Photographer

I've decided that since I now have a nice camera I need to relearn how to use it. (Its been 3 years since my last photo class in high school and I have forgotten everything.)  So I decided what better place to figure it out than in Costa Rica where there are all kinds of beautiful things to take pictures of.  So none of the following pictures were taken on automatic (I may have taken a lot of each before I got it right, but I finally did it!) Sorry a lot of them are so dark, it was raining on and off during this adventure.

spider's web

roots

caterpillar 

I found out that people white water raft on the river that I cross every day.

If you look in the background there is a long green straight line.  That is one of the bridges.

leaf cutter ants- they carry the leaves back to their nest in order to grow fungus which they eat

leaf cutter ants

leaf cutter ants

bird

Sloth!

Colors and Textures

Everything here is so beautiful.  I started out yesterday to go take some pictures when the sun was out and then shortly after I left it started raining again.  O well, I decided to press on and was rewarded with howler monkeys and beautiful flowers.

The negative to all of this biodiversity is all of the diversity of insects.  I was attacked by little red ants that were in my shorts before I put them on yesterday and of course the expected mosquitos are everywhere.  Also yesterday there was a cockroach in the house that was twice the size of any cockroach that I've ever seen.  It was quite a production to get it out of the house.

The bridge I cross to get into the forest.

Another bridge in the forest where I saw the monkeys from.

Great Weekend

Ok so most of the weekend was great, except that the rest of the puppies got eaten by a snake :(.

Here are pictures of the 4 dogs. The second one is the mom (black), the third (white) is the one with distemper who seemed to be doing pretty well this weekend.  He has some paralysis of the lower joints in his back legs and his head tilts but he was up and walking around and looking for attention.

This one we gave a bath to on Sun. I haven't really gotten that close to her because she smelt really bad, but when we were giving her a bath I realized that she is covered with matts and she had all kinds of bugs and ticks on her.  The plan is to give her a little bit of haircut today and she will be like a new dog!

I just want to clarify that they love all of their dogs and do do their best to take care of them but with three daughters and four dogs and both parents working full time the dogs cleanliness is not the first priority.

So on Saturday I just hung out and read and spent a lot of time talking to Stephany and Sol (the younger two daughters).  After only a week I feel more comfortable spending time with this family than I did with my San Jose family after a month.  Then on Sunday we went to church in the morning and then to the grandmother's house for lunch.  I met a lot of the family and they are all so nice and really wanted to get to know me.  It felt great to be included like that.  We had sun for almost the whole day on Sunday and today looks to be pretty good as well.  I'm going to have to pull out my sunblock again :)

Here is the inside of the recorder in case you are curious.  I was practicing with it this weekend to get some data.  I found a program that works on my computer, its made for bird recordings though so I'm doing my best to get it to work for bats.  My fingers are still crossed.  Good news though, I talked to my advisor about it this morning and he said that if this one doesn't work he will find a PC for me to use here!  I won't have to go back and forth to San Jose!

I want to stay in one spot.

On Tuesday I helped Dani calibrate the tracking device for the opossums.  They are going to be attaching a radio collar to a woolly opossum and will track its movements during the night to understand its home range.

Then I drove back to San José with my advisor (2 hour drive) in order to learn how to use the computer program that I need to analyze the bat calls.  One of his students (he is also a professor at the University of Costa Rica) is doing her thesis on something very similar to my project but she recently had surgery on her ankle so couldn't come out to me.  (I don't know why I couldn't have met with her before I left San José.)

My advisors' bumper sticker (I <3 bats, you.  Everyone help us!)

Then I found out that the program only works on a PC...  My advisor wants me to come back to San José every week to do analysis for a couple days and then go back to my study site.  I'm trying to find another program that I can get for free on my computer.

I stayed at my advisor's house Tues and Wed night and it is a beautiful house.  It is outside San José up in the mountains and the whole back of the house is glass so you can see out over the city. The views are spectacular, if only you didn't have to drive up a dirt road and put your jeep into 4 wheel drive to get up your driveway.

The view from his house (sorry its blurry)

The bus didn't leave tilt 1pm so I spent Thurs doing nothing in San José and then took a 3.5 hours bus ride back to my site.  I want to stay in one place for an extended period of time.  I was supposed to put the recorders out last Monday, now I won't be putting them out until next Monday. I wasted an entire week.  Hopefully everything will work out.

My lunch was great at least.

So its still raining so I haven't been able to get puppy pictures, but now there are only 5 (the mom ate 4).  Also, another of their dogs has distemper (he is only about 7 months old) and the vet said he only has a few days to live.  Its been a long week, at least it is finally the weekend.

Too Cute

Bus Ride, Puppies, and Bat Recorders

On Saturday I took a three and a half hour bus ride (takes two hours if you go directly by car) to get to my new site.  The ride was beautiful even though it was a lot longer than I expected it to be (I had a book, it wasn't too much of a hardship).

Saturday, my host family's dog had 9 puppies! They are super cute.  Once it stops raining I will get some pictures for you.  It has been raining on and off since I got here, I've been told that this isn't normal though.  Any way they already had 4 dogs and when they took this one in to get spayed, they found out she was pregnant (oops...).

Today was my first day working with the bat recorders.  I skyped one of my advisor's students to learn how to program them and use them.  Using them is simple, it will be a lot harder when I get the data back and I have to analyze it.

A friend of my mine kept getting her project changed for one reason or another, but good news, she is now working at Tirimbina with me!  She will be studying opossums and tracking their movements.  She has the same advisor as me and he said I could go out with them and help catch them!

Sorry I haven't taken any pictures recently, but once I do you will be the first to see them.

Crazy Week

Sorry I haven't had time to post for a while, there has been a lot going on and most of it is school related so not very exciting.  This is a list of things I have to do:

• Project proposal due this afternoon
• Presentation on project tomorrow
• Test on spanish grammar for Fri
• Skit in spanish for Fri
• Leave for study site Sat- make sure I have everything I need for a month

The good news, I met my new host family this weekend.  They have three daughters (ages 7, 13, and 16) and four dogs (one of the dogs is pregnant!  I'm hoping for puppies while I'm there).  I will be spending about 2 months with them in total, pictures to come.

I finally met my advisor and figured out my project.  I am going to be putting recording devices in the forest (here is the link to the reserve- http://www.tirimbina.org/), at the edge of the forest, and at the edge of a pineapple farm and comparing the diversity and abundance of the bats at each site.

This is what the recorder looks like, they can stay outside for about 4 days and then I will get the information and use the sounds to identify the species.

Everyone keeps telling me that bats are scary and creepy looking.  In general I agree, but look at these fruit eating ones that live under leaves, I think they are really cute.  I won't be studying these ones but I'm hoping to see them!