The Interesting and Dangerous Lives of Bird-Watching Undergraduates

Today we began work at 5:30AM, rather earlier than the average tourist.  We set our permanent point-count sites and took our first set of data.  We decided to drop the evening count due to unpredictable heavy rains, and added more sites to the morning count.  We have a total of 14 locations around the perimeter of the property where we stop and count birds for 10 minutes each.  The mapping group followed us and set GPS points and took site data.  Later in the week they will be taking panoramic shots of each site so that any changes in vegetation can be documented as the reforestation project continues.  Giovani helped us out a lot in hearing, sighting, and identifying birds.  He has been a guide near Arenal for many years and knows an amazing amount of information!  We got stuck in a brief but heavy late-morning downpour.  We only spotted one bird during that time - it was a Turkey Vulture, perched on a laurel tree, seeming quite unfazed by the wall of rain that was driving away the more reasonable birds and leaking through our umbrellas.  We noticed a directionless convention of hooligan-like White-crowned Parrots convening in the area.  They roamed around in huge, screeching, flocks of 15-50 birds.  Giovanni told us that parrots scout the area for corn and wreak havoc on farmers' fields.  I think our brains are being rewired to see birds first and everything else second.  We proved to be poor listeners at our meeting this afternoon because we were distracted by every hummingbird, flycatcher, and oriole in the area.  When a flock of 5 Montezuma Oropendulas arrived, binoculars became permanently glued to our faces.  This new development may make it more difficult to eat dinner tonight.