Forrest Statler: May 2011 Archives

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.

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!

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!

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...