I left Panama in mid April this year returning
to Connecticut, for a fruitful season of naturalist work in New England. I’m
back on the Nicoya peninsula of Costa Rica, and I can tell you for certain as
always many interesting stories will unfold over the ensuing weeks. Will be
working again on a number of research projects, mostly involving birds, but the
naturalist inside me will keep diligently curious about many taxa across the
spectrum. There will be plenty of bats, snakes, reptiles, insects, spiders, a
few amphibians (due to the habitat), and
many more things to talk about. I’m
going to try to give a valiant effort in updating this much more frequently
over this season.
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The Sunset over the dry forest habitat of Nicoya |
I thought I would talk
a little about the first couple of days; it’s surprising that even though this
is the fifth year of traveling here and doing research, I haven’t often
documented or talked about it.
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The port at Puntarenas |
We took the five hour flight from Newark to San Jose, than
the next part always goes much the same every year. You feel like you’re shot
out of a canon, we have to make decisions quickly about what time it is and
when we’d like to make the ferry. To get over to the Nicoya Peninsula you have
to take a ferry from the port at Puntarenas to Nicoya. It’s a mad dash though
to get to the few times the ferry departs from the port. We didn’t make the 2:00 ferry to the port we
wanted to get to, but instead had to take the 2:30 ferry to a port further away
from the Finca.
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Crossing over the Gulf of Nicoya |
We managed to arrive at the Finca at around 6:00 which is better
than our average return time, so we managed to make pretty good time this year.The first night was a little on the anti-climatic side usually
were chomping at the bit to get out and do some exploring, but this year we
both decided we’d wait till the following morning. It had been a long day and I quickly slipped
away to my sleep. The one things you can guarantee there is always some form of
natural alarm that will wake you up early in the tropics, over the years it’s
been the White-faced Capuchin troop running on the metal roof making as much
noise as possible, a dueling troops of Howler Monkeys letting of boisterous alarm
calls, or this year the sounds of over a hundred hummingbirds darting in and
out of the 15 feeders we have set up in the gazebo. If you never heard what quite
literally a riot of food frenzy of Hummingbirds sounds like, I can tell you for
sure it’s surprisingly quite loud. But
there is nothing one can enjoy more about being in the tropics than watching
over nine species have aerial battles, that rival famous fighter pilot stand
offs.
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A new member to the Fincas Mantled Howler Monkey troop. |
After enjoying a cup of coffee we took to the trails to
make some net lanes and start setting up some nets that we will eventually
train the new cast on interns on.
It was a slow morning with only two species
captures, were currently in a heat wave that seems to be affecting the amount
of movement species are exerting currently.
The two species caught though are
somewhat telling of the avifauna of Nicoya though. First were a beautiful Blue-crowned Motmot (Momotus
momota) and the other the very common Long-tailed Manakin (Chiroxiphia
linearis), if there was a bird species that symbolizes the avifauna of Nicoya
it would be this species for me. It’s been over the years are most commonly
caught species, and it’s song bouncing around in the forests all over the
peninsula, are always a wonderful reminder of where I am.
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Blue-crowned Motmot (Momotus momota) |
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Long-tailed Manakin (Chiroxiphia linearis) |
I’m going to stop here and talk more tomorrow
about our day in the mangroves and what that work this year is going to look
like. It’s muddy, at times tedious, but there is a particular sense of
excitement, when you’re working while listening to the chatter of a critically
endangered hummingbird.