This Week End

So Friday started off with everyone in my host family being sick, including me.  My eldest host sister had been sick earlier in the week and we all got it. Yay!  But runny noses didn't stop us, we all went to school, work, etc. like normal.

Then on Saturday we went to a farm that is owned by the scouts program that my middle sister is part of (it's like boy scouts only for both genders).

After leaving there we went to La Selva which is the biological reserve that my host dad works at.  When we were there, I found out that a bunch of other family members work there too.  So we went on a hike and got lost and then found our way back out!  I had a great time, my oldest sister was less than thrilled about walking through the forest and getting her hiking boots dirty (I thought hiking boots were supposed to get dirty, but what do I know).  The only little mishap was when I was taking a picture while standing on a bridge and the cap to the camera lens fell in the river and got swept away.  Oops (fingers crossed that I will be able to find another one online).

Blue jeaned poison dart frog.

These are everywhere. 

The macaw was hiding.

Howler monkey

I have been trying the whole time I've been here to get a picture of a hummingbird.  Finally had success!

Then Sunday was a lazy day, and we just hung out at the house.  For a while my host dad and I were sitting out on the front patio and I was taking pictures of birds while he told me what they all were (of course I don't really remember what they were, but the pictures came out good).

But I got a stomach bug Sunday afternoon so that was kinda a bad way to end the weekend.  Now I'm back at Tirimbina getting ready to analyze more bat calls.  I just found out the way I was doing the analysis was wrong and now I have to start over! Yay!

How to Analyze Bat Calls

1. Find a program to use.  Now there is a large selection: Avisoft, Bat Acoustics, Raven, Analook Batsounds etc. and the prices range from free to hundreds of dollars.  If you have PC the options are endless, for Mac's you are much more limited. I chose Raven, cause it is free and works on Mac.
2. Open the sound file in the program.  These files are huge (2GB for an hour and a half of sound).
3. Scroll through the file until you find something that is a different color than the background (you can change the colors on most programs).  I have been using a gray background with the calls are darker gray, because that is what is preset.
4. Use the program to measure the length of the calls and the peak frequency (the frequency when the call is the strongest).  Use these numbers to guess the species based off articles other people have written.  My guess for the one above is Lasiurus ega, in the family Vespertilionidae.
5. When you find something weird that doesn't remotely resemble a bat call, ignore it.
6. Count all of the calls for every species until you get through all of your recordings.  Right now I have done 11.5 hours out of 204 hours that I have on my computer.

Now you too can spend your days counting black dots on a computer screen.  In case you are curious the Lasiurus ega looks like this:

And now that I have wasted time making this blog post, I will go back to counting.  Wish me luck!

Rio Sarapiqui

There is this really rare bird called a Great Potoo, it looks kinda like an owl and its call sounds like a bark.  Any way, there is one that lives on the way to my host sister's school so we all went to look at.  My bird loving host parents were really excited, so I guess it was a really big deal.

I didn't have a zoom lens with my, but here it is.

This saturday we went and spend the day with my host dad's family.  He is one of 12 and I was told that there are 18 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren.  I only met about half of the family.  A bunch of them all live on the same street with the parents so people just wander from house to house.  They all live near the river so we all went down to cool off and have some fun.

Sol and Stephany all ready for the water.

One of the cousins jumping into the water.

Someone's dog, his name is Tigre (tiger in Spanish).

Heart shaped rock

What kind of picnic would it have been without fresh, hot coffee?

Tracks from an iguana

There were a ton of birds that my host dad pointed out to me.  I don't remember their names, but here are some pictures.

My New Career Plan

I have decided that I am now going to drop out of school and design t-shirts for a living just like the Life Is Good people.  Ok, so maybe not, but I am excited to share with you all the t-shirt I designed.  Every year the ACM Costa Rica students design a shirt for their group and some how I ended up in charge.  This happened after I drew a really bad sloth on the white board so I have no idea why everyone trusted me to figure this out, but I'm glad they did.  On Tuesday I shared the much better design with everyone from my group and they all loved it!

So this will be on the back of the t-shirt and the front will say ACM Costa Rica 2013.  Five of the pictures are mine and three are from other students and they were all taken within the first month of the program so each picture is special for everyone.  Now at least 19 people (more if our professors get t-shirts) will be wearing something that I designed!

Semana Santa

The week of easter is called Semana Santa (Saint Week) and most of Costa Rica is closed and on vacation. A lot of people go to the beach for the week.  My family stayed at home and we took day trips.  The week before semana santa I saw a wooly opossum, a giant iguana and a goofy looking bird with her chicks.

(Look in the middle of the picture.  I didn't have a lens zoom with me at the time.)  This opossum normally lives in a tube in the bridge and comes out when it gets hot.

The bird blended in with leaves, but it kinda looked like a large quail and walked like a chicken.

 Then Semana Santa came and we were all excited for a week of relaxation.  My host mom was supposed to work but she hurt her back making 8 cakes so she got to hang out with us.  She was making 8 cakes because she used to work in a bakery until her asthma got so bad from the flour. However, now when anyone needs a cake they ask her to make it. (I didn't get a chance to take a picture, but they were beautiful.)  So that was Friday night and Saturday morning.

Then Saturday afternoon we went to a baby shower.  My host mom's sister is due in April with her third son.  She has a 5 year old and a 3 year old.  The sons blew out the candles and then the youngest stuck his face in the cake. It was hysterical.  (Also Saturday morning we watched The Lorax, which I really enjoyed and highly recommend.)

Sunday: we put in the inflatable pool.  I didn't go in, there were too many little children, but it was fun to watch all of them.

Monday: make over time. My host sister, Sofia, paints her nails all the time so she decided to paint mine too.  I think they look like easter eggs, but since they don't paint easter eggs here we settled on mushrooms.

Tuesday- Wednesday: We went to another sisters house about 2 hours away.  We went to the movies and saw The Croods. Everyone liked it excepted my host mom.  The best part was the sloth named Belt. (We watched it in spanish and his name was Abrazo which more means hug.)  Basically he makes dramatic noises and holds the guys pants up.

Thursday: We drove two hours to La Fortuna to see the Arenal Volcano.  This is one of the largest volcanoes in Costa Rica and the only one that still has a conical top.  Unfortunately it was raining and this was all I could see...

Do you see a volcano in this picture? Me neither, I'm not convinced it was there, but we are going to try and go on a day that is sunny.  However, we did go to a friends how and she gives chocolate tours (talks about the history of how chocolate was made and you get to try the different steps).  That was fun.

From left to right: Joel (dad), Ileana (mom), Stephany (13), Me, Sofia (17) and in front Sol (7)

 

Also there was a really pretty bird that lived there.

Friday: There was a procession to the church depicting the crucifixion of Christ.  We had stayed up late the night before doing tongue twisters in english and spanish and then the procession was early so I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I could have cause I was exhausted, but it was still fun.

Saturday (today):  I came back to San Jose.  Everyone in the program will be giving a presentation on Tuesday and doing some preliminary analysis of data and then leaving on Wednesday.