Home Again

I've been back since late Tuesday night... or early Wednesday morning. Overall, this last trip to CR has been refreshing. I'm back at science and life with new energy and optimism... and maybe slightly reduced focus. But who needs focus! Thank God for the tropics.

Friday Night! Woohoo!

It's Friday night at La Selva, which means we just finished our beans and rice and are sitting down at the microscopes for a few hours of pollen-counting. Hooray! Amanda and I have gotten faster, now we're a veritable assembly line of stained-stigma slide production. But we've fallen a little behind in processing the slides, so tomorrow might be a morning of counting, too.
I think I've acclimated finally. Today I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt against the mosquitoes. All my clothes were damp with sweat, but I didn't feel hot. I learned to carry a handkerchief for my camera, which fogs up for ~30 minutes after being in the air conditioned office all night. Now that I'm used to it, I can't believe I'll be leaving in another 2.5 days!
I have been getting better with my camera, though. I've been trying to get a good photo of the strawberry poison dart frog, and I finally managed it. They are super abundant here, and much more conspicuous in the wet season. Other summer treats include baby peccaries, frequent tree falls, and lots of red mud.

A couple of nights ago there was a big storm and a huge tree right next to the River Station fell on the electrical wires. I woke in the middle of the night to a sound like a gunshot, and I thought it was a little strange that people were shooting canopy leaves in the middle of the night. (Using a shotgun is apparently the standard method for sampling leaves in the canopy, and there is a group doing it at La Selva at the moment.) The next thing I noticed was that I couldn't see anything AT ALL; I thought maybe I might be blind, but it didn't seem important enough to lose sleep over, so I went back to my dreams. In the morning we found out that there were wires in the river and half the station had lost electricity. A crew was out early to work on it; apparently the tree was hung up in the wires, because they felled it just as I was walking out in the morning. It was HUGE and we were all glad it didn't fall on the River Station itself. Amanda and I were out in the field, so we didn't miss the electricity; they didn't get it up again until early afternoon. So all the people who needed to use thermocyclers and digital scales sat in the rocking chairs for a few hours, I guess.
That's the excitement from the rainforest for now! I'm having fun, and looking forward to coming home.

only one week left!

Here's the office where we've been spending the rainy bits of the last several days. The two walls behind me (the photographer) have bookshelves and lockers. The rainy bits have been few, however, and mostly we've been in the field collecting stigmas and pollen samples; we have ~70 slides to go through. Luckily it rained hard last night and just stopped in the last hour, so we'll have a few hours to actually look at slides while we wait for the rainforest to dry off as much as it ever does.


Of course, I'm not complaining about having to spend a lot of time in the field; it gives me the chance to see cool things like this eyelash viper, which is beautiful and deadly... like a tropical biologist...

We've also gotten to know the 10 species we're collecting quite well. Many of them have cool floral adaptations, like stigmas that are triggered when a pollinator comes (they wap the pollinator, hopefully picking up some pollen in the process), big thick petals that keep off the rain, or anthers attached to petals that hit the stigma when they fall off at the end of the flower's life (a last-ditch selfing mechanism, in case no one else's pollen lands on the flower.)

That's about it for now... our days are fun but all pretty much the same: beans and rice 3 meals a day, hiking through the muddy rainforest most of the daylight hours, processing data and planning when it gets dark. At meals we get a chance to meet other biologists and hear about what they're doing; plenty of people are short-termers like us, and there are also several people here for many months at a time working on dissertations. I can't decide if I'm jealous of them. But I know I'm glad I'm here now!

air conditioning

Today was an office day; this sloth was hanging out at the trailhead just outside the lab. It was hanging on a vine 6 feet over the trail! Lucky for us.
We spent most of the day identifying the plants we've been seeing, helped substantially by Orlando Vargas, the resident naturalist who seems to know every single plant on the property. He's amazing. We finished off by constructing a tree to tell us how the different species are related to each other. We'll use that to decide which flowers to focus our sampling on. Tomorrow we're planning to make our first pollen slides and count how much intra- and inter-specific pollen is on the m, i.e. we'll start collecting data! Hooray!
Our office is beautiful, with windows on two sides. It's a corner office; I guess we've arrived. But the air conditioning is extreme. I suppose it's necessary to maintain somebody's equipment, since all the offices are connected. I have to wear a longsleeved shirt and a fleece in here, but when I step outside my glasses fog up and I strip off all the clothes I can. I think I'll be bringing all my damp clothes here to dry, though. And it's probably better for the computer to sit in AC than to be lugged around from one hot, humid room to another in my moldy backpack on my sweaty back on a bike.
Pretty much the only other thing that happened today was our move from posh tourist quarters to a room in the River Station, which has its own legendary researchy charm. It turned out the sheets were even shaped into fans -- or at least the bottom bunk's were. And there is a fan, so it will probably be a lovely place to sleep.

A few favorite pics...

most of what we think about is flowers, but there have been a few cool fruits too -- this one is a palm, and Amanda loves it even more than I do. The orange part is squishy!

As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, fancy-pants in central america is fans: toilet paper, kleenex, towels; but the is the first time I've seen the sheets too. Tomorrow we move to moldy River Station, where I'll bet you all an ice cream no one makes fans out of anything.

Not many Costus blooming right now, but this species is just starting -- you can see why they're called Spiral Gingers in this photo. Or at least the "spiral" part. The ginger part is because of the vegetation, I think, which is similar to that of the closely related ginger family. Blah, blah, blah, I'm a botanist.

We think we identified this as a member of the family Gesneriaceae, but I can't place it beyond that. But they are beautiful, big flowers.

Here's this gorgeous bromeliad we found on the trail. Generally they grow way up in the trees, but like most epiphytes (plants growing on other plants) around here they occasionally blow down. It looks like a lot of these have been blown down, and now they're flowering on the ground!

sloggin' through the back 40

Today Amanda and I decided to check out the most remote parts of the La Selva property. It's only 2-3 km to the back, and we picked the straight trail out and the windy trail back. We could tell from the map that this choice would lead us through a mix of virgin and successional forest at different stages, and figured that was our best bet for maximum floral diversity. The straight trail (LOC for those in the know) turns out to be straight over the most extreme topography in La Selva. We didn't think to check the topo map until we were already 3 hours out, ha ha!

The first 40% of the hike took 75% of the time. Hills as steep as it is possible to walk on two legs, one hill after another, hundreds of feet up and down, up and down. Add to that heat and humidity that made our skin constantly slick with sweat and fogged my glasses. And all this in the knee-high rubber boots that are considered standard to deal with the mud and snakes out here. Some of the most challenging hiking I've ever done. I came out with blisters on the bottoms of my heels and mud all over my clothes. While we were doing it, it was not so much fun, but as soon as we came out into the flatter part with the picturesque river crossings and the abundant Hot Lips (a plant in the genus Psychotria), all that angst was translated into pride and enjoyment. The trail back was absurdly easy, longer but faster because it goes AROUND the minimountains.

Tomorrow we're taking the day off field work to nurse our blistered selves and take stock of what we have found so far; hopefully we'll be able to select plant species to focus on and start collecting pollen samples on Saturday.

Back in the CR

I'm back in Costa Rica, at OTS's La Selva Biological Station. I'm here with my friend and colleague Amanda Posto -- the one I wrote a postcourse grant with. OTS funded the grant, and so we're back at La Selva for two weeks. The grant covers our room and board. We're studying how flower shape affects rates of pollen deposition within and between species.

It took most of two days to get here, plane bus and taxi. We met up in the Miami Airport and spent one night in San Jose. Everything went smoothly, we were able to understand and be understood. We even found the grocery store with the essential items -- lighters and potato empanadas. The lighters are for preparing pollen slides, and the empanadas are very, very tasty.

Yesterday the taxi dropped us off by Reception here at La Selva. We checked in and then walked to kilometer to the building we're staying in now; after all that travel and with heavy bags it was a long km! But the room is beautiful -- obviously built for tourists, but currently accommodating scientist overflow. :) On Friday we move to the grungy River Station, which I think is the oldest building at the station. Moldy and apparently with some olfactory issues from the old septic system. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, yesterday we got set up with a little lab space and a locker to store our research equipment in. This morning we checked out a couple of bikes, which substantially shorten our commute from the distant lodgings; a lot of the trails around the station are bikeable, too. We spent most of the day today out in the field, looking for plants in flower. We found about 28 species, and are currently working on identifying them.

It's the rainy season here now. When we got in yesterday, they said it hadn't rained in two days. I told Amanda I figured it would rain today, and she said she thought it wouldn't, so we ended up wagering an ice cream on the question. I was surprised she did it, because (as noted) it is the RAINY season, in a rainforest. She lost in a big way. We had just finished walking trails for the day and were almost back where we'd left the bikes on the trail when it started to pour. We got out our umbrellas for the last few meters. Umbrellas work better in the tropical rainforest than rain gear, because you'd just soak in your own sweat under all that plastic. But they went back in the backpacks when we hopped on our bikes.

Biking in a downpour on the narrow leaf-covered trails of La Selva is hard core. Okay, I'm not a mountain biker, but I thought it was gnarly (as Jeff - the advisor - would say). My glasses were steamed up and covered in raindrops, but I was doing pretty well and having a blast. Then I heard a thump on the trail behind me; it was Amanda hitting the dirt after a small tree caught her left handlebar. She was laughing, which was good, but the bike didn't seem to be working quite right anymore, so we walked the rest of the way back to the lab where I could clean off my glasses and we could get a better look at the gears. It was an easy fix, and then we were back on wheels, speeding to our room where hot showers, baby powder, and dry clothes awaited. Bliss!

Now we're looking at all those plant photos I took, checking La Selva's online flora, and leafing through plant ID books to figure out what we have. That should keep us busy for a few more hours before we go to bed and sleep very, very well.

It's fun being a researcher at La Selva. Very different from being a visiting student in a big class. Now we make our own schedule, and it's just the two of us. It's easier to see cool things on the trail because there aren't 20 other people making noise and trying to catch every lizard they see. There aren't any lectures to attend (unless we want to) and no papers to write, just the two of us and our project. On the other hand, we have to be more focused, and we don't have boxes full of resources and people with diverse interests to ask about this bird or that mammal spotted on the trail.

Speaking of critters, I saw an armadillo and a 3-toed sloth. I'd better get back to work now!

Home again

I made it back safely yesterday! It was a long day in planes and airports. Neil and I were on the same flight to Atlanta, which was nice. A few more hours of inside jokes, talking science and reminiscing about the course. We lost each other on the way through customs; I hope he found pizza. :)

Matt met me by the baggage claim in Detroit. It was great! He took me back to his apartment to see cat, fed me, and put me to bed. I slept 10 hours.

It is strange to be back, but it feels good. It is cold and quiet here, with a few inches of snow left on the ground. I am spending the day picking up the threads of my life. Tomorrow Violet (the cat) and I will head back to western Michigan and plunge into the new/old routine. I guess this is the end of the Costa Rica blog, for now; maybe I'll start it up again in July!

Oh, and for the birders out there, I saw 46 new species since my last update! (Not counting mist-netted birds). That brings the total for the trip up to 241. Most of them new to me. I can't wait for spring migration to get swinging up here!

3/22 Panama City

The taxi that picked us up from the ferry in Gamboa dropped us at the bus station where we originally arrived in Panama City. Half of the group is getting back on a Tica Bus to San Jose at 11 pm. I'm glad to not be one of them, I don't fancy another 18-hour bus ride just yet.

We all said our goodbyes and the Margaret, Becky and I took a cab to the hostel (Hostal Panama) where Becky and I will be staying tonight. Margaret has to catch the bus, but decided to spend the day with us. After dropping our bags, we stopped by the grocery store for breakfast and stocking up, and then caught a cab to Casco Viejo, the picturesque old city. It's full of buildings that are 2 or 3 centuries old, in various states of repair. People are interested in restoration, but there's only so much money, so immaculately repaired and finished buildings sit right next to derelict houses and ones that are halfway in between, gutted and surrounded by scaffolding. It's hopeful, but you can tell it's also slow-moving. A fun place to spend a couple of hours walking around. We ran into another group of OTSers, had a sandwich, and then headed back to the hostel for much-needed naps.

Becky got me up at 4:30 so we could head out for an early dinner. We went to a stupendous italian place and had pizza with garlic bread and sangria. Becky left early to pick her husband Peter up at the airport (they're spending a vacation together in Panama), and Margaret and I lingered over our food and drink until it was dark outside. Then we caught a cab back to the hostel, Margaret got her back, and we said goodbye. She headed back to the bus station.

I unpacked and repacked by bags one last time, keeping the fragiles in my carry-on and the liquids out of it, and wondered what it would be like to not be in the tropics any more. The hostel owner is taking me to the airport tomorrow morning at 5 am.

3/21 Pipeline Road

It's amazing how much easier it has been to get up early on this trip. First of all, it's warm, so you don't have to worry about cold feet. Second, something exciting is going to happen as soon as you get up, which is very motivating. Third, the howler monkeys are screaming their heads off.

So I didn't have any trouble catching the 6:30 ferry this morning. We were a few minutes late just because we were waiting for the kitchen to finish our lunches. We each got two bags of food, and I started eating breakfast on the ferry. That's when we discovered the sandwiches. Four for each of us, For the vegetarians, peanut butter and jelly and cheese; for the meat eater, peanut butter and jelly and cheese and ham. All on one sandwich. Why is this? There are a few theories. It could be that the cooks were tired, and got confused halfway through. It could be that they hate us. Or maybe they just think gringos like peanut butter on everything, not impossible. Anyway, it wasn't too bad without the ham.

Hiking Pipeline was the perfect way to spend my last day in the rainforest. We saw ~60 species of birds, 16 new to me. There were also some new plants, including the fattest, hairiest spiral ginger I've ever seen. A tamandua (little anteater) was chomping away a few feet off the road. Possibly the biggest treat was seeing a tarantula hawk (an enormous wasp, at least 3" long) dragging its still-twitching prey (an orange-kneed tarantula, perhaps?) across the road. We were tired and happy when we made it back to the ferry at 5 pm.

Dinner and packing was followed by a last night of hanging out as a group. Jess left last night and Sara left this morning, so we're diminished, but we still count 16. Tomorrow morning we'll all pile on the 6:30 ferry with all of our luggage, head into Panama City, and disperse.

3/20 first alert day at BCI

I opted out of the morning hike with Egbert Leigh (resident scientist who gave us our intro lecture last night covering the history of ecological research at BCI) in favor of birding with Neil and Becky. Egbert felt 18 people was too many for a reasonable hike, so we had his blessing.

The forest here is thick and palmy. The dry season is more distinct than at La Selva, but it's still a rainforest. So very green, but with a thick layer of crunchy fallen leaves. The island was formed ~1914 when the river was flooded to form Gatun Lake, the central part of the Panama Canal. Biologists previously working in the area teamed up with entomologists associated with the canal (studying malarial mosquitoes) to make the island into a preserve for research. When it was first flooded, 1/3 to 1/2 was deforested for wood and agriculture. The forest has recovered admirably; your average person would never guess it had been pasture less than 100 years ago. But there are practically no big trees, and still some residual early successional species in high abundance (like free-standing, i.e. non-strangler, figs).

At any rate, I hadn't seen that many palms and ant-birds since La Selva, or that many ticks since Corcovado. I don't know what makes good tick habitat, but I must have picked 200 off of my clothes over the course of the walk. And I stayed on trail. Neil was seduced into the woods by the call of the elusive Northern Bentbill. He found his bird, but came back with thousands of tiny ticks -- he must have walked into a few balls of seed ticks in the woods. Being a stoic biologist, he continued on the hike, turning back only when it was time for lunch. After we ate, he stripped off most of his clothes and 4 of us took duct tape and tweezers to every bare surface of his skin. It was an excellent demonstration of primate grooming behavior. Kellie got pictures. After seeing that, the only thing that will motivate me to leave the trail is an aggressive puma.

We had a series of seminars in the afternoon from different grad students based at BCI. A couple were on the fig-fig wasp system (which I LOVE), one looking at whether figs punish wasps that don't pollinate, and one one the physiological differences between strangler and free-standing figs. There are 16 species of figs on BCI! We also heard about BCI's awesome automated radio telemetry system, which gives locations for collared animals every 4 minutes. They've even put them on euglossine (orchid) bees, and rodent-dispersed seeds. Then there was a hydrogeology talk, and one on ant behavior. After dinner we heard a STRI postdoc practice his job talk on gene dispersal in tropical trees. Overall, I was impressed with the advantages of doing research in a place as intensively studied as BCI.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to catch the 6:30 ferry and spend the day hiking on Pipeline Road with Becky and Neil. It's a road that the US government cut straight through the rainforest in WW2 as an alternate route (mostly for oil transport) in case the canal was bombed. Now it's basically just used by ecotourists, mostly birders; the world record for most birds seen in one day was made here. Something like 530 birds. We'll see how we do.

3/19 arrival at Barro Colorado Island

Yesterday we had our first parting; the last course meal had been the night before. Erika, Katja, Edwin, Anna, Amanda, Derik, and Nate went their separate ways. The rest of us left Hotel City One in San Jose at 10 am for the Tica Bus Station (everyone but Derik was there for the farewells). We got to the station early, happily, and had about an hour to wait before we got on the bus; it rolled out just after 12pm. Our course took up a little less than half of the bus. We were subdued. The driver put on a motorcycle-and-fast-car movie with no plot (“Torque” – never heard of it.) After that there were a couple of Westerns.

It was about 7 hours to the Panama border. I’m not sure what time we got there exactly, but I was asleep and it was pitch dark outside. Everyone in the bus had to get out and go through a line to exit Costa Rica. Then we walked ~500 meters over the border. It was a strange walk… there were no sidewalks, so we were on the edge of the road. There were vehicles parked on the side, a few people standing around. Not much light. As we got close to the border, there was almost a carnival atmosphere, with food and duty-free shops. On the Panama side we had to go to three different places to get tourist cards, special stickers, entry stamps in our passports, and finally to get our bags inspected (the bus had driven ahead of us to across the border and unloaded our checked bags there). I was grateful to be in a big group with a few good Spanish speakers; confusion was minimal and we watched out for each other. Still, I think it took a couple of hours to get across.

Back in the bus, the driver started on a Steven Seagal spree that lasted until we got to Panama City. Some people found it hard to sleep with the sound of gunshots and snapping bones as Mr. Seagal fought his way through innumerable B-movie scenarios, but not me! I curled up in my seat next to Becky, grateful again to be such a small person, and slept most of the night away. We arrived an hour earlier than planned, 4am, after 17 hours on the bus. Another bus from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) was supposed to meet us at 5am, so we asked around until we found the place where private buses generally meet their parties. We piled our bags and loitered until 5:40, when the STRI driver finally figured out where we were. 15 gringos with 2 months worth of luggage shouldn’t be that hard to spot, but maybe he was as tired as we were.

We were expecting, once on the bus, to be driven to a 7:15 ferry to Barro Colorado Island (BCI), STRI’s biological station on the Panama Canal. But it turned out that ferry was already completely booked, so the driver (Edwin) took us to a tourist buffet for breakfast and then dumped us on STRI’s main office back doorstep sometime before 7 am. The office didn’t open until 8 am. No one knew what would happen next; we knew the next ferry wasn’t until 4pm. I saw a new bird (silver-beaked tanager) and then took a nap on the sidewalk. Ellen R. and I snuck in behind an early arrival to the office to use the bathroom. Several people walked by and felt bad for us. Poor gringo bums sleeping on the sidewalk! But nobody knew what to do. It was a low point. I missed Erika and her miraculous problem-solving abilities.

Shortly after 8 someone with sufficient authority arrived and let us in the building. We went up to the third-floor courtyard where we could buy coffee and have chairs to sit on. 30 minutes later a second person came by to apologize for the mix-up and give us STRI brochures. In another 30 minutes or so she had arranged a special ferry for us. We got back in the bus with Edwin and drove to Gamboa, a small town about halfway along the canal. STRI has some facilities there, including labs, greenhouses, and a dock. There was a smallish boat there that took us to BCI, about a 40 minute ride.

By the time we arrived on BCI, the group was the grumpiest I have ever seen them. And that is saying something. Luckily it was clear to the person meeting us (whose name escapes me) could see that right away. She led us to our rooms and I think everyone fell asleep for an hour before lunch, and again for an hour after lunch. There is a seminar schedule for this evening, but luckily that’s it. We should have regained our alertness and good temper by tomorrow, when we have hikes in the morning and talks all afternoon. I know that some years BCI hasn’t planned much for the OTS courses coming to visit. Although it would have been fun to wander around, I’m glad we’re getting a more official introduction. It will be nice to meet people and hear about their work. This is basically a recruitment visit – BCI and STRI want the next generation of tropical biologists to be familiar with their facilities and have a favorable impression so we’ll consider working here in the future. But it’s obviously a great opportunity for us too. Now I’m going back to sleep so I can be in a condition to enjoy being here.

Panama!

We made it to Panama early this morning, and now we're at Barro Colorado Island. Our access to the internet is relatively limited here, but I'll try to update the blog properly tomorrow -- just wanted to let interested parties know that the trip went fine. Relatively. See tomorrow's post. :)

wrapping up

the day we spent at Las Alturas was wonderful, a much-needed respite before coming back to Las Cruces to finish everything. Las Alturas is a tiny little station, just a few rooms and a big wrap-around porch, right on the edge of La Amistad National Park. It hasn't been used much in the last few years -- in fact, apparently no one has been there since the last OTS Fundamentals course a year ago. It was quiet and cozy, at least until we got there. Then it was loud and cozy. The first thing I did was take a nap, then a leisurely walk, then another nap. Amanda and I spent 30 minutes finishing up a paper; luckily it didn't take long, because there was no electricity to recharge the computer. In the evening we ran a generator for lights for a few hours, while we danced and sang and generally made merry. Everybody looked happier than they had in a long time -- no work hanging over our heads!

The next morning we got up, loaded into taxis, and drove back to Las Cruces. The work was waiting for us there. I spent a long day working on all four of my papers. But Erika (the coordinator) assured me that going out mist netting this morning should be a top priority, so I left my papers as they were and went to bed last night at 9pm.

One of the students here, Chris, has some kind of connection with Chase, the fellow who is currently coordinating the bird banding studies out of Las Cruces. Anyway, he managed to get an invitation for three of us to go along this morning, so Becky, Chris and I were out standing by the dining hall at 4:20 this morning. Chase came out to meet us with Federico, an expert bander and all-around local naturalist who speaks more English than he lets on. The four of us jumped in the car and headed down the road, where we picked up 5 more people. It was so Costa Rican, 9 people crammed into a normal-sized car, radio blasting, jokes flying in spanish. It felt great. Maybe if I had been under the pile of people instead of on top it would have been less great, you'd have to ask Becky about that.

The drive to today's field site took about 20 minutes. When we got there we all more or less rolled out of the car and took all the equipment out of the trunk and down the hill to where the banding station would be. This is the biggest bird-banding operation in Central America -- nearly every day of the week, they are at one of their sites with 20 mist nets open from ~5:20 to 11:20. They don't usually have 9 people; Chase said they'd never set up the nets so quickly before. We were in a pine plantation/forest fragment site, with pasture visible on both sides. The plantation is connected to a piece of primary forest. I helped a bit with setting up the nets, and got to take a hummingbird out, but mostly the three of us just sat back and watched the well-oiled machine collect and process the approximately 50 birds that landed in their nets over 6 hours. I saw some completely new birds and got a chance to look closely at several birds I had only seen from afar. I handled all the birds I wanted to; I even got my first hearty finch bite from a thick-billed finch (imagine slightly smaller cardinal bill, ouch!). It was entrancing. I learned a lot about molts, how to age a bird from feather condition, how to take blood and feather samples. They caught their first Kentucky Warbler ever (the study has been running for 9 years). My favorites were the scale-crested pygmy-tyrant and the green honeycreeper; i'll try to remember to post photos of them.

When we got back to Las Cruces at 12:30 it was back to the computer. I finished my last 3 papers and turned them in before dinner. Now we've got our final wrap-up slideshow, evaluations to fill out, and bags to pack. It's not quite the end -- we'll all have dinner together one last time tomorrow night -- but the class is really over today. It's been such a crazy, busy, magical time... it's hard to believe after 8 weeks that we're not just driving to a new site tomorrow where we'll unpack, get orientation walks, meet new faculty, and spring into another set of projects. Instead, we'll be heading our different ways after tomorrow night; most of us to Panama together for a few more days, but important people will be missing. And no more schedule, no more assignments... I'll start thinking about my own field work again, the plants and insects waiting for me in Michigan. Luckily I love home and the people there, so my sadness at the end of this adventure is mixed with excitement at returning.

write, write, write

I haven't written the last few days because I've been busy and boring! My FLP group spent an entire day processing 463 photos of diseased leaves. Then we spent half of yesterday analyzing the data. The project was interesting, we unexpectedly found no increase in disease with plant density. The data were really satisfying, and I was involved in the analysis so I learned a lot. The rest of my time has been consumed with writing -- second and third drafts of 4 papers. I have 2 more days to finish them. It is stress like I remember from finals in college; bolt down your dinner and run back to the computer.

Tomorrow we are all spending the day at Las Alturas, a slightly higher elevation forest site. It's supposed to be a day off; it remains to be seen if I can resist taking my computer along and working until the battery runs out. I could use the break, but if I can get enough work done I'll be able to spend Sunday morning mist-netting with the pros here at Las Cruces. It will be an opportunity to get a close look at birds I would probably never get a glimpse of otherwise -- plus a chance to spend time with new people -- hard to resist! I imagine I'll find a way to make it happen.

It is hard to believe this course is almost over. In spite of the frenzy of writing, most of us are struggling with some melancholy at our impending separation. On a positive note, Amanda and I found out our post-course proposal was approved by OTS. If La Selva and MINAE (Costa Rica's department of the environment and energy, in charge of approving all biological research) give the thumbs up, I'll be back in the lowland rainforest in 4 months! Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Las Cruces

The OTS whirlwind doesn't stop. We got yesterday morning off here at Las Cruces Biological Station, and it took me the whole morning to check my email and update my blog! The afternoon and evening were taken up with orientation hikes and lectures. Then I met with my last FLP group. This project is led by Greg Gilbert, a mycologist (fungus fellow) interested in disease dynamics in the tropics. Our project is asking whether plant species at higher densities also have higher leaf disease rates. We spent a couple of hours outlining the ideas and methods last night. This morning we collected leaves from 7:30 - 12:30 and then sorted and photographed them from 1:00 - 10:30 (with breaks for dinner and a lecture). I'm exhausted! Tomorrow we have to analyze all the photos -- measuring % leaf area diseased -- and then synthesize it all into 10 data points. 7 people working for 30 hours for 10 data points. Science is hard sometimes. If the answer is interesting, it will all be worth it. At the very least I'll have some new skills.

This place has an amazing number of birds, which I've been enjoying too, but no time to discuss it now -- in two days I should be able to wax poetic about papaya-munching motmots and the most beautiful tanagers the world has ever seen. I've already learned a few new plant families, too. Zingiberaceae is my favorite today.

Have I mentioned I'm considering becoming a chemical evolutionary ecologist? Last night I couldn't fall asleep, I was thinking about pollen biochemistry. What has happened to me?

3/8 planes, trains and automobiles

Today was our biggest traveling day yet. Woke up at 5:15, took bags out to the front porch, packed a lunch, ate breakfast, on the trail by 6 am. Our departure time was dicatated by the tide -- we had to cross the Rio Claro on a low tide, to keep the crocs, sharks, and dangerous flow at bay. The hike out was 20 km, just like the hike in, but on very different terrain, and on a schedule. Trucks were waiting to pick us up at the end at noon. Maybe a third of the hike was on sandy beach, which is like hiking through molasses. No fun when you're in a hurry. I had to pack up my binoculars and push myself to move fast the whole morning. I notice how short my legs are hiking in sand, too. Plod, plod. But it was spectacular -- miles and miles of undeveloped sandy beach, beautiful surf, groves of palms. Lots of coconuts germinating, really impressive. The palms pop out of the nut as enormous seedlings.

Luckily it was relatively cool and misty, so we didn't get the full fury of the sun. I got a bit red, but not really burned. We even got a tiny sprinkle of rain on the last stretch of beach. And even though I was sad not to stop and look at everything closely, hiking hard felt good. Gwen walked the last bit of beach with me -- our legs and temperaments match. I was so happy when we finally stumbled in to the little shop where everyone was waiting in the shade to get on the trucks. I bought an ice cold orange fanta and took my boots and socks off. It was blissful.

After a 30 minute break, we piled into 4 trucks. I was a bit worried about them, thinking I might get motion sick or be too tired, but it turns out that riding in the back of those open trucks cures all my ills. I love it! We had a tarp over the top for shade, but the front and back were open. Lots of fresh air. Joe, Elena, Aaron, Sara, Jess, Bill and I shared a truck. We sang and laughed for the whole 2-hour trip to Puerto Jimenez. We even got to see a tayra (huge black weasel) crossing the road in front of us. When it started to rain, the driver got out and pulled down the front of the tarp to keep us dry. Other OTSers weren't as lucky, their trucks' tarps didn't even go all the way down the side. We laughed at them as we sped by. :)

We had 20 minutes to walk around Puerto Jimenez, a charming little coastal town. I got a cheese empanada and a phone card. From there it was just a short drive to the dock, where we piled out and waited for another 30 minutes or so until our boat showed up. There were just enough seats for all of us. It only took 45 minutes to get across the gulf, and then we sat for another half hour on another dock until our bus showed up. I had time to use the bathroom in the supermarket nearby. I marveled at the mirror, electric light, and bar of soap. It didn't even smell like urine in there. It was awesome. Everybody stocked up on beer and cookies, and then it was 2 more hours on the big bus to Las Cruces.

Las Cruces is the third OTS field station, and the last stop for our course (we'll spend one day in the middle at Las Alturas). After Corcovado, this feels like a resort. There is electricity all the time. We don't have to go outside to the bathroom. There are hot showers. We get to serve ourselves food (the last 3 sites plated up food for us -- which meant I ALWAYS ate more than I wanted to. You don't want to make the cooks mad.) There are pillows. And I haven't seen a single biting arthropod. The only danger here is snakes. It's also a botanical garden, a great opportunity for me to solidify some of the tropical groups i've been learning. And half of Costa Rica's birds can be found here. I'm in heaven!

Oh, so I forgot about bird lists! Here are the new birds I picked up at Corcovado: great tinamou, mangrove black-hawk, semipalmated plover, whimbrel, ruddy turnstone, least sandpiper, ruddy ground-dove, black-hooded antshrike, riverside wren, crested guan, scarlet macaw, fiery-billed aracari, golden-naped woodpecker, chestnut-backed antbird, golden-crowned spadebill, sulfur-rumped flycatcher, eye-ringed flatbill, house wren, white-shouldered tanager, white-throated shrike-tanager, cherrie's tanager, green honeycreeper, dusky-capped flycatche, ruby-throated hummingbird.

3/7 Farewell to the jungle

Yoel and I finished the first draft of our FLP and handed it in today. That felt good. I took a 3-hour walk by myself in the primary forest. It was wonderful. I get so used to being around 21 other people all day everyday, I forget how quiet I can be when I'm alone, and how differently my mind works then. I see and hear much more, and think more clearly. I love collaboration, the energy and creativity that comes from it, but I need to balance it with more solitude than is possible here.

I took the whole afternoon off, wandered up to the swimming hole again and lingered there for a couple of hours. There were 9 women and Bill. It was idyllic. We moseyed down to the beach just in time to catch the sunset and get our course group photo. The sun was amazing -- it slowly approached the ocean, and then once it hit, dropped fast. After dinner we got a little extra electricity to pack by. I sat in the classroom for an hour after that with Becky, Margaret, and Rebecca. Aaron and Neil came and went. We passed the guitar. Then I walked down to the beach and back in the dark. Good day.

3/6 Good Canoe Day

I feel confident now that I've escaped the group cold. Amanda and Becky both had it, they cough every morning. Becky sounds like a howler monkey at 4 am.

The highlight of my day was a canoe trip up the Rio Sirena with Bill, Elena, and Amanda. As we were walking down the trail to the boats, a huge tapir was walking up! His back was as high as my chest. He looked like a little rhino, big and dense. He took off into the woods pretty quickly. He had a radio collar. (There is a long-running tapir population study here).

We took a big boat out, more rowboat-sized than canoe-sized. We paddled up the river as the tide was coming in, makes the paddling easier. It felt like "Heart of Darkness," but happy, moving slowly up this wide river with nothing but jungle on either side. Lots of shore birds. We saw two crocodiles and a big bull shark, 4 feet long, swimming by just a few feet from the boat. There were some other big fish, and lots of schools of little silver fish. We paddled fast through the sunny spots and lingered in the shade.

Now I'm overwhelmed by writing again. I got two papers back for rewrites today. One of them is more or less in order, just requires small corrections. The other has profound problems in the introduction and discussion that I don't have the energy to face today. It's difficult for me to write in this environment -- no privacy and always pressed for time. I'm sure it's good for me. :)

3/5 Hard Day

I don't think I'm getting sick, but it was still a hard day. We had FLP presentations in the morning, and then i spent the next 5 hours writing up part of the paper for the butterfly project. I'm writing it with Yoel Stuart, who is a good coauthor, that makes it less stressful. Glad to have a satisfactory hypothesis. I'm sick of cold showers. It's amazing that even though I'm hot and sweaty all day, a freezing cold shower doesn't feel good. Other people like them. I'm happy for them. I'm also itchy all over. I guess I got one bite too many and it pushed me over the edge. I'm going to take some benadryl to knock down the allergic response. One more gripe: my hand-washed clothes smell moldy by the time they dry. And I haven't seen a tapir.

3/4 orb weavers and ithomiines

A big day of feeding spiders. I got good at wedging a butterfly into a spider web. There were a few unresponsive spiders, but high enough participation for us to say that about 50% of the butterflies we collected were not toxic! Interesting result. We decided to frame the study as a comparison between rates of toxicity in the '80s (as measured by a previous grad student of Larry's, using a bird as a bioassay) and today. Now everyone is happy, more or less. We might try to publish it as a note.

I'm exhausted today! My energy level is way below normal. There has been a wicked cold making the rounds, I hope I'm not coming down with it. Maybe it's just from working all day in the heat.

3/3 catching butterflies

We spent the entire day collecting butterflies for our faculty-led project today. Tomorrow the actual experiments will start.

An interesting conflict has surfaced around our project. There are many different approaches to doing science, and OTS teaches the hypothesis-testing approach. They maintain the other approaches are fine, but we are expected to practice forming hypotheses and predictions to guide our projects. Larry Gilbert likes the natural history approach better, where you just kind of figure out how things are working in the system you've selected (e.g. "how many of the butterflies in this population are poisonous?") and then worry later about how to fit it into the framework of a broader ecological question. The course coordinators want to be sure we can frame this project in terms of a hypothesis so that a concise paper can come out of it for the course book. In terms of my own professional development, I'm definitely benefitting more from thinking in terms of hypotheses and predictions -- it helps me think more logically about what I want to know, why I want to know it, and how I'm going to figure it out. We'll see how it all resolves itself.

So the project itself: there is a big family of butterflies, the Heliconidae, with lots of poisonous mimics in it. (They all look very similar, so if a predator learns one tastes bad, it will avoid all of them in the future). One tribe in the family, Ithomiines, are fairly common around Corcovado right now. They collect their toxic compounds as adults from flowering plants that particularly like light gaps. Larry has seen lots of the butterflies, but not very many of the plants. He thinks there may be a lot of these aposematic (warning coloration) butterflies out right now that don't actually have toxins. But how would we test this? We don't have any fancy tools to measure chemistry. But we do have golden orb spiders, which have been used as bioassays for the chemical compound in question. So we'll throw butterflies in their nets. If the butterfly has the toxic compound, the spider will cut it out of its web. If it doesn't, the spider will eat it. We'll see how that goes tomorrow.

People have been coming in with stories about all the cool animals they've seen. The most prized is the tapir. They're fairly common, but not conspicuous. I've seen a shark in the surf and a big crocodile on the other side of the river, but no tapir.

3/2 Coolest Swimming Hole Ever

Today Larry Gilbert took half of us on a long ridge hike that lasted the whole morning. Saw some great views through tree falls (the ridges are steep, trees don't last as long there as they do in the lowlands). Larry is primarily a butterfly guy, so we were treated to some fascinating natural history lectures and the experience of watching him grab one lep after another right out of the air with his bare hands. He occasionally mentions that his heart trouble has slowed him down in the last couple of years. It's a good think I didn't come on this course 10 years ago, I never would have been able to keep up with him -- it's a struggle as it is.

In the afternoon several of us hiked up the Rio Claro to the coolest swimming hole the world has ever seen. The water was warm but not too warm. The deepest spots were about 8 feet, and big enough to really swim in. At the bend in the river there were some shallow rapids you could sit in to get the water massage, and then slide down and out into the pool. I floated for a while looking up through lianas at the vultures circling lazily far up in the sky. This was the first experience that really smacked of tropical paradise decadence.

It's a good thing there are moments like that, because I'm beginning to discover that there are more biting insects here than anywhere I've been. Except maybe coastal Maine in May. There are some mosquitoes, abundant no-see-ums, and enormous numbers of ticks. I pick off about 20 ticks a day, at least 5 of them imbedded. The only place I've seen anything like it is the New Jersey pine barrens. Throughout lectures and meals you can see people here and there twitch, pull up a pant leg or shirt, and pluck and squash. Luckily these ticks are way easier to kill than the ones I'm used to. But the bites itch for a long time, and are prone to infection. It seems like everyone has at least one sore by now that won't heal.

I was placed in Larry Gilbert's FLP group. I always seem to get my top pick of resource people, I don't know how that works. Larry is a very well known tropical ecologist. He's one of those people who knows lots of natural history, recognizes good questions. and can see how to carry it out. He's full of ideas. Our FLP involves catching butterflies and throwing them in spider webs. Hypotheses and predictions not clear yet; more on that tomorrow. I'm going to bed early tonight, hooray!

3/1 Corcovado orientation

We spent the morning in orientation hikes. This place is amazing! The wildlife is completely intact (except for harpy eagles, which haven't been seen here since 2001 or so). And the animals are dense. There are more huge canopy trees than La Selva, too, and more diverse plants. I saw squirrel monkeys this morning, little guys with tufty tails. This species is endemic to the Osa, and the only Central American squirrel monkey. Corcovado has 4 monkey species, and now I've seen them all. I'm really going to miss that rustling in the tree canopy when we leave!

Strangler figs are quite common here, and spectacular. I'll try to upload some photos. A mature strangler fig looks like a thick, snaky cage around the host tree. We saw fig fruits today, too -- another famous ecological story, fig-fig wasp coevolution. We cut it open and tiny wasps came pouring out.

It feels hotter and wetter here than at La Selva, even though Corcovado supposedly has a stronger dry season. I don't think I've ever sweated this much in my whole life. When I put on clean clothes, they are soaked through within a couple of hours. I've only really got 2 pairs of clothes. We do all our laundry by hand, and it takes at least one day (with luck) for it to dry. I think you can all imagine what that means for my odor and appearance. Luckily I'm not alone. :) And I have extra socks and underwear. I'm also grateful to have discovered gold bond powder -- excellent stuff! Definitely invented for the rainforest. I use it everywhere.

For some reason, the course coordinators have decided to schedule lectures for 1:00, right after lunch. Don't do this, people! Siesta was invented for a good reason. Something about the heat and wet is exhausting, and it hits hardest right about then. At least half of the class slept through the lecture on the national park. I managed to stay alert enough to understand that gold mining and poaching are constant problems here, and that the financial situation is dire. Local and national politics are complex and tangled, and Corcovado is suffering for it. It takes a lot of money just to pay the 20-some guards necessary to enforce the park's no-extraction policy (wood, gold, meat). But Corcovado is a big attraction for a certain kind of tourist, and brings in more money than it needs to maintain itself. Then the government redistributes the money, leaving Corcovado in the red. It's too complicated for anyone to see an easy fix, but hopefully all involved parties will agree that this place should be the very highest priority. It's incomparable, a truly intact ecosystem. This land supports healthy jaguar and tapir populations! That must be preserved.

Feb 29 -- into the Osa

I woke up at 5:30 in our slightly seedy La Palma hotel, with bites all over my legs from who knows what. I know there were ants in my bed, hopefully that was it. The room was crowded, nothing but beds with small pathways in between. We packed our luggage at 6 am, one truck full of the things we won't need in Corcovado (sent ahead to Las Cruces), one truck full of heavy things to go in by boat, and then our daypacks with clothes and essentials for the hike in. By 7 we were loaded in the back of two pickup trucks with some boards to sit on. I prefer standing. The drive in to the National Park trailhead took about an hour, up a road that was really just a broad riverbed. Then the 20 km hike in to the Sirena Biological Station, right in the center of the Osa peninsula's coast, between the Sirena and Claro rivers. The hike was fabulous. We didn't have to hurry at all, so I stayed at the very back of the group, botanizing and appreciating the wilderness. The fastest group hiked it in 4 hours; I took 8! The first 3 km were fairly steep uphill. There were a series of big storms shortly before we got there, so that portion of the trail was in rainy-season condition. The soil was saturated, red mud up to my ankles. After that the trail flattened and dried considerably.

Before Corcovado was declared a national park, there were lots of squatters on the land. They had cleared large portions for grazing and agriculture. Everybody was moved out -- voluntarily or not -- in the mid-70's, and the land has mostly returned to forest since then. There are still very visible differences between primary and secondary forest, though. It's biologically very interesting, makes for a diverse flora and fauna (birds and butterflies particularly, I think.) The hike in gave me an appreciation for the level of fragmentation present 30 years ago. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day -- good company, plenty of the Osa Peninsula's famed scarlet macaws.

We wandered in to the Sirena Biological Station shortly before dinner. The station is beautiful, a building expanded from one of the nicer abandoned squatter structures. It is all on stilts, with a main two-story building that has a lab upstairs, nice dining hall, a classroom, and three "bungalows" full of bunk beds. All these buildings are connected into one compound with covered walkways. Electricity comes from solar panels; it's available 24 hrs in the lab (for writing papers) but only a couple of hours (and unpredictably) in other rooms. Makes it easy to go to bed early. :)

The list of dangers here is more exciting than usual. There are poisonous snakes (including the fer de lance), of course, but the bushmasters here are exceptional. They were relatively recently discovered to be an endemic species, and regular bushmaster antivenin doesn't work. Apparently there is a little antivenin in the main hospital in San Jose, but you'd be dead before you made it there. Amputation is your best chance. Oh, and the bushmasters are a bit more aggressive here -- they've been known to chase people. Yay! Good news: they're rare. There are bull sharks in the surf, and at high tide in the rivers. Big crocodiles hang out in the rivers, too. Puma are very common around Sirena, but generally not dangerous. Other than that, just the usual.

Feb 28 -- traveling to La Palma

We piled on another bus early this morning – an air-conditioned one, yuck! I was freezing, and then got off for a break and sweated, got back on and froze again. Took Dramamine and slept the trip away, as I always do. We started on the Pan-American Highway but spent the last couple of hours on progressively worse roads into the Osa Peninsula, definitely vomit-worthy. We drove into the small town of La Palma and unloaded. We have time to unpack and repack here – internet access, too! (That was unexpected). Tomorrow we’ll hike in to Corcovado National Park, where we’ll be staying at Sirena Biological Station for 8 days. It’s the best place in Costa Rica to see wildlife, something like 40,000 hectares, most of it old-growth lowland rainforest. I should have some good stories when I get out.

Feb 27 -- oak forest

Last day in Cuerici. It was a great day; we had FLP presentations in the morning and then time for writing, but I had somehow managed to not have anything to work on. So I walked down the hill for a couple of hours in the morning, and then in the afternoon Becky and I walked up to the old-growth oak forest and back down, the loop. We took our time, looking at birds and plants. It is such a beautiful place! The oaks are evergreen and enormous. They are covered in moss and other epiphytes; lots of bromeliads. And there are hummingbird-pollinated plants everywhere. I think it’s probably too cold for very many insects up there, so the plants do better with bird pollination. The clouds lifted while we hiked up, so we saw both the mist in the trees and then the long view from the platform on the ridge.

For dinner we had some Cuerici-farmed trout, which tasted amazing. We’re having a party tonight, there will be guitar-playing, latin dancing, and beer pong (I won’t be participating in that last one.) Tomorrow morning early we leave. I’m definitely going to miss the cold and dry – as soon as we come down from the mountains I’ll start sweating and probably won’t stop for 2 weeks.

Feb 26 -- strolling in the mora

The thrill of seeing the Quetzal hasn’t worn off yet. My partner in warbler data collection Chris and I had another good day in the field, saw some cool birds and really enjoyed the forest. This is the first day I’ve noticed an improvement in my performance at altitude – the amount of puffing and rapid heartbeat I’m experiencing now when I try to walk up tiny slopes seems more in line with everyone else. In the afternoon I finished my post-course proposal and the paper that was due at this site; that means tomorrow is free for birding!

This is my favorite site so far. Good food, comfortable beds, great weather. The first part of every day is sunny, blue skies. Great for appreciating the beautiful views into the lowlands all around. Then sometime in the morning the clouds roll in, cool and refreshing, and mist blows all around us. It makes the most familiar views mysterious and romantic. Sometimes it retreats and returns a couple of times during the day.

The best part of the day was the walk Becky, Neil and I took off through the blackberry fields. We had a spare hour, so we walked a tiny path along a steep hill with mora bushes and cows, each field separated by barbed wire fences with tiny gates made of wired-together sticks stuck into loops on fence posts. We must have walked through 4 or 5 of them. There were great views down into the valleys, tops of trees, farmsteads. Of course there were excellent birds, too.

Yesterday and today’s list: RESPLENDENT QUETZAL! Black guan, emerald toucanet, spot-crowned woodcreeper, mountain elaenia, flame-colored tanager, hairy woodpecker, ruddy treerunner, ochraceous wren, gray-breasted wood-wren, long-tailed silky-flycatcher, Tennessee warbler, flame-throated warbler, yellow-bellied siskin. Plus that dot-winged ant-wren I saw in La Selva and just remember to add.

Feb 25 -- Quetzal

I saw my first Quetzal today. Just a shadow in a misty valley, a medium-sized bird with a long flowing tail and a distinctive call. There is nothing else it could have been. This is the one thing I wanted to see more than anything else in Costa Rica.

Feb 24 -- warblers

Spent the day exploring a bit and writing a lot; found out I’m in Tom Langen’s FLP group, which is great! He’s an ornithologist, and the project is looking at habitat preferences of resident and migratory warblers. Perfect, because that means lots of time out birding, I mean “collecting data.” ☺ We went mist-netting this morning and I took a bird out of the nets for the first time. It was amazing, holding this light little feathered thing in my hand, feeling its heart beating. We got to look at a lot of birds up close.

The day’s list: wilson’s warbler, collared redstart, swallow-tailed kite, magnificent hummingbird, white-throated mountain gem, black-capped flycatcher, blue-and-white swallow, sooty-capped bush-tanager, yellow-faced grassquit, yellow-thighed finch.

Feb 23 -- Paramo

Got up to the paramo today first thing in the morning. We were way above the clouds, and the sun was shining. Other mountaintops were like islands in the cloud-ocean, one of them smoking with volcanic activity. Our guide, Jenny, looked Norwegian but was born and raised in Costa Rica. Her parents moved there from Michigan. She and her siblings grew up bilingual and were homeschooled, and they spent so much time talking to each other that they developed their own family-specific accent. In English and Spanish. She spoke either of her languages super-fast and bubbly, and seemed to know every plant on the paramo. The walk included lots of stories about what she did with this or that plant as a kid (eating unfamiliar berries, breaking off stalks for sword fights).

We went into the oak forest in the afternoon, slippery and full of Spanish Moss. I walked a bit by myself, enjoying the rare quiet and seeing how many more animals are about when you are one person rather than 10. Tomorrow we’ll get the chance to mist-net birds; it will only be my second time ever. Should be exciting.

Feb 22 -- lowlands to mountains

It was a sleepy day. We set off by 8:00 for San Jose, and I slept the whole way. We stopped at Hotel City One (the official OTS hotel now, I guess) to drop off a resource person and pick up two more, and then it was off to Cuerici. I slept through that trip too. We piled out of the bus at ~10,000 feet, loaded our luggage on smaller trucks, and started walking. Luckily Don Carlos came back with the OTS truck after it was unloaded to take us the rest of the way down. The high elevation was really affecting me – I was dizzy and unfocused, and got loopier as time went on. I ate a lot at lunch and then went to bed for 4 hours. When I got up, I felt okay again.

Cuerici, the station we’re staying at, is beautiful. The temperature is fabulous – up to 60º F in the day, and down to freezing or a little below at night. I can wear my wool sweater, long underwear, and scarf. It even smells good here; it just feels more like home. And they serve amazing hot chocolate with dinner. We live in two buildings. The two-story has a small kitchen, dining room, sitting room, and porch; the bunks are upstairs. The classroom is a separate building attached by a covered walkway so you can move between them without getting rained on. (It rains a lot here.) There are 2 big woodstoves to huddle around, one in each building. There is absolutely no insulation here; I think the buildings are thin wood planks covered in corrugated metal roofing material to keep out the wet. It means that anything that goes on in the main building is audible everywhere, but it also means that when it rains it sounds beautiful.

I haven’t gotten outside today (slept through the introduction hike) but I got the full story. We’re staying at a small diversified sustainable farm. They grow blackberries (a big cash crop in this area) and have a rainbow trout farm. Fish farming is a tricky business environmentally – lots of wastes associated with it – but they are more conscientious than most, letting the fish wastes settle out and using them to fertilize the fields instead of washing them into the waterways. We get most of our electricity from hydro, a mountain stream running down near the buildings. They also keep ducks, chickens, cows, and a horse. There is a forest reserve nearby (montane rain forest, higher elevation than cloud forest) and a short drive up to get to subalpine paramo – the habitat just above the treeline. There are some cool bogs, too. We’ll get an introduction to these three habitats tomorrow.

There are lots of new birds and plants here. So far the only new birds I’ve seen are the large-footed finch and sooty robin, but that’s because of the altitude. I saw lots of birds on the way up and couldn’t focus or remember well enough to identify them. Tomorrow will be better, we’re going out at 5:30 am. I’m looking forward to seeing some friendly familiar plants in addition to the new ones. Oaks, Indian Paintbrush, Spanish Moss. I wish we had more than 6 days here!

new internet cafe in la palma

hey, blog readers! it turns out a new internet cafe opened in the last year in la palma, the tiny town we´re spending the night in before hiking in to Corcovado National Park tomorrow. i don´t have time to upload the entries i´ve prepared from the last week, but there is going to be a bonanza of posts when i get out of Corcovado in 8 days. anyway, i´m happy and healthy and hope you´re all the same. i´ve been seeing and learning more amazing stuff, and looking forward to sharing it with you.

´til then!

heading to the hills

This is photo of a coatimundi I took just outside our dorm a couple of days ago. They're close relatives of raccoons, but seem to be more social -- you often see them in large groups. I think they're great.

Today was our last day in La Selva. Becky and I spent the morning putting together our powerpoint presentation, and then there were 4 hours of afternoon presentations to get through everyone's independent projects. It was grueling! Now we've packed up all the course equipment and are rounding up our personal belongings.

At lunch today a long-billed hermit (hummingbird) got trapped in the dining room. It was flying around like crazy while the japanese tourists took photos and video. it kept sticking its bill through the screen, and at one point wedged it in the wood up near the ceiling and got stuck. It hung there by its bill for nearly a minute, then someone tried to get it down and it flew off again. By the time one of the tourists actually caught it, it was so exhausted it couldn't even fly. Becky force-fed it sugar water until it perked up and flew off again.

Tomorrow morning at 7:30 we leave for Cuerici, a station near Cerro de la Muerte (the mountain of death!) where unprepared settlers wandering over the mountain pass were known to stall in the clouds and freeze solid. But I've got my woolens, so no worries. I'm looking forward to the cold, the oaks, and the chance to see the resplendent quetzal (a bird worth a Google for sure if you're not familiar with them).

After Cuerici we head out to Corcovado on the Osa Peninsula, a site similar to La Selva but wilder and more isolated. I'll try to keep daily blog entries to upload all at once when we get back to internet in 16 days. I anticipate seeing some amazing things and bonding further with my companions while occasionally hating them all because they're in my personal space. The trip is halfway over.

Lunar Eclipse Day

So, ya'll in the northern temperate zone had a lunar eclipse too, of course. It was pretty down here, with the sky so dark and the moon all orange. There isn't much light pollution here, in spite of the powered-up biological station.

I attached a photo of me with my favorite Costa Rican tree so far, the Pochote, aka Bombacopsis quinata (Bombacaceae). It was taken in Cabo Blanco, but I thought I'd pop it in out of order here so you all get a good look. Please note the charming spines. Behind my back you see the beach, and the brightness of the tropical sun on the ocean. So beautiful!

Today I saw a kinkajou -- monkey-like raccoon relative -- and some kind of tropical opossum with a crazy long tail. They were up above the bridge in the dark. Earlier in the day we saw a young spider monkey on the bridge, he was hanging from the high wire from just his tail, swinging gently. He definitely wasn't afraid of people, and came closer when we walked by rather than going farther away. I got a great look a the abscess in his abdomen that was draining. Cute pus-filled monkeys! Makes me wish I worked with mammals. ;)

Today Becky and I finished collecting our data. With 300 data points, it has to be an OTS record! Or close. We found selection for fewer seeds per pod and thinner pod shells. The last was a bit of a surprise, a small but significant effect that I think might have been the result of an error in our measurement protocol. It has been fun working with the data, figuring out how to get the answers we want. One of our variables had a left-skewed distribution that is impossible to fix as far as we can tell -- our stats package won't do a box-cox transformation, so maybe that would have done it. Anyway, this is by far the most excited I've ever been about statistics. May the effects be long-lasting.

We pursued the great green macaws today without success, but I got to see a white-crowned parrot and a dove that was new to me... I can't remember the name right now. The parrot was in a palm snag, sticking just its head out of a hole that must be its nest. The birds here are so fun! I'm still wowed and intimidated by the plants... but hopefully Amanda and my plans for research in July get funded, and then I'll have the chance to get to know La Selva's flowering plants better then.

Tomorrow is our last full day here. Everyone is frantically writing papers, analyzing data, and preparing presentations tonight. Except for those of us who are going to bed. Hooray for sleeping!

busy day

Today was a bit crazy. I went into town in the morning to get passport photos for my grant proposal. I got some cash and cookies while I was at it. Then I spent the rest of the day working on papers... I have to write a proposal, edit my IP from Palo Verde, and write my La Selva FLP and IP. And of course, I wish I was out exploring in the woods all day every day. Everyone in the course (including instructors) is starting to get that vacant, shadowy-eyed look that comes from focusing too hard on one thing and not sleeping enough. It's sad to admit it, but I'm looking forward to leaving La Selva, because that will mean leaving a lot of this stress behind.

It rained today, that was good. The air feels nice now and the amphibians are out, so the herpers are happy. They're out hunting for frogs right now. I saw a laughing falcon and red-legged honeycreeper today. Becky and I heard from one of the naturalists that there ARE green macaws around, and we know exactly which tree to look in, so that's exciting.

I'm going to bed now. It's going to be great.

Photo update!

I just discovered that the internet connection here is good enough to post photos to the blog. so here's a little catch-up. There's the Pentaclethera macroloba seeds Becky and i are doing our IP on -- eaten by parrots and uneaten. Amanda in front of a beautiful tropical stream. And leafcutter ants! I can't get enough of them. They're really cool. Oh, and the photo of me with my scuba buddy, Margaret, in Cabo Blanco. Maybe I'll put up more tomorrow.

Peanut Head Day

Today was a lovely day. I slept in, until 7 am! It was delicious. I spent the morning writing and nailing down a sampling scheme for my independent project, and then Becky and I went out in the afternoon and collected lots and lots of data. Most of the projects we do on this course have really small sample sizes, so it's extra fun to get more. We'll probably have around 200 data points when we're done. And I get to think about natural selection, which is good clean fun.

I saw two new birds today: black-throated trogon and scarlet-rumped cacique (which is apparently pronounced "ka-seek", sounds crazy to me...). I also saw a fabulous insect, the Peanut Head, aka Machacha. It looks like a moth with a peanut for a head, but it's actually a neuropteran, close to the true bugs, with a long piercing-sucking mouthpart it uses to slurp phloem out of the single tree species it specializes on. We happened to run into this guy working on a travel guide who was looking for the Peanut Head. We befriended him, so he brought it by when he found it. Becky and I took turns holding it for him to photograph. Look for my left hand in the 3rd edition of the guide to Costa Rica's national parks. :)

In the evening we heard a talk by David Clark, hero of tropical tree ecology. He gave a lightning intro to remote sensing in forest research. It's amazing what you can quantify from a satellite photo, and the things you really can't do any other way -- random sampling away from roads and rivers, sampling in dangerous places like northern Colombia, and actually seeing any one of these huge canopy trees from the top. There is so much we don't know!

Amanda and I decided to write a post-course grant proposal together to further the FLP study we did on the effect of floral shape on rates of interspecific pollen deposition. I'm excited about it, it's a great idea and the two days we had just wasn't nearly enough to do it justice. There are plenty of other people applying for the money, but it's certainly worth a try. We'd get to come back to La Selva in July if it comes through.

We got the official word on internet and phone contact for the next few sites: none. We leave La Selva Friday morning, and then no contact for 16 days! I'm sure we will all build character. As if there wasn't already a surplus in this group.

quick update

Just a quick update. Things are hectic here! We finished the FLP and presented it this morning; Amanda and I have 3 days to write it up. I also have a second draft of my first independent project due in 3 days, and Becky and I are collecting data for our joint IP over the next couple of days, analyzing, and presenting. Not enough time to enjoy the forest properly! But no worries, I'm making time somehow. We'll be here at La Selva for the rest of the week.

The last couple of days the station got really busy. A group of undergraduates from Dartmouth arrived, they'll probably be here for the rest of the week. There have also been one or two big birding groups, retired US Americans with really nice binoculars, spotting scopes, and cameras. They hire guides to show them the birds. It looks like fun, but not nearly as much fun as roaming the forest alone, doing science and catching birds on the fly (so to speak.) Plus I don't think they ever look down to notice the plants and non-feathered animals.

I saw two more fer-de-lances today, both little fellers (1-1.5 feet). I also got to see an anole flaring his red and yellow dewlap. The most exciting bird was the keel-billed toucan, which has an amazing bill -- not as big as the chestnut-mandibled toucan, but so colorful! We spotted that while walking between sites for our IP, looking for Pentaclethera seed pods. Apparently the macaws are elsewhere this time of year, but I'm happy to report that I did finally see both local species of manakins. Very charming birds! I haven't seen them do the moonwalk, but I hear you can see it on YouTube. :) Somebody saw a kinkajou on the bridge, but I missed it.

On to the bird list so I can get to bed! (Hopefully in a few more days things will be less hectic and I can write more descriptive, less bird-centric posts.) This is 3 days of birds: long-billed hermit, mangrove swallow, violaceous trogon, chestnut-colored woodpecker, northern barred-woodcreeper, plain-brown woodcreeper, cocoa woodcreeper, western slaty-antshrike, bright-rumped attila, gray-capped flycatcher, cinnamon becard, masked tityra, white-collared manakin, red-capped manakin, bananaquit, golden-hooded tanager, orange-billed sparrow.

army ants!

Today I spent most of the daylight out collecting flowers for the current faculty-led project. It was great! Maybe 30 minutes of rain the whole time. The six of us split into two groups, and I was the only botanist in mine, so I got to do all the dissecting of flowers in the field. We were looking for flowers we could get pollen and receptive stigmas from, and it was amazing how hard it was to find those basic structures in some of the flowers! Really diverse shapes. We probably got a total of 40 different species -- we're still trying to figure out exactly what we have. I was working on making slides of pollen and stigmas until 9:30. By then I just couldn't work anymore. We'll start again tomorrow at 7:30.

Being out in the field we saw lots of great stuff besides flowers, of course. The highlight of the day for me was seeing a whole colony of army ants on the move. It's something I'd been really hoping to see. It's totally different from the column of ants you usually see crossing a sidewalk. The moving front of the colony was really wide -- I could see several meters into the forest, and the edge wasn't visible. The ants were thick, covering everything, crawling all over each other and up the vegetation to waist height, foraging to feed the colony. There were insects running and flying away from them in every direction A few of the birds that specialize on following army ants were hanging around, picking up the insects that were stirred up by the ants. It was so cool. We stood and watched them for a long time.

There are several features of the forest that are becoming familiar, friendly things now. The height, the humidity, leaf cutter ants, lots and lots of palms. Smells that come and go as you walk past: a flowering plant, a high density of overripe fruit, or a peccary. There are even a few bird calls that are becoming familiar; pauraque, parrot, oropendula, various wrens.

I saw my first fer-de-lance today, a juvenile that was in the grass just outside the lab. Of course one of the herp guys in the class had to poke it until it coiled up, then put a strong light on it and take lots of pictures. Poor little snake. I was excited to get a look at it, though. Now I have a search image for things not to step on. I also saw a cane toad, a native species here. Big and toady-looking.

I'll put today's bird list with tomorrow's, need to go to bed now.

rainy rainforest

Another day running on not quite enough sleep because I was so excited to be here I woke up before I needed to. We'll see how much longer that lasts. :) Spent the morning wandering around the trail on my own and with a couple of other students botanizing, birding, and pondering IP topics. I decided to discard my ideas for pollination projects, because no single flower species is dense enough to make my idea for a 3-day project feasible. Now I'm thinking about an observational study of parrot frugivory. More on that as it solidifies.

We had a surprise-addition resource person when we arrived here, Kathleen Kay. I was excited to meet her, because her work is super cool. Plus she's a relatively recent Schemske lab grad, so I've heard a lot about her. I'm in her FLP. We have 2 days for the project, start to finish, so it will be a simple one, but still definitely the most interesting to me on the course so far. We're going to collect flowers from as many different plant species as we can find tomorrow and compare amounts of pollen from other species on the stigmas. The small idea is that bilaterally symmetrical flowers are less likely to have pollen from the wrong species. The big idea is that this is part of why bilaterally symmetrical groups are more speciose. We might even have time to do a fancy-pants pairwise phylogenetic analysis. I'm too tired to translate, but if we do end up doing it I promise I will!

The thing about the rainforest is that it's rainy. Apparently there is a noticeable dry season here, but I haven't noticed it. With 4 meters of precipitation a year, I guess there is plenty for the dry season too. It has rained every day, and most of the day today. I was outside for a lot of it. It makes me so tired to have wet clothes! But it didn't dampen my enthusiasm for plant systematics and hiking around the trails. It just increased my enthusiasm for sleep, which I am about to go indulge.

But first, the quick bird update! No great green macaws, sorry Jay. But I'm scoping out the wild almond trees. What I did see today: ruddy pigeon, broad-billed motmot, spotted antbird, black-headed tody-flycatcher, band-backed wren, chestnut-sided warbler, summer tanager, variable seedeater, buff-throated saltator, black-cowled oriole.

virus outbreak

Today at lunch Jess asked me if I'd heard about the last-minute 1:00 meeting about the virus outbreak. My stomach jumped. It took me a full minute to establish that it was a COMPUTER virus. (There were a lot of people at the table, everyone was distracted). It seems somebody introduced a virus to the course computers at Cabo Blanco, and it jumps from computer to computer on USB drives. Everyone on the course has at least one, which we stick in each other's computers liberally. Out of about 25 drives, all but 4 were infected. We're not sure yet what the virus does. Either it attacks your operating system, or steals your gaming passwords. Which is worse? Luckily I have a Mac, which is immune, so all my gaming passwords will be safe. :) And Raffica's Mac-Hero boyfriend Ben has given me pro advice, so soon I'll be squeaky-clean.

Today we had another set of orientation walks. One was plant-intensive, with Orlando Vargas; the other was more herp-intensive. We saw a couple of species of poison-dart frogs, a brown leaf litter snake, and a few other frogs. I had the afternoon off, and used it to take a nap and start brainstorming independent project ideas. One of the afternoon orientation groups ran across the first fer-de-lance (a big pit viper; venomous, relatively aggressive, and common). There are lots of other viper species here too, but I haven't seen any yet.

I'll be getting my last IP paper back tomorrow, and have to finish the first of two rewrites in the next few days. I'll also be working on and writing up a new FLP, and conceiving and carrying out a new IP. I think La Selva is the most stressful site. It only makes it harder that there are loads of amazing things to see, so I want to spend all my free time outside investigating! Tonight we saw a porcupine with a prehensile tail. Ellen Reid saw it walking along the wires on the suspension bridge, and from there it crawled into a tree where we could all see it very nicely. The face was recognizable as porcupine, but the hair and spines were short, maybe an inch, and it was otherwise more the size and shape of a north american opossum. It was a treat.

We had a german table at dinner, 3 US-Americans and an Austrian. It was fun to speak a foreign language that I'm comfortable in for a change! I've been picking up a lot of Spanish here, but I still only ever use present-tense and craft my sentences in my mind before letting them out. I've been playing with the idea of coming back in the next year to follow up on project ideas, though -- if I do that, I will definitely get more serious with the language. I love it.

I compiled my bird list for the last 3 days, and it's long! I've started birding in the mornings with Katja Poveda, one of the instructors who is closer to my level. The other two birders are way ahead of me, so birding with them makes it harder for me to learn how to identify them myself. It's slower but more satisfying this way. But just by being interested in birds I've gotten enough of a reputation in the course that people come to me once or twice a day to ask about a bird. It's a microcosm of expertise development. Being conspicuous definitely helps.

Okay, here's the list. On the ferry across the gulf, laughing gulls. In San Jose, rock pigeons (I know, I'm sure i saw them before!). In La Selva: gray-headed chachalaca, great blue heron, green ibis, double-toothed kite, mealy parrot, rufous-tailed hummingbird, slaty-tailed trogon, chestnut-mandibled toucan, collared aracari, black-cheeked woodpecker, ruddy woodcreeper, long-tailed tyrant, wood thrush, gray catbird, ovenbird, buff-rumped warbler, red-throated ant-tanager, passerini's tanager. Several people have seen manakins in leks doing their little dances. It would be great if I could see that!

into the jungle

This morning after breakfast we got on the same old bus and headed west out of San Jose, into the mountains. It was only a couple of hours' drive to La Selva, but up and down the mountains, so we drove through cloud forest. It was beautiful, you could tell even just from the bus that plant diversity suddenly went through the roof. And there were lots of clouds, some of them low wisps clearly blowing to the west.

Then we drove back down, down further than we went up, and we landed in the lowland wet tropical forest... rain forest.. JUNGLE!

La Selva is a luxury resort for tropical biologists. It has electricity, great internet, hot water, toilets that you can put toilet paper in, a cafeteria that serves gringo food, paved paths... plus lots of amenities that will only interest those of you who are biologists. I'm going to mention them now, so if you're not a biologist you may want to avert your eyes. Or just skip to the next paragraph. So La Selva is a Long Term Ecological Research site. There has been research here for over 40 years, with lots of long-running projects. The whole reserve is mapped out with pipes set in the ground every 100m E-W and every 50m N-S (or vice versa), and every pipe has altitude, lat/long, and soil information associated with it. There is a big sheet-covered board with a black light on it set up every night, attracting all manner of cool insects. Herbarium, library, and lab space that is public in addition to the private offices and lab spaces for more or less permanent researchers. (There are apparently six in residence at the moment). There are also a pile of knowledgeable and available staff. GIS specialists, Orlando Vargas (who it sounds like is personally acquainted with every individual plant in La Selva), a staff of great local naturalists... it's pretty dreamy.

Actually, the paved paths are a little weird. And they have tremendous theft problems... from what they told us, anything from your laptop to your lunch will disappear if you leave it alone for 5 minutes. But it is a comfortable place (a nice change), and seems like working here would make research in the tropics far easier, if less adventuresome.

We had our first orientation walks in the afternoon, and it really blew my mind. I spent a rushed afternoon in a slightly degraded fragment of cloud forest in Guatemala in 2006, which was amazing, but it didn't prepare me for this. Today reminded me that in my soul I'm a plant person. There are huge trees here. The biggest tree in La Selva is over 50 meters. They have huge buttresses, structures that come out at the base like wings, supporting them in the shallow soil. And supported on the tree are innumerable other plants. Lianas, epiphytes (living on the branches or trunk), epiphylls (plants living on other plants' leaves!). Everywhere you look there is a different species. We learned plant families this afternoon like you learn species in the temperate zone. It's an exponential increase in species number. Perhaps you biologists are having a good titter at me raving about biodiversity in the tropics, because that's all ecologists have been doing for 200 years, but wow! Why ARE there so many species in the tropics? or so few in the temperate zone...

Especially exciting things to mention: I saw the world's largest odonate today, a damselfly larger than any dragonfly. Bullet ants, too, the world's largest ants, fully an inch long. We spotted an agouti (huge rodent that looks like a tiny deer). My first toucans. Spider monkeys. Birds -- I'll pool today's list with tomorrow's and put them at the end of tomorrow's post for those of you who are interested. I've seen a LOT of new ones today, even though I hardly gave any energy to it. My head is filled with plants.

We'll be doing another faculty-led project here, and then an independent project. I'm looking and listening and thinking hard to come up with a good idea for my IP. I'll let ya'll know how it develops. Thanks for the emails and comments; even though I don't have time to answer right now, I love to hear from you.