Feeling better today, not at 100% but able to take part in all activities. I think it was dehydration after all. Don’t worry, Mom, I’m wearing my insect repellent! We’ve seen the species of mosquito here that carries Dengue Fever – Anopheles with long bent-back legs with white tips.
We did 1-hour observations on the plasticine anoles today. Nobody saw any predation happen. One of the anoles was bitten in half and there were 10 bird feathers stuck to a sticky-trap, that’s all the excitement on the FLP front. We brought in the traps today and are counting arthropods stuck to them, recording order and length/width. Tomorrow morning we’ll bring the anoles in and quantify attack marks. It’s a very low-key project, so we’ve continued to have considerable free time, at least a couple of hours today.
One of the nice things about Cabo Blanco is the mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks. Fruit in the morning and some kind of bread in the afternoon, with juice. After mid-morning snack today I went back up in the forest with Yoel, a student on the course who specializes in anoles. He’s got this great tool, a retractable fishing pole designed for panfish (very lightweight). He’s attached a tiny noose to the end and uses it to catch small lizards. He picked up a little iguana-looking fellow on our way up the hill. Then we parted ways and sat on different parts of the stream for about an hour. I saw a kingfisher, it landed just 10 feet from me. The forest (like anywhere) unfolds layer after layer when you sit quietly. The howler monkeys made noises I hadn’t heard before. I watched the sun move over spider webs, showing me strands I hadn’t seen and hiding ones I had. The creek babbled and reflected on overhanging leaves. It put me in a good place.
There isn’t much planned for the rest of today. I’m giving half of our FLP presentation tomorrow, but the Powerpoint is mostly put together already. I’ll go birding with Becky, and after dinner we’re setting up the mist-nets for bats again. Hopefully we’ll get a vampire, I’d like to get a look at those diagnostic teeth. ☺
There are ants crawling all over my computer, it’s making me a bit nervous; Kellie got so many ants in her keyboard that several keys froze and the computer stopped working. She had to vacuum the ant-bodies out, luckily that fixed it.
Tomorrow is our last day here; we leave early Monday morning for San Jose.
New birds: spotted sandpiper, green kingfisher
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