn't let
up either. Well by this time we had our sampling method down to a
science (pun intended) and it went fast...so we got the hell out of there.
I didn't get a great picture of a hymepteran (actually two that were mating)
that mimic the thorns on acacia trees. That was neat. We saw
one on the night hike and I've been looking for more ever since.
There were actually 4 or 5 on that one branch. Great survival technique!
August 2
Today Michael and I
went hiking...our last day here at Palo Verde. Before we got very
far we saw a spider monkey effortlessly swinging through the trees!
We followed him up the mountain side and caught up to his troupe of about
10. Mikey and I got to watch and follow them for a long time.
I took about 15 pictures....some great shots of their curious faces and
them hanging by their tails. It was so great, something I hoped to
see in Costa Rica. We are the only ones to see spider monkeys out
of our group. After the monkeys left us we hiked up to the limestone
cliffs on Sendero _____. From the lookout we saw white-faced monkeys
playing in the trees on the opposite hillside! We watched them for
a while through the binoculars. We even saw one chasing a variegated
squirrel. The day wasn't over yet. On the way down the mountain
we ran into another troupe of white -faced monkeys! Again, I was
able to get a bunch of pictures. I hope to put them on this page.
They were really curious and would stop to watch us and figure out what
we were doing. I wonder if the monkeys were being bitten by as many
mosquitos as we were! I have to go get ready for our presentation
now.
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