Word of the week: hummingbird -- el colibrí
Percent complete: 71% (holy $#¡%)
I officially have less than two months left. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was two months out from coming here, and it just going by faster. There are a few things left that I am going to try to do before I leave (hopefully they work out with school timing). There are obviously more places I would like to go, but in terms of time, here are my realistic top 3 of that list:
1) Corcovado National Park: if you have read any other posts, then you will have heard of it. Probably the most talked about national park in the country, with something like 5% of the biodiversity on the planet. There is a reason I keep talking bringing it up.
2) Fly fishing: hopefully I'll be going with Duncan sometime soon. Would be a great experience.
3) Last species of mammal/bird/amphibian to find that I came here wanting to see is the red-eyed tree frog. If I go to Corcovado, hopefully I will see one there, but somehow, some way, I will make it happen.
On the topic of wildlife, I complied a list of all the different species of mammals/reptiles/birds/etc that I have seen so far at the bottom of the post. Feel free to check it out!
It is weird to have all of my KU friends done with school and to see their summer social media posts, while I am in the heart of the semester (I guess how that's they felt when I was traveling and having fun for the first two and a half months I was here). I am learning a ton and my Spanish has improved dramatically, but at times school is super difficult and sometimes frustrating because of the level of Spanish I'm studying at (again, not classes to learn the language, but more analyzing literature and breaking down aspects of it with native speakers). I'm working very hard and I know it will pay off in the end, though.
We had our second Natural History of Costa Rica field trip last weekend. We went to the cloud forest at Cerro de la Muerte, and we also conducted our first field study there with hummingbirds! The birds of Costa Rica have been my favorite part about "wildlife discovery" because we only see in zoos what they have here in nature... this field study only heightened that appreciation. I'll post pictures and explain below. The cloud forest was definitely something to see as well; it may have been the most vibrant green place that I have ever seen, and very much resembled what I would imagine a jungle to look like. The constant hanging of clouds in the canopies also gave it a rather eerie feel, but a very cool effect.
For each field trip, we do a species collection of 10 trees/plants that we then do a report on. The biology major here is much more centered on nature and ecology, so I feel like I am behind with species knowledge because most of the students can tell you the scientific name of lots of species in the forest, whereas I don't have a clue but could tell you about biochemical pathways. Difference in where you study, I guess.
Here is a clearing from the primary forest, but you can see how dense it is from the outside. It just looks like a wall of vegetation.
Super green, jungle-esque.
The cloudiness of the cloud forest. Tough to capture with camera exposure, but this gives you a feel.
We studied four species of hummingbirds during the field study. This is the Volcano hummingbird, the smallest and most shy, so I don't have as good of pictures of it.
This is the Fiery-throated hummingbird, one of the most colorful living things I've ever seen. If not the most colorful. It looks like God gave a four year old a box of brightly-colored crayons when he was creating this and said, "Have at it."
This is the Magnificent hummingbird. Here is a male, which was much more colorful than the female.
And finally, the Green Violet-ear hummingbird. This was the least populated species of the four, so they were also hard to get good pictures of.
Some more pictures are below, but a little about the study itself: we caught the birds putting nets up in the most-frequented flight paths around the feeders they had set up. When they flew into it, we would untangle them and then take them to the experiment station. We measured wing length an width, and traced the wing on paper as well, along with beak length and weight. Possibly the coolest part about the whole study was pollen collection. The night before, we had gathered flowers from around the area and extracted pollen from them to look under the microscope. With the birds, we took a piece of tape and took anything possible off of the hummingbird's beak, neck and head to examine under the microscope as well. Doing this, we were able to see which species interacted with (therefore pollinating) which type of flowers by the type of pollen collected from them.
Slightly out of focus, but the bird was turning and this was the absolute peak of color exposure so I had to take it. I wish I would have had just a fraction longer to adjust.
My time here wouldn't be complete without a Wheel staff picture to go up on the wall, and the cloud forest might have been the coolest location yet to take it.
That's about it from the field trip! It was an awesome experience and will be a great memory to have since it is so unique to the country that I am studying in. I'll continue to keep you all updated on the next 56 days as best I can, and hopefully I will have some more fun stuff to share.
Here is the list of the different species of.. everything.. that I have seen so far (or those worth noting, because the list would go forever if I included every single one). I have taken pictures of pretty much all of them, which have been posted in previous blogs, but click each one for the Google images search. I'm sure I've forgotten some too.
Mammals:
White-faced Capuchin monkey
Spider monkey
Howler monkey
Three-toed sloth
Two-toed sloth
White-nosed coati
Kinkajou
Greater False Vampire bat
Common Vampire bat
Fruit bat
Frogs:
Blue-jeans poison dart frog
Green-and-Black poison dart frog
Hourglass tree frog
(Want to see: Green-eyed tree frog and the Lovely poison frog)
Arthropods:
Blue Morpho butterfly
Owl butterfly (the one that has the snake pattern on its wing too)
Orange-kneed tarantula (and its predator, the Tarantula Hawk wasp)
Golden Orb-weaver
Bullet ant
Birds (there are over 900 species, so a few of my favorite):
Toucans: Keel-billed, Fiery-billed Aracari, Collared Aracari, Chestnut-mandibled, Emerald toucanet
Orange-chinned parakeet (hundreds on campus!)
Scarlet macaw
Hummingbirds: Volcano, Magnificent, Fiery-throated, Green Violet-ear, Green Hermit, Violet Sabrewing
Green honeycreeper
Red-legged honeycreeper
Yellow-throated euphonia
Violaceous trogon
Yellow-throated Tiger heron
Montezuma Oropendola (they have one of the most unique calls/songs I've ever heard from a bird... very different, but very cool)
A variety of Kingfishers, but I can't remember exactly which ones
Reptiles:
Green iguana
Ctenosaur
Gecko
Emerald basilisk (Jesus Christ Lizard)
American crocodile
Central American Coral snake
Fer-de-Lance (the most venomous snake in the country)
Green tree pit viper
Eyelash pit viper
Boa Constrictor
Until next time,
¡Pura vida!
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