River Rafting Trip

 Today was our rafting trip down the Rio Puerto  Viejo.  We took a school bus upstream to a sight to meet up with boats from the Green River Rafting company.  Here is us all suited up and ready to go.  It was sunny and dry.

We hopped in the boat, all ready to start paddling down the river.  

 The river was not exactly full of rapids. I asked what the rating was on the difficulty scale from 1 to 6 and our guide said it was -1.

 Almost as soon as we pushed of it started to rain.  And rain.  And rain.  It seems to do that a lot this time of year.  Still, we saw lots on our trip.  Lots of Howler Monkeys, another Sloth, many many birds.  We added 28 new birds to our list today between this trip and our early morning birding hike.

 Near the end of the trip we stopped for a snack.  Our guides took a boat and turned it over to make a table for our fruit.  Look at how pretty it is!  It tasted so good!  The funniest part of the trip was when we finished the fruit and our guided started skipping watermelon rinds across the river.  They must practice a lot because they were really good at it.

Check out the figurehead our guide made for us out of the top of a pineapple.  We all kept calling it the hood ornament for the boat because nobody could remember what it was supposed to be called.  

Camera Trap Work

We had a rafting ride down the river this morning, which I will post about soon, but the afternoon found us hitting the trails again to check on our camera traps.  Here is a photo of us, looking for one of the traps.  

 Trekking around in the pouring rain trying to get our technology to work can be a bit of a challenge.  So far we have had bad memory cards, low batteries and mysterious malfunctions.  But we are catching some images too.  This was a Paca, which is a small ground dwelling rodent.  We haven't seen any in person, but here it is on our trap.

The peccary on the other hand, seems to be everywhere!  They hang out in herds and don't seem to be bothered by us at all.  We have started to recognize the smell on the trail.  It is a strange combination that most resembles body odor and onions.  

 There were two more puma sightings!  Both on different cameras.

We don't know if we are finding the same cat multiple times, or different cats.  We want to do some more research into the range and maybe find a naturalist to see if we can find out any more about what we are seeing.  We have started to think about how we will turn our camera trap work into a cohesive project.  Perhaps an analysis of sampling of more and less abundant populations based on their place in the food chain.  We are still working on ideas, but we had a mad giggle fest at dinner coming up with names for our project involving the letter "P".  Something about Puma and Peccary Populations Perhaps.  

We have also captured plenty of people on our traps.  This is a birdwatcher who we have seen, he spotted the camera and stopped to wave.  This brought up the idea of studying the interplay of people and animals.  

It Rains a LOT in the Rainforest

 Today we spent a lot of time walking around in the rain today.  There was morning time for class work.  We had planned a canopy walk, but the weather was not agreeable, so we spent some more time working on our project instead.

This was Sara and I learning the TEAM protocol for placing camera traps.

Then we took some time to go out and start checking on our camera traps.  On the first card we downloaded, there were pictures of a puma!  They said they hadn't seen one here for almost three months, but there it was, at 8:30 near our first trap.  We found another picture on a nearby trap, we are guessing it is the same cat.  

 Then after lunch we went out for three hours with a naturalist.  He showed us so many things we never would have spotted on our own.  This was an iguana high up in a tree.

 I helped spot a millipede on the front of a tree, but then the guide said that copulating couples were very common and found this pair hiding on the back of a tree.  Apparently the male stays on the back of the female for days after the deed has been done.

 We added lots of birds to our list.  This was a parrot of some sort (Red Lore maybe?).  Sara and Ryan are both working hard at keeping up the identification.

 Check out this sloth!  He was pretty high up, but the guide had a scope to help spot his hiding place.

With all the rain, these Wine Cap Mushrooms must have been very happy.

As we were headed back to the dining hall after checking on our last camera trap of the evening, Sara thought she saw something black and scary.  No one else saw it, but she wanted Ryan to walk in front, just in case.  Then, as we rounded the next bend in the trail, we saw a cat like creature right in front of us. We thought at first that it might be a jaguar, it seemed cat like.  So we followed at a safe distance, trying to get a clear photo.  He quickly disappeared down a slope to the river while we rushed back to the classroom to try to identify what we had seen.  As it turns out, it wasn't a cat after all, but a Tayra.  The Tayra is a member of the weasel family found in Central and South America.  Though they live on the ground, they are also excellent climbers.
After dinner there was time for biodiversity Bingo, and then sorting through the photos from today.  We have an early morning bird watching session, so I had better call it a night.  

First Full Day at La Selva

Today was our first full day at La Selva.  After breakfast we started the day in the classroom with icebreakers and introductions to TEAM protocols and Conservation International.  

The lesson was quickly interrupted with our first sighting of a peccary.  It is a hoofed mammal, rare most places, but plentiful here.  By the end of the day we were really used to seeing them roaming around the field station. Still, we all had to go out for a photo opportunity.  

We also saw this Great Curossow while we were out.  This one is a male, though we saw a female later in the day and she was a much lighter shade of brown.  Apparently this bird tastes like turkey and is therefore most common in preserves.   

Next we had time to go out and start placing our camera traps.  We placed 4 in old growth forest and 4 in new growth.  Working together, we marked the trail location and GPS coordinates of each camera as we put it out in the jungle.  

At one point while we were busy working on the project a peccary shot out of a hollowed log, kicking up mud and scaring us all as he sprinted across the trail.  I can't remember the last time I was so startled.  After getting past the jumping and screaming we all thought it was hilarious.  

When the traps were all in place we slowed down to enjoy the hike back to lunch.  That is when we started spotting the blue jean frog.  Once we got the hang of it we saw them almost everywhere we looked.  He is also called the Strawberry Poison Dart Frog, though he isn't poisonous enough to be toxic to humans.  

We also spotted a few butterflies like this Great Owl Butterfly.  The inside of his wings were a bright blue color, though he seemed happy enough to sit with them closed while we waited.  

On the way back to the classroom after lunch, we saw a family of Howler Monkey's.  This was one of the babies hanging out in a tree next to the bridge.  

His dad was sitting on one of the cables holding up the bridge.  He didn't seem at all disturbed to have us stopping and taking pictures of him.  

We did vegetation sampling after that and a classroom quadrat sampling activity.  We were going to have a movie night tonight, but instead we has a special guest speaker.  The former GIS coordinator of the property was back to visit and spoke about his research project doing hyperspectral analysis of carbon sequestration in peat moss ecosystems.  It is only 9 here, but it is already 11 back home and we are all ready to call it a night.  Teachers in our district go back to school for preplanning tomorrow.  Instead we will be out climbing a canopy tower and learning more about camera traps.  

Volcan Poas - Day 2

Today we drove from San Jose to La Selva, the biological preserve where we will be staying for the next two weeks.  

Along the way we stopped at a Coffee Plantation growing along the side of the road.  

 Our main stop was to visit Volcan Poas.  Poas is a huge active stravavolcano that last erupted in 2011.  Unfortunately, today it was completely obscured by cloud cover.  We did get to spend some time hiking up and down the volcano though, and saw lots of birds along the way.  There is a contest to see which group can identify the most birds while we are here, and I think we are going to win.  

This little guy is a Fiery Throated Hummingbird

Here is a shot of a Ringed King Fisher.  Ryan has a monstrous telephoto and has caught some fabulous shots.  

There was an adorable squirrel at the caldera.  

 Lunch was at Freddo Fresas. They specialize in strawberries.

 There were huge tracts of land covered with screening material.  They grow house plant underneath for export.  The screen keeps them shaded and protected.

 We also stopped at the Poas Waterfall.

 We spent lots of time taking photos and sharing them with one another.  We got a safety briefing when we arrived at La Selva and learned about bullet ants and the 7 species of venomous snakes found here.

San Jose - Day 1

Our first day in Costa Rica was spent at the Adventure Inn, awaiting the arrival of all four groups of teachers.

 The Erie PA group got here just before us and we all gathered to walk to a local supermarket and chocolate shop.

This is a painted mahogany tree that we saw as we walked.

I spent some time reading by the pool before dinner.

Ryan was out taking photos of local birds.  This is a Muscovy Duck

The Frogger Loggers are a group of teachers from different states, they arrived in time for dinner.  The last group is from California and should be arriving around midnight.  Tomorrow we will all pack up to head to Volcan Poas and then La Selva

Headed to Costa Rica

The Space Coast Eco Geeks are off to Costa Rica.