May 2011 Archives

and that's just the way it goes...

I woke up today feeling weird in my own room this morning but this is where my journey continues.

I was quite the drama queen coming home yesterday. Elise got the worst of my "laughcry" after Enrique said bye to us all coming home from La Fortuna. I couldn't control myself as we were both trying to go up the rocky hill to our cabin without a flashlight. It makes me laugh thinking about it.

the definition of a laughcry: the midway point between hysteria and abashment; really, it is what it sounds like haha

The morning of our departure I went to the the Toucan cabin to wake John so we can make our last round through the forest to collect flags, blue tape, and my butterfly trap. But he was just waking up and waiting on the bathroom.

So I sat by Joe to wait while looking out the window at the volcano. It made me sad that this is the last morning I'll be waking to this picturesque moment and I pointed at the volcano to Joe and was only able to say "the volcano! :(" before I broke out with a long laughcry episode. I could only imagine Joe sitting there confused because all he did was pat my back saying, "there, there," and then looked at the volcano and said "bye, bye." 

I had everything ready and packed so I could get to the dining early without having a race with time. I wanted to stop by the stables for a bit but I opted not to because that would have been really weird if I laughcried in front of the horses.

Getting in the airport was the peak of my laughcrying tendencies which was pretty entertaining to everyone. I guess I'm still maturing in how I adapt with change because I was still asking where the volcano was when we were going back to the UD campus. So apologies for my childish behavior! But I'm back! The smooth roads feels nice again. I almost feel pro driving on them after being really amaze how Jose, our bus driver, handled the road back and to the airport.

I'm excited to share my experience here in the states and to finish the research paper with my Invertebrate group. We have a lot to talk about. I can't wait to help Sebastian out in identifying his ants and John with the data!

A link to all the pictures of trip will be coming soon. Look out for them in the next blog!

Hello Blog!

The above title conotes the rules during our waterfall rappelling adventures today.  It was awesome. I believe the guides at Desafio took rule # 3 a little to serious, but that did not affect the amount of fun to be had. Today was a great way to end a great week. Everyon had a blast during their free day-fun.  The week has been filled with field work, laughs, cooking lessons, great food, and adrenaline activities.

It is safe to say that most wish to stay in Costa Rica; however I am pretty sure Dr. Brown would dissaprove as would everyone's family.  I won't lie, I kind of wish to stay here as well.  But I have an idea that this will not be my last time here.  I love the people here and I love the research.  It really has been a joy and a priveledge to be the field assistant on this trip.  It has been educational to be on the other side of a research project. And I am really proud of all the student's work this year.  I can't wait to tackle the analysis when we all get back to the Uof S.

Please wish us well with out travels tomorrow. 

Adios Costa Rica, Gracias por su genorosidad.

 

A short post, but we all survived the rappelling today.  Four different rappells, with the shortest at 48 feet and the longest at 150 feet.  Between each we scrambled down a slot canyon through the creek and other mini-waterfalls.  Here are some of the pics--I'll let John, Elise and Roselyn post their pics tomorrow.

I don't know where to begin to start this blog off. I'm just overwhelm that this trip is coming to a close.

Today we didn't have any field work but knowing that today was our last full day I still woke early wanting to absorb all that I could see. I wish there was a way I could capture all the beauty that floods this place and keep it forever and... and just bring it back with me to the states. 

It shows through my obsessive compulsion in wanting to click away on my camera... as if I'm going to miss a moment that will be gone in the next second and that there's no way of ever retrieving back that moment again. But to be reasonable, moving on through these moments and letting them pass us by to the next, we still take with us what we learned from them in some fashion... whether big or small.

I know I'm leaving Costa Rica with so much on my mind. The people here are all so very kind and I want to thank them a million times over!!!

here's to:

Steve and Debbie - who made this place possible and I'm sad that I never got to meet during our time here
Oscar - who was so welcoming and made this place feel like home!
Mireya - who gave cooking lesson, shared recipes, showed me how to make cheese, and bringing Lorita to breakfast this morning
Carlos - who has the best smile and help make it fun to milk a cow and a goat!
Ronald - who I'm sorry that I didn't speak enough Spanish for him to understand me but allowed me to help feed the horses with him
Enrique - who gets the superlative for being most influential to me on this trip! I hope we get to meet again friend!
Chito - for making sure I didn't drown when I jumped into the waterfall and taking the horses out to race them around with us!
Dr. Brown - who made this class possible! her dedication is beyond any professor I know! Especially for kicking butt at water rappelling when she had doubts in the beginning! Soon you all will hear stories of her zip-lining, rafting, and racing horses!
Richard - for his work here with the groups and sharing his knowledge to the class! he was a great help for me in La Fortuna today in getting gifts for my friends back home!
The class - this experience wouldn't be complete without any one of you! you guys really rock! like really really! really really really! The Walker Bros! Christian & Austin, Sebastian, John, Jomar (Joe & Omar), Forrest, Allie, and Turin!
Elise - our field lab assistant! who really help us all out and bring the group together! she had such a pleasant presence here! I can't imagine someone else doing a better job!
The Staff - who help tidy up our cabins and made sure our stay was comfortable
Sam, Beanie, & Chew-Chew - the cute dogs you see in my previous blog

I think I'll stop there since I just started thanking dogs... but you get what I mean.

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning with bug bites all over that I could care less about at this point, 10 salsa bottles, so many pictures waiting to be print, data ready to be analyzed, and memories... memories that I can't decipher into words at this hour but I know they will help prosper whatever lies for me after this.

I hope this isn't adios forever but an hasta luego! Costa Rica! We will meet again!

Dear blog readers,

Today was our free day and I chose to go zip-lining with Turin, Joe, Omar, and Forrest. It was fantastic - although I was scared most of the time. We all loved our exhilarating experience.

Christian just finished gathering up some of the flags marking bird points A through G, and what is probably our last blog post is now being written.  It's been an amazing week - we'll be heading back up to the US tomorrow morning.  We'll spend the next couple of days writing up our paper and analyzing data.  

Good morning,

I'm sitting out here on the porch enjoying the beautiful view of the Arenal volcano and wanted to share a few of my thoughts since I haven't been able to blog in a couple of days.

I think you all have been kept up to date pretty well with our habitat studies here in Costa Rica.  So right now I'd just like to say a few things about our overall experience here.  We've all had a lot of firsts here whether it be seeing or catching a certain bird, butterfly, ant, or countless other things in the forest.  Since coming to Costa Rica I've learned quite a bit about plants and soils, where and how they grow in certain areas, and in the process have gotten to also see birds and bugs that the other research groups were studying.  Some of the things that stand out to me most when I think about the last couple of days in regards to new experiences are:

Getting bitten by a number of tropical spiders

Seeing five snakes all together making their way through the forest on vines and branches as they hunted lizards

Stepping on a snake while walking back from one of our quadrats in the evening; that really startled me...

Seeing a bat snatch a bug out of the air 2 feet from my face as I was lying in the hammock

Milking a cow and goat for the first time

Seeing birds and animals that I've always wanted to see in the wild such as toucans and sloths

An overall awesome experience in Costa Rica of course...

Today since all our field work is done we have a free day for some fun activities and adventures (all the research has been awesome and fun already) such as zip-lining, rappelling, or exploring the canopy of a forest.  We're not able to do everything so I chose to go zip-lining.  I've never done that before so there's another thing to add to the list.

Team Habitat has just a couple of things to do before we write our final paper on the research that we've done.  I'm excited to see how all the data we've gathered is related and how the forests have been impacted by the different conditions, plant species, and soil characteristics that we've observed.

So of all the pictures I've taken thus far, these are just some of my favorites! I feel like I have lived many lifetimes here and it has only been 5 days! Enjoy the pictures!

The pictures speak for themselves!

Today was our final day of work in the field. I collected the last nine of fifteen pitfall traps I had placed. I'll bring the collected specimens back to Dallas with us, and identify them once we're back in the lab. Then I'll identify all the individual ants down to species, and calculate species diversity and abundance in our three habitat sites.

For our last day of field work the students were busy picking up last-minute pieces of data and trying to find out if there was anything else we needed before we leave.  We again got started with the birds early when I opened the nets just before 5, and had the busiest day yet at the nets.  I checked a normally fairly quiet set of nets to find four birds in it at once--two Buff-throated Saltators, one Passerini's Tanager, and a female Variable Seedeater.  The process of removing a bird from the net can't be rushed, but is made more difficult when the bird finds the most sensitive part of your hand and pecks at it repeatedly (as shown by Austin the other morning).  Somehow all four of the birds I removed wound up finding the same spot on me, but perhaps the retribution is deserved since we did interfere with their day by trapping them.  The netting was steady throughout the morning and brought in the most birds we've had all week.

Late yesterday afternoon, I completed the panoramas and they are now online, here.
The new Bird Point 'O' on the new trail through spring 3's original forest has also been added to the online map (click image to see the interactive map).

And here is this morning's view from the Mariposa cabin:

Today was supposed to be a long and hard-working day, but the habitat group worked professionally and was more efficient today. We were able to finish all our fields work today in order to start analyzing the data we collected. We encountered many diverse plant species, some that I have never seen before. Unfortunately we encountered 5 snakes and they looked like they were vipers. Joe was the one who spotted them and then started freaking out. His reaction scared us all and I did not want to go back in there again but you got to do what you got to do.  We eventually calmed down and chilled out until we made sure that the snakes left and the area was safe to go back in and continue our work.

Later that day, Christian and Austin spotted an owl and had the telescope aiming directly at it. We had to be very careful at approaching the telescope and I had to enter my stealth mode in order not to scare the owl away. The owl was starring directly at us just chilling, knowing that we are there but didn't do anything and it kind of freaked me out but was hilarious at the same time.

I am glad that we got done with the fieldwork early and i was very successful day for our habitat group. After having dinner, which was delicious as every night, we went on a night walk to try to observe owls, bats, and other interesting species that are not visible in daylight. We ended up not seeing many animals but was a fun walk with the whole group together.

We headed back to the cabin and chilled as usual, then passed out.

Need more be said?  Well, go ahead and assume the affirmative.  Our day started out promising with a Band-tailed Barbthroat in the net.  Here it is in Austin's hands.  

Today I placed the last nine pitfall traps, and collected the twelve traps I had placed earlier. The ant diversity here is incredible. The traps caught three Odontomachus bauri workers, a beautiful black trap-jaw ant that is a generalist predator on leaf-litter insects. Its mandibles, used to capture prey, can close at speeds of 145 miles per hour, giving these ants the fastest self-powered predatory strike in the animal kingdom. The average duration of a strike is a mere 0.13 milliseconds, or 2,300 times faster than the blink of an eye.

I also was able to capture a single worker of large, very fast and agile black ant species that I have so far been unable to identify. As John mentioned, it seems to be mimicking wasps, which is not a behavior I have ever heard of. Myrmecomorphy, or the mimicry of ants by other species, is common in wasps; but as far as I know, the mimicry of wasps by ants is not well-documented. Further research will be needed once we return to Dallas to determine the classification of this ant.

All in all, it was a great day of field work. I love it out here. I think I could do this kind of work the rest of my life. Tomorrow's our last day to collect data. I'm looking forward to spending another day with these amazing ants.

-Sebastian

Hello All!

Turin and I have been going to be around 9 (last night 8:30PM). We haven't gone to bed this early since...a long time. We are exhausted from waking up at 5 AM to join the mist-netters and start our bird observations. After some data-entry this morning, Dr. Brown allowed for the girls to go on an amazing horseback ride (which Roselyn has beautifully described) since horseback riding was my first choice for free day. Since there wasn't anyone else who had it as their first choice, I took the opportunity to go today. Oscar, one of the workers/guides here, arranged for a ride for us gals down and up to a beautiful waterfall in Monterrey. Upon our return, Turin, Elise, and I rushed out to do our evening bird observations, and Turin and I are up "late" entering in our data.

So--day 3 is usually the day when the workload starts to push past the Day 2 high intensity effort into the downswing toward our Friday departure, but also when the heat and lots of hiking/less sleep tends to hit the students as well.  It's also the day when a group of vine snakes turn into vipers, so before anyone worries the students were all fine and the snakes were nonvenomous.  It is unusual to see that many at one time, so it was perhaps something that was a bit scary!

The habitat team did have some rough terrain to cover today and some thick plants to thrash through, making their concern about snakes very real.  They had a huge number of plants to catalog but got more efficient in their work today.

So today... the habitat group was working out by the monkey cage... while Dr. Brown and I were distinguishing some of the plant species the habitat group found (Ok I'll be honest Dr. Brown did most of the identifying, and by most I mean all). Then something astonishing happened... something so amazing and mesmerizing that I fear I am not a good enough orator to convey. Thus I shall call upon the wise words of Professor Omar Kamal Faour - to help me sore above the Arenal Volcano (that was a Milton reference by the way) .We found "six snakes [in] one place"... vipers to be more precise. So we had to "bounce" as Omar put it, to prevent from getting... well envenomed.

Now for a moment of seriousness, I will admit that seeing those vipers was immensely petrifying; however I think that the snakes were more beautiful than they were terrifying!!! To elucidate my point... I shall use Einstein's "Theory of Relativity". To put it simply... time is relative not just in physics but also in physiology.  Furthermore space and time are not separate... rather they coexist and that is how we get the space time continuum. The "STC" can best be explained by an analogy... imagine a vacant trampoline. If you were to place a booling ball in the center of the trampoline... there would be an indentation in the center, and if you place smaller objects on the trampoline; tennis balls, ping pong balls etc, then they would move towards the booling ball. In this analogy the sun is represented by the booling ball, the "STC" by the trampoline and the plants by the smaller objects. What I wish to convey is that sun forms an indentation in the space time continuum and that is why things circulate around it. Well in my situation the vipers represented the sun... in that their combination of magnificence and terror seemed to rivet the attention of the whole environment. Every single organism had their undivided attention on the vipers, and we were all revolving around the vipers' trepidation and allure (another Milton Reference) as we watched them flow along like an omnipotent foreboding river. It is not until the sakes were out of sight that time seemed to progress. Hey Kelsey what do you think about the physics?

Following our encounter with the vipers we moved on the section of the property... where Dr. Brown said we would "be most likely to see a viper" (those might not be her exact words ... but that was what she meant, right Dr. B?). Well back to the narrative... we went by the bamboo trees - so that the habitat group could gather more data.  Everyone one was on edge of course... especially Professor Omar to quote him "man look at all these bamboo, snakes be chillin in there whalla (Arabic for OMG) bro one hundred percent snakes is chillin in there".  Shortly after... Joe and Forrest thought they spotted a "massive snake" atop a bamboo tree... in response to this Dr. Omar proceeded to enlighten us with his vast knowledge; "man if there is a big one up there, then there is a million down here". The immensely sagacious words of Professor Faour only intensified our anxiety; fortunately we did not encounter any vipers after that. 

and we're taking these broken wings and learning how to fly!

We're all settling into our projects, working so hard, and having the time of our lives! I was trying to blog last night but had the wrong browser up so I'm trying to make up for the pass two days that I haven't been able to blog. It was kind of late at that time - late here in Costa Rica is around 8-9 pm because we have to get up so early and even then the sunsets right around close to 6 pm already - but back to what I was trying to say... even pass our bedtimes, the groups here were still hard at work preparing for their soil samples and the other groups still entering data and sketching after long day.

I wasn't so sure how things would fall together in the beginning for the invertebrate group but everything came together quite nicely! John and I have been taking point counts both early midday and afternoon. Sebastian is also setting his ant traps close by collecting different ant species. We are all hoping the contrast between the two times shows in our data when we calculate the diversity index and the same when we compare different habitats from one another. We also have other data that we want to take into account such as the coverage at each point and making note of other competitive pollinators.

Aside from field work, I woke up early to help out at the barn and was able to help feed the horses and got to brush them. The task made me quite attached to the horses, especially this one beautiful dancing horse named Mr.Big! We were given the opportunity to ride them and I wasn't sure if I could but John was kind enough to do point counts right away and agree to set up the transects for our noon point counts.

After I collected data I headed to the stable and I thought I arrived too late to join the horseback riding group because the horses weren't at their stables anymore. So I started to head back to the cabins in tears only to hear Elise calling for me!!! Apparently they were meeting at another stable further down the path. All I can say is thank goodness!

We were able to pick a horse to ride and of course I picked Mr. Big and it was ridiculous how fast he could gallop. I seriously thought I was at the edge of falling off at times during the ride but Oscar taught us well! Really well!

Enrique was our guide for our horseback ride to the waterfall and I hope to have him as a guide again! He was so rich in information about the forest that I think that this whole Costa Rican trip up to this point is making me take serious consideration of what I'm going to do with my Biology degree at the end of my undergraduate career.

Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself with this. Who knows? But to continue my Beatles reference... all my life, maybe (just maybe) this is the moment I've been waiting to arise!

Watch out team invertebrate, the snakes are very active today and were right around where your ant traps were. We were at quadrat 5 doing our plant count when 5 dark brown white bellied snakes showed up. I was about 10 feet from them when I heard them slithering through the trees and vines. Some of them were pretty big and they were quick as a cat. They were out hunting for some food, pretty scary. Dr. Brown said they look like vipers. She and kabangu were helping us with identifying the plants. They said they saw the huge bees (gigantic) attack the snakes when they came slithering back by us. We finished up counting those plants quick after that and as we were leaving one of the snakes slithered right in front of Forrest and me. Scariest part of the trip so far, pretty cool though. Pretty amazing stuff, the animals seem to be more active today. Either that or I am becoming one with the forest.

Here are some pictures to go along with yesterday's blog:

Counting every species of plant and tree in a 10x10 meter square quadrat is probably the most tedious thing I've done in my life.  Our habitat team spent the morning before breakfast recording data from our field notebooks into the grinellian notebook.  After breakfast we spent the rest of the morning counting species in two of our quadrats.

It's a pretty short walk down to the little store where we can get our groceries for lunches.  The place is called Super Kike and it is really neat.  It serves the people in this village where we are staying carrying most types of groceries, fresh fruit, and common items that might be needed on a regular basis.  We walked down there after lunch to get supplies for the next two days.  Bread, meat, drinks, and we also got icecream.

After we got back we made pretty quick work of retrieving the temperature recording devices that we had placed in the quadrats yesterday.  Downloading the information to a computer with the help of Richard (Mr. Marsden)was rewarding because we could see the data plotted on graphs and look forward to the data analysis that we'll do when we finish gathering data.

Gotta say, the food here has been great, both dinner and breakfasts are served at the restaurant on the Leaves and Lizards property.  The staff is friendly, helpful, and excellent at what they do.

Our cabin's porch has become a pretty popular place to hang out and enjoy the evenings.  Some nice chairs, a table, a couple of hammocks, and people to fill them makes the tropical nights all the more awesome after a long tiring day of field work.  We can also get work done too though.  We entered data, completed the first stage of our soil composition tests, and figured out the plan for tomorrow's work.  But that's a reminder to quit typing and get some sleep... We've got another long day of work to do that starts with an early morning.

That's it for now from Team Habitat.  Buenos Noches!

Yesterday was our first day of real field work. We set up a 30m transect in an original forest habitat. I flagged the line every 5m and set up a pitfall trap for ant collection by each flag. Our pitfall traps are plastic cups set into the ground with the opening level with the surface of the soil. A worker ant will be out foraging, minding its own business, when suddenly it will slip on the smooth plastic edge of the cup, and fall straight to the bottom. Waiting for it in the bottom of the trap is a layer of isopropyl alcohol that both kills and preserves the specimens.

I bought supplies for the pitfall trap at the nearby "Super Kike," a local grocery store. I got several containers of isopropyl alcohol and package of plastic cups to make the traps. It was pretty much the sketchest purchase anyone's ever made. The cashier looked at me funny and asked, "Is that all?" When I said it was, she probably just thought to herself "Americano loco..." and left it at that.


Today we continued our setup of collection points. I laid down two 10m transects in two different monoculture teak forests, with pitfall traps every 5m. I also started tuna baiting in the teak forest and collected the ants that were foraging on six different tuna baits. I'm not sure whether pitfall trapping and baiting will be sufficient to capture specimens of all the cryptic ant species and specialist predators that are found here, so hopefully we'll be able to use Berlese funnels to extract ants from leaf-litter samples collected from our different habitat sites.

After a successful day in the field, it was satisfying to reflect on it while eating a delectable Costa Rican dinner and enjoying the company of my fellow researchers. I'm looking forward to getting a good night's sleep tonight, and waking up tomorrow and confronting the challenges of the new day.

-Sebastian

Today was super sunny... so we got to see quite a bit of butterfly and actually caught a myriad of them.... Of course it was not as easy as it sounds, for I had to chase this amazing aesthetically pleasing giant butterfly... running in this weather with a back pack is not easy.  Oh yeah the butterfly got away... maybe next time. When we were conducting our point count we noticed that some butterfly where flying further from the ground than did other butterfly. The butterfly that would fly higher tended to have the apsometic coloration and those that were found closer to the ground had more of a cryptic coloration. Furthermore the butterfly and the hummingbirds seem to be competing for the same source of food; both of them were seen pollinating the same flowers... so it can be assumed that there is no competitive exclusion. Thus the butterfly and hummingbirds are coexisting, which requires that they both diverge in their niche. It would be interesting to see how both have diverged... we have reason to believe that they diverged in the time that they feed.

 

Sebastian also caught the queen of an ant colony!!!! And an ant that resembled a wasp... it had yellow and black colored antenna... so it is probably involved in an apsometaic Müllerian mimicry. Cannot wait to see what else I will discover tomorrow.   

So over the past two days we have experienced a lot here in Costa Rica. My team is in the field everyday around five thirty in the morning. We check the mist nets and usually catch something. Today I got to hold a grassquip and we caught a woodpecker that tried its best to break Austin's fingers. The poor guy we bleeding from his knuckles! Also, we finally solidified our plan and our field work. We will observe 5 bird points for a total of twenty minuets for bird behavior and record everything we see. This way we can obtain a clear idea of what behaviors are associated with what type of forest and exactly how many birds are in each type of forest. Today was unbelievably hot, but we accomplished a lot.  At our break we saw a toucan and a very large sloth who was fairly active ( well as active as a sloth can be)! Tomorrow we plan on continuing our same procedure to observe birds. Thankfully we are only out during the early morning and evening because the middle of the day is unbearable with the heat. I feel sorry for the habitat and the invertebrate groups! I understand why birds do not like going out in the middle of the day now! 

Partly as reconnaissance for a possible project next year, yesterday we climbed down into "Spring 3". This orange mud hole is where a group of students on the first year, put the final nail in the coffin for the hot spring hypothesis but had quite an adventure getting out. It is just as slippy and steep today.

Anyway, We found ash layers (weathered to white clays) in the main orange clay sequence:

Another busy day starting with the bird group--I opened the nets just before 5 and we had a new net set up that brought more successes (shown in the great pictures by Alli).

This morning we rolled out of bed at ten to five to go open the mist nets and set up a new one, net 4, on a hill next to some naturally reforested habitat between bird survey points A and N. The three nets we had set up Sunday evening were not productive at all this morning, but net 4 captured a Yellow-faced Grassquit and a Smoky-brown Woodpecker. The woodpecker had gotten rather tangled and gave us quite a bit of trouble and a number of pecks before we finally got it out of the net. Christian found an Olive-sided Flycatcher in a tree near net 4/point A, which are uncommon here generally, but particularly now, as they should be migrating through Texas at the moment.

Wake up call was at 6:00 am and Elise came to our cabin to try to wake us up, fortunately it worked. We went to set up our first quadrat (10 by 10 meter square) and picked a place that was full of different plant species, which was cool and all but was difficult going through the dense vegetation. I was a little scared to enter the area at first because it looked like we would expect snakes, especially vipers. Nevertheless, I was kind of excited since it seemed like a place that a harpy eagle would be chilling at. Unfortunately we didn't see one, but spotted a lot of cool fat fluffy caterpillars. 

Today was out first day that we had lunch and we were just relaxing at the porch looking at the speechless volcano view with some triple stacked turkey sandwiches, just enjoying nature.

After that it was time for some straight up hard work. We set up 4 more quadrats that were tough and measured the pH and temperature at these places. Later it started raining and the sunset was approaching. We headed back to the cabins, rested a while and went straight to dinner, which was very delicious.

After dinner we just chilled back and relaxed at our cabins, then we all passed out.

Team habitat had it's first real day of habitat research work today.  Almost a whole day was spent setting up quadrats in the forest and taking soil samples and measurements in the forest.  Since you're probably wondering what a quadrat is, here is a quick description of our research project and method that will help you understand:

Quadrats are square areas in particular areas of a forest where we are going to conduct our research.  We have 3 types of areas that we are studying; original forest, natural reforestation, and monoculture reforestation.  Two quadrats are set up for each type of forest.  Our quadrats are 10x10 meters square.  Within these quadrats we have taken soil samples to study the composition of the soil and measurements were taken of the pH, moisture, and temperature of the soil.  Tomorrow and in the following days we will be counting the amounts and types of species within the quadrats to study the diversity and characteristics of the forest areas.

Setting up these quadrats has required moving through some very dense vegetation.  Despite that, we would like to report that as of tonight, the only bites we've had so far are from spiders.

Keep checking back for more updates from our habitat team and the other teams studying birds and bugs in... that's right, COSTA RICA!

Water.  It's very common down here - after a torrential downpour that lasted most of last night, we got out at about 5:15 to check the nets hoping the clouds would hold off.  Unfortunately it started to rain again and we all got wet.  Despite the weather, we still caught a Clay-colored Robin and a Little Hermit.  

Waking up to a volcano is among the top most illustrious things on my commodious list of things to love about Costa Rica. This morning at breakfast I made eye contact with Arenal volcano. The size and beauty of Arenal is mesmerizing and it renders me breathless and stupefied. It is difficult - if not impossible - for me to understand Arenal, no matter how hard I extend my intellectual capabilities. Arenal - to me - is somewhat paradoxical in the sense that it is the most docile feature of all of Costa Rica - that I have seen thus far - however it is also the most dangerous and capricious.  Gazing over the landscape this morning I noticed that Arenal was the most tranquil feature of the environment, the birds, insects and other animals were all active, the trees were shaken by the winds, but Arenal did not move nor make a sound. Arenal reminds me of Plato's philosopher king, for Arenal towers over everything and its looks almost as if it is overlooking all of Costa Rica which is akin to a powerful potentate overlooking his kingdom. Arenal is also similar to the philosopher king, in that it seems as if it is in constant contemplation, furthermore Arenal appears to be inviting all who gaze at its pulchritude to contemplate.

We set up our quadrate today and started gathering data, furthermore Sebastian set up ant traps... However it was cloudy and there was thunder and lightning so that might have slightly affected our data. The very first butterfly we caught seemed to be poisonous, because it had some aposemtic coloration. Thus far all the hypothesis and predictions that were made about the butterflies seem to be supported. We will have to wait until tomorrow to see how effectively the ant traps worked, they seemed to be working well when Sebastian set them up. Hopefully there is no rain when we are out in the field tomorrow, but if there is " ce la vie" or in this case "ce la forêt tropicale".

Some photos of students in action today on Day 1 of their project work:


The habitat team (Forrest, Joe and Omar) install one of their HOBO temperature sensors for temperature readings over the next 24 hours.  They created a small shade out of teak leaves to insulate from the sun, and buried a second sensor in the ground to take soil and air temperatures in a monoculture reforest area.


John takes measurements of the canopy cover and vegetation composition at some of the sites being used for ant and butterfly studies.

Sebastian installs his pitfall traps in order to catch the ant species within the leaf litter.  He has a great story of purchasing his field equipment from the local shop that I hope he posts later.
Roselyn searches for butterfly species in some of the more intact forest areas of the site.  She has fashioned a very interesting butterfly bait trap that I'm hoping works for her tomorrow.

I'll post photos of the four students working on birds tomorrow.  This morning it was so wet (as you can tell from the one of Christian with the Clay-colored Robin) and this evening it also rained so photos of that work were hard to come by today. 

We have four groups overall--habitat, invertebrates, bird diversity and bird behavior.  It makes for a long day working with all of them, since I was out before 5AM opening the mist nets for Christian and Austin and doing behavioral observations along with them and the behavior team of Turin and Alli.  I tried to spend some time with each group throughout the day until we finished habitat work at 5:45, making for a lot of laps hiking around the property. We've tried to stagger the schedule so that they all get at least four hours of fieldwork a day, four hours of data entry and writing, and some rest time as well as mealtimes.  My only problem is getting them to go along with my recommended "lights-out" at 9PM to ensure enough sleep!

Here are some pictures to go along with Turin's post of our activities yesterday. Today we tagged along with Christian and Austin at bird counts, starting bright and early at 5:30 AM in the rain. Turin and I discovered nesting behaviors might not be our guarantee for data, so we are thinking of narrowing our observations to most common species we see and record what they do in real forests versus teak and "cheese" monoculture forests.

Here are some photos Christian took yesterday.  Most are from sticking his little point and shoot held up to the scope.  Works wonders!!

Here's the full group at the volcano yesterday (from left to right)--front row:  John Kabangu, Elise Tellez, Omar Faour.  back row:  Joe Edison, Roselyn Hoang, Alli Faucher, Turin Hansen, Christian Walker, Sebastian Scofield, Austin Walker.  on rock:  Forrest Statler.



And another of them working while at the volcano--it looks staged, really, but I caught them as they were looking at some of the plants that grow between the blocks of old lava and surprised them with a photo. Roselyn is sketching, Elise is photographing and John, Omar and Alli are looking on.

Just a few (long and detailed) notes from the field assistant-

1.Sorry for not posting yesterday. I had just finished a nice blog entry when the internet cut out due to an intense rain fall.  The rain was beautiful and refreshing, the lack of internet not so much.

2. Mot Mot is a Not Not no more. Yesterday Christian spotted a Mot Mot during our orientation walk through of the property and it was beautiful.  For those of you have not read some of the old blogs, Kelly and I were dying to see a Mot Mot last summer when we took the course and went home to Dallas without a single Mot Mot sighting. It was wonderful to finally see this beautiful bird. Well worth the wait.

3. Orientation was a success. It was beneficial to all the students to see the property and get a substantial idea of what they would be working with.  I can already see quite a few changes in the forest and after talking to Oscar, one of our guides, I am excited to see some new species in the area (around 70). All of the students seemed very eager yesterday to put the protocol into action so I am excited to see what kind of data we get over the next few days.

4. The hike to Arenal Volcano went well.  No eruptions this time.  But to be honest, I was quite content with lack of volcanic activity.  One pyroclastic flow experience is enough volcano interaction for me.

5. Finally, all of the groups experienced their first field experience at Leaves and Lizards this morning.  The bird groups went out despit the rain, kudos to them. I was working the habitat group early today and oversaw their quadrat formations.  Can't wait to see some of their data.  I am also eager to see what the Invertebrate groups does.  Roselyn has made a great butterfly trap. I can't wait to see what they catch! We still have the afternoon observations ahead of us. So now its time to rest and prepare for the afternoon! Will update again soon. 

Pura Vida to all!

First the blog notes: We've had some problems with uploading blog images, but I believe I have the problem fixed - I'll tell everyone at breakfast.

Friends, family, etc are welcome (even encouraged) to post comments to the various blog entries. The best way to do this is to select the "anonymous" option. do this by selecting the "comments" link on the blog entry and then "comment anonymously". Ignore the "Sign in" link unless you have an account already (eg. past students). Originally we had it so you had to register with the site, but there were a number of practical problems with this. The anonymous option is easier and does not attract the spam that I thought it would.

This area of Costa Rica is in something of a drought, relatively speaking. Yes it is still the rainforest but they've only had one big rain all spring. Lake Arenal is by far the lowest I've seen it, the white-water rafting companies are becoming a little concerned, and the springs on the property are all very quiet (similar to the very first year when there was far less vegetation).

So as we're in a "drought", we had a lot of rain last night. As Tico rain goes, it wasn't that heavy but it did go on a while, and we still had some showers this morning. It looks to be starting to clear up, the sun is trying to come out, and I can see a rather hazy volcano.

Arenal is also quiet ("repose" I believe the volcanologists call it). Activity has been limited to fumerole activity from the main crater for six months now.

So all quiet on the Arenal front - but plenty of thunder and heavy tin-roof rain to keep people awake during the night.

It is raining and it is pouring, and the jungle awaits to be under analyzation in the morning. Team habitat will awake at 5:30 A.M. to prepare for an intense day of research as we hope to make up for the lost time at the airport. We plan on getting a plethora of data to analyze tomorrow and nothing is going to stop us. Not even this massive thunderstorm going on right now as I write this. What we have all been waiting for is finally here, the rain. The balcony of Cabin Toucan is a great spot to relax and watch a tropical thunderstorm. I am not sure that it is quite as intense as those from my home town, Tulsa, but it is close. Haha, that was a joke, this is the most intense rain (So loud I can't hear my thoughts to write this blog) and thunder (Ground shaking!) I have ever experienced. This rain will make the research tomorrow even better and more adventurous. As for today, the research team got to get really familiar with the area under study and went to explore the Arenal volcano. Dr. Brown wasn't lying about the food here, all local and fresh. The build your own tacos were delicious with all the toppings you can think of, including fresh guacamole, salsa, and homemade tortillas. The fresh homemade Chayote soup was the best soup I have ever had in my life and can only be found in Costa Rica. Everything here is really awesome. The cabin alone is worth the trip, with the rainforest in my backyard and a pristine view of the Arenal volcano the instant I wake up. who doesn't like waking up to fresh squeezed guava, mango, and other tropical fruit juices? Not to mention the Costa Rican coffee. I am gonna go now, my computer is getting rained on because this wind is picking up.

Adios amigos.

We explored where we will be collecting data for the next few days before having breakfast. The campus here at Leaves and Lizard is beautiful and is rich in nature! The morning walk was refreshing and because of that I don't think it will be hard to wake up early for the rest of the week because there is so much I want to see in this campus alone!

After a long day, I'm relaxing in the Volcano cabin with Austin and Christian, listening to the deafening sound of a torrential tropical downpour. We can barely hear each other talk over the noise. Outside, lightning flashes and thunder rolls, but inside we're safe and dry. We've lost power once so far, but it's back now.

      So after our very interesting travel experience yesterday and our very short nights rest we awoke this morning to the surprising loudness of the rainforest. It is absolutely gorgeous here. Today we mapped out all of the bird points and spotted two nests at bird point K and M. We also familiarized ourselves with the more common bird species such as the Blue-gray Tanager and the Clay Colored Robin. We also have a Blue-gray Tanager nest right outside our cabin which is awesome! 

So. We are now at Leaves and Lizards near the volcano Arenal in Costa Rica. We arrived at two this morning and have been enjoying ourselves ever since. Yesterday was a rather (un)enjoyable - depends on how you look at it - traveling day. We got to the airport at 7:30 AM, learned our flight had been cancelled, and relaxed in the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for the rest of the day until our 5:30 PM flight, which ended up leaving at about 7:30 PM. Two redeeming happenings yesterday were: we all received $20 coupons from Continental Airlines in compensation, and the fact that Sebastian and Austin both slept for more than seven hours on a semi-comfortable armchair and a cot, respectively. This morning, things brightened considerably with the bird activity outside our cabin. A number of tanagers, honeycreepers, hummingbirds, and wrens called and sang - the cecropia tree near our deck was visited by three types of tanagers, Bananaquits, Olivaceous Piculets, and Black-cowled Orioles. We took our first tour of the property, marked the points where we will be doing point-count bird surveys for the next four days, and had a marvelous breakfast at the main building.  We then finished our walk around the property, seeing Black-throated Wrens and a few Broad-billed Motmots.  We hope to run into the Spectacled Owl pair that Oscar tells us lives in this patch of forest...

We spent the afternoon hiking around the Arenal volcano - spectacular views of Lago de Arenal off to the west, and of course of the volcano itself.  A bit of smoke was being let off by some fumarole activity, but towards the end of our visit the peak became wreathed in cloud.  We saw a number of Montezuma Oropendolas in the canopy of the forest surrounding the volcano; several White-throated Magpie-Jays near the entrance were definitely bonuses. Unbelievable. 

We've already seen 49 species on the property, and are going to go to bed momentarily so we can get up at 5:00 am tomorrow and do some mist-netting.  Expect some great photos!!

-The Walker Bros

Greetings from Costa Rica!  The volcano just came into view and is here visible as I type, even with some remaining cloud at the top.  This has been a busy morning after a busy travel day yesterday.  The students did very well in spite of all of our hardships in travel yesterday--finding out our first flight was canceled and being moved over to the American flight in the evening, having to hang around the airport all day and then being delayed on departure by 3 hours.  We finally arrived in San Jose at 10PM  but still had a 3-hour drive ahead of us.  In spite of having very little sleep they were all out for our orientation hike this morning at 7.  Partway through our orientation they enjoyed a nice big breakfast and continued orientation until 10:30, and they are now working on their project protocols with a bit more context now that they've actually seen the site.

I'm very impressed with this group of students, since collectively they are seeing everything they possibly can--from Sebastian scouting the ground for ants, Roselyn snapping pictures of butterflies, and John spotting some amazing fungi in the forest.  Our habitat group has been focused on the plants, with Omar finding an interest in Heliconia this morning, Joe checking out the trees and Forrest noting everything in his notebook while we walk.  Christian got an early start spotting birds from his cabin porch, and Austin saw a Mot Mot pair that all of us had good looks at on the trail.  And Turin is picking up her bird skills by spotting a Smoky Brown Woodpecker nest, while Alli has focused a lot on the hummingbirds and is eager to use her background in psychology to study behavior.  All of them are being helped by our field assistant Elise, who is helping hold everyone together with her logistical support.  Richard and I feel very pleased to be working with such a great group.

We hike the volcano in a couple of hours, and they'll get a chance to see the surrounding area on the drive.  I hope everyone gets a better rest tonight (with homemade tacos and tres leches on tonight's menu they will eat well!), and be ready for tomorrow's earlier wake-up call at 5:30 AM.  With the enthusiasm they've had so far I think they'll be great!

After arriving at DFW airport early this morning, we were faced with the disappointing news that our flight has been canceled.  The good news is that we're still going to Costa Rica... This evening.  So we've got a long wait in the airport, and that means we won't be in Costa Rica until tonight.  Even though this is a setback to our research, don't think that our habitat studies are halted!  What better place to conduct human habitat and behavior studies than a major human migration waypoint?

We do hope to utilize this time to work on our project protocol plan and do as much preparatory work on paper that we can so we can jump right into things when we finally get to our site in Costa Rica.

Stay tuned and we'll be back just after this...

Hello All!

Hello,  

Good Afternoon everyone, from team habitat. We are done with class in North America for now. We just gathered all of our field equipment and we are inventorying it now. pH meter, compass, test tubes, extra batteries...check. We can't wait to get to Costa Rica and survey different parts of the forest. We are going to be testing the soil for different properties such as pH, temperature variability, and its composition to help us with tracking the progress of the reforestation project. Other tasks will include taking photographs of the forest stratification at the previously designated bird points and analyzing the numerous plant species found in the forest. We will see you in Costa Rica. So long; from Omar Faour, Forrest Statler, and Joe Edison.

Hi everyone, we are the Invertebrate Group! John Kabangu, Sebastian Scofield, and Roselyn Hoang! :D

We are all excited about this trip and can't wait!

Sebastian has done ant research in the past and is looking forward to doing more in Costa Rica.

John has been doing soil research during the semester and is just looking forward to jumping off a waterfall!

Roselyn is excited for new adventures in Costa Rica and the FOOD! But isn't excited about waking up early tomorrow!

Goodbye for now! We're waking up at 6:00 am! 

This is Turin and Alli, writing from Irving, Texas. We are anxiously awaiting our departure from the Tower at 6:30 AM to Costa Rica. 

The BBC have a slideshow of high resolution "3d" (ie. very high depth of field) photographs of ants that are being created as a part of a global ant catalogue by the California Academy of Sciences. Included is a Costa Rican leaf-cutter which we shall probably see next week:
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/12880498

With the 2011 field season imminent, I've been reviewing the website and adding some updates. A 2011 map has been created - currently this is identical to 2010 except the HOBO points have been removed - we'll have new HOBO points to put on the map. The main map has been moved over from "Bing Maps" to "Google Maps". Google have finally fixed some bugs that finally make their software usable for our needs, and Bing Maps have some problems in their latest version.

I've also added "2011" to the years listed in the panoramic photo viewer. Of course at the moment we don't have any panoramic photos for 2011, so the various photo links still compare 2010 to 2008.

I will be making a number of other minor changes to the site over the next few days.

See y'all on Tuesday for the Volcano Lecture!