Omar Faour: May 2011 Archives

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.

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.