Work and Wading Birds

Let's take a breathe. I am in the middle of a premontane wet forest and a pile of work. It hasn't been easy, it has been one day after another of getting work done. Still I prefer this to being stuck in classes. We are not always sitting inside writing essays and reading articles. Yesterday we visited an organically certified coffee plantation and also talked to a direct trade coffee farmer. You cannot get closer than we did by drinking coffee, seeing where and how coffee is processed. After all, the study part is a normal part of becoming an ecologist, and a reward always awaits later. Besides memorization and writing essays, we are also getting into statistics, the only difference is they actually apply to real life examples.

I leave you with wading birds from our morning bird watching at ECMAR, a science station on gulf Nicoya.

Monteverde..Sunsets

Monteverde is a green wonderland. From the biological station, which is in Monteverde, Monteverde transitions into the city called Santa Elena. They go hand in hand. To reach the town of Santa Elena with bars and stores, you go down a windy dirt road, the majority of which is unpaved. They surely followed the steep contours of hills when constructing this road. On both sides the emerald cloud forest becomes tourist attraction as you get closer and closer to Santa Elena. The trip back to the biological station is a lot harder, for you have to go not down, but up a mountain. The weather here hasn't been able to make up its mind. Today it is very sunny but two days ago it was raining the whole day. At night and in the morning it is very chilly with strong winds. The clouds are so close! In the morning and evening they condense in mist, while when it is clear they float by like boats. It's as if I can reach out and touch them.

Now, sunsets as promised.

A beach on the Osa Peninsula, by the ECMAR science station.

Corcovado National Park: San Pedrillo Station

Beach by Hotel Pelican

At Santa Rosa National Park.

I saw a Tapir! and other sightings

 Hi there, I think this dog is from a little town called Sierpe, but I am not sure. Dogs were a cute common sight. They all followed us, begging for attention and food. I am sure he saw something interesting there. Sightings are unplanned and unexpected and that is why many photos don't turn out that great. So I apologize. The important thing is that I got proof that I saw these animals up close! Even if you can't see them so well in the photo...

This is the common potoo, sleeping. Do you see it? It is right between the two lower branches that create a corner.It sits at the end of branches and blends in to escape predators. It  is very difficult to spot a potoo, since it sits there motionless. So we were really lucky to see it. At night, this bird can open its mouth very wide, while also sitting motionlessly, to catch prey like insects.

                                             Humming Bird! There are tons in Costa Rica.

Yes a group of students from out study abroad program saw a Baird's Tapir and we were very lucky. They are the few of the mammals like camels an rhinos that survived the Pleistocene and did become extinct (most likely due to humans over hunting them). This is the largest land mammal in Central America (Wikipedia).This species is considered endangered and right where we saw it, in Corcovado, there is a tapir conservation project going on. While we were hiking up, the professor told us all to look around, and there, right behinds us, the adult tapir was nibbling on some greens and standing right on the path. It was amazing. Some of us kept on saying, "Oh my god!"

Lead by our professor, we followed this mammal intently as it was browsing for fruits. It was an intense couple of minutes stepping silently, with cameras ready. In the end, the professor confessed, "I like to make things fun." It was an actually a white-nosed coati, very common in Central America. 

Didn't get the face...

Scarlet Macaw, Toucan, and a quetzal related bird seen on the hike through Corcovado primary forest.

 Scarlet Macaws are endangered because their nests are robbed by humans for sale as pets. However they are a common sight in Corcovado. Their screams are obnoxiously unmistakable. Think chicken but 3 times more annoying.

Bye friends, a blog about sunsets and bird watching coming up!

Hola from Santa Rosa

Santa Rosa is a national park overflowing with creatures during the dry season. Many fruits ripen right now, and also the vegetation in the trees is sparse because the majority of trees drop their leaves during the dry season. This makes it easy to see mammals like white tailed deer, agouti, coati, white faced monkeys. Birds are really noticeable too. Exactly at 7 in the morning, white throated magpie jay (2 times bigger than a crow and brightly blue colored body with a black crest on its head) starts conversing with its fellows. During the sunny daytime, lizards hang out on the tree and casually walk around even through the campsite. There are huge iguanas! Just the size of the animals is impressive and it is hard to believe they live here, in this forest that can remind of the temperate forest in the U.S.

The trip to the bathroom can be oddly interesting as there is always a possibility to encounter spiders and frogs, and even scorpions at night. So far I have only seen the cute tiny yellow frogs with black beady eyes, and not the large dark brown ones.

At the end of the day, the most rewarding thing besides the sleep are the stars. They shine like jewels through the branches and take my breathe away. Good night. Pictures to come when I get to Monteverde! (in 3 days)

San Jose: Photos from day 2, 2-9-2012

 Going to the Costa Rican National Museum.

 Inside the butterfly garden in the Costa Rican National Museum

 Me in front of the theater.

San Jose panoramic view from the balcony of Costa Rican National Museum. Click for larger view!

***Might not blog until 2 weeks later. Heading off to Monteverde tomorrow.

Packing, Flight, First Night in San Jose

Packing was the most stressful day of my journey so far. The plan was to fit my frame pack and everything else into one bag, which turned out to be impossible. So with countless packing and unpacking, trying to spread out the weight, I managed to stuff two suitcases full.

To my surprise, I met many fellow "studyabroaders" who were in the same study abroad program in the Phoenix airport. It turns out flight from Phoenix was a prefered (cheap?) connecting flight with San Jose.
On the airplane, I sat by an interesting character. He was a retired game and fish worker from Alaska who traveled multiple times to Central America. Now he was escaping the cold. He told me and another student many travel and biology stories. Our landing, delayed by 40 minutes, was quite bumpy and strange.

The weather was gorgeous, the jacket - unnecessary. We stuffed into an orange cab and arrived to hotel Balmoral with many comments about the roads without lanes and little shops. "Pedestrians do not have the right of way", our program assistant warned us before tomorrow's street adventures.

Pictures in next post...

Pre Study Abroad 4

not today's sunrise but also beautiful

Today's sunrise was marvelous. I wonder, will I see many sunrises or sunsets in Costa Rica? Probably not, since I will be surrounded by tall trees with lush foliage. Well maybe only when I will go to the beach. Less than a month is left and I have so many things left to do. I am reading books, saving up money, going to doctor appointments, catching up with friends, practicing Spanish, and shopping.

I've been also thinking a lot about my independent research that I will have to do in Costa Rica. It is the hardest thing to come up with, the research question. Of course it is even harder when you haven't seen what you will research on but I can't even come up with what I will exactly study, which type of organism. I've been telling myself birds but why and how? So many research topics interest me that can be applied to any organism

• camouflage vs bright appearance what is more beneficial? what matters more, protection or sexual selection? Although some organisms can change their appearance from bright to dull in order to blend in but stand out during the mating season.
• a relationship between plant and insect, bird and insect, or bird and fruit...whichever one
• Which native or non native plants/animals populate a disturbed area and why?
• competition between native and non native species

For now I'll just get back to reading about Costa Rican birds, hoping to convince myself to study them. Then I'll change my mind when I get to Costa Rica. At least I am starting ahead of time.