28th July 2010
Bird survey time! My first one for a while since the boat has been out of action and other people have been leading them. I am doing canal Sierpe Viejo which cuts into the forest and is full of submerged logs and overhanging fronds. Great fun basically!
Things start promisingly enough. I have the great team of Melissa (UK) up front doing the spotter role (for birds and logs!), Johannah, Sarah and Sam (US) and Kim (New Zealand) and our first obstacle is a great matted wall of weeds which takes a great deal of effort to plow through but has the bonus of flushing a Least Bittern, a secretive and small member of the heron family and a tricky one to see as it dwells deep in the reed-beds. It's the first one I have seen. Then we have a nice wide ope stretch of canal which is quite quiet but relaxing before entering Sierpe Viejo proper. Again a large patch of weeds/reeds has overgrown the entrance to the canal and it takes more effort to get through but thankfully everyone enters the spirit of things and we triumph. The canal is an atmospheric place. The waters are dark from the oil secreted by the decaying palm fronds that hang down into the water and there are submerged logs and branches at every turn waiting to snag us. Thankfully, with some frantic directioning from Melissa we don't have any serious snags and a bit of deft maneuvering from me sees us through! Birds and animals are thin on the ground here, though the surrounding forest echoes with bird-calls. Pygmy and Green Kingfishers make an appearance as does everyone's favourite canal bird, the Boat-billed Heron staring out at us from a thick tangle of palm fronds with its deep, round black eyes. It's a cuddly toy in the making I tell you (GVI Costa Rica soft toys – Jaguar, Turtle (with detachable head to simulate a jag attack), Capuchin Monkey, Sloth, Red-eyed Treefrog, Eyelash Viper (well I think they are kind of cute when they are little), Boat-billed Heron. They would sell by the bucket load!). But best of all Sierpe Viejo comes up trumps once more as just before we finish our survey I spot not one but two (and my third and fourth respectively) Agami Herons perched just above eye level in another palm. We immediately stop the canoe and sit taking pictures excitedly. I have only seen juveniles of these magnificent birds before and these two are still young but definitely seem to be developing some of their adult plumage. An adult Agami is the aristocrat of the bird world with a rich chestnut vest and deep pea green waistcoat. He has a artfully styled silver plume of feathers dangling from his scalp and a ruff of silver feather along his throat and belly. His bill is the longest proportionally than any other heron although for what reason is unknown. There is a lot still unknown about these birds due to their preferred habitat of rivers and streams in dense forest such as this one. My excitement is contagious and the girls are all very happy indeed to have seen these guys – and so they should be, they and myself are very lucky and privileged indeed.
We are all smiles on the way back from that survey and Kim even says this is the happiest she has been for ages and she's been very happy all the time thus far on this trip! Result!
I have the late night walk shift tonight which always messes with me a bit, I must confess. I try and sleep in the afternoon but its too hot so I end up sleeping after tea for a few hours before waking around 11:00 and as always take about 10 minutes to work out what is going on. I'm with Kyle from Chicago, Rachel from Nevada and Paula our newest recruit. She was with the team that saw 84 turtles last night so I guess we have a tough act to follow. Andres comes back in having seen a whopping 126 turtles in the first shift and even managed to tag a Hawksbill.
It's a full moon out on the beach which is very atmospheric and the visibility is astounding. Our mission tonight is to cover some distance and mark a nest further up the beach to spread out our data. There are turtles everywhere and I entrust Kyle with keeping a count as I will inevitably get distracted and forget as I go along. We find ourselves a suitable victim before long and Kyle and I settle down to watch her finish digging her nest chamber. The act of digging this chamber is one I find absolutely captivating and extraordinary. Normally, as you would expect a turtle looks very awkward out of the water. It pulls itself along the sand with what seems like a great deal of effort and when it covers its nest, front flippers flailing, it just seems to end up getting twice as much sand everywhere else as on top of the nest. But when it digs, well that is a whole new story. It's a slow and deliberate act. The hole is located directly underneath its tail, for obvious reasons, and it uses its back flippers exclusively. The back flippers are kind of square and paddle-shaped compared the long and narrower front flippers. It can't see what it is doing so it's all by touch and feel. First of all with a quick flick of one back flipper she kicks away any loose sand so as not to bring more down into the hole and then delicately curls up the end of one flipper into a scoop and slips it into the hole being careful not to touch the sides. She pauses for a while, we speculate to possibly gauge the temperature of the sand or maybe its to measure how deep her flipper is in the hole to gauge its overall depth – there seems to be some kind of thought process involved anyway. She then gathers up a scoop of sand and gently lifts it out of the hole and deposits it to the side. Then the opposite back flipper does the little flick and repeats the process carefully and slowly. In this fashion she carefully constructs and bottle shaped nest in the sand to fill with eggs. How she knows when to stop, I don't know. How she knows that she has got it just right, I don't know. There is still a lot we don't know about these creatures. It's a wonderful sight nonetheless and one I have yet to grow tired off. My team does a great job of counting the eggs and marking the nest and I tag her with no problem. It's quite easy to tag straight away after she has finished laying as she is tired and is not flailing her flippers about trying to cover the nest or get away from you. We then retire away to let her finish covering the nest up and take a break in the middle of the beach. The moon looks incredible tonight. There is a vast halo around it, something I have never seen before. It almost looks like a rainbow (you can just about see the colour gradient) encircling the moon. Amazing! We stop and look at this for a while before heading back to base for some well earned sleep.
29th July 2010
Lie in this morning after last night. I can't be kept in all day though and take Edouard and Kim on a walk along the boundary trail. This proves to be an exceptional idea as we have not gone far along before we stumble across my favourite snake, a coralsnake. It slithers quickly under a pile of fronds but luckily out the other side where it coils under a dead branch. Coralsnakes do not have the striking distance of a viper nor do they have much inclination to bite and a very small gape anyway. They are lethally venomous though. Bearing this in mind I am pretty confident in lifting away the branch to reveal it sat there in all it's glory. What a beautiful creature!
As always the boggy end of the trail is good for frogs and we spend a while hunting around for them and find three species including a sleeping Scarlet-webbed Treefrog.
Back at base I am looking at my pictures of the coralsnake and notice it looks a little different to the usual species that we occasionally see, the Costa Rican Coralsnake (Micrurus mosquitensis). It has the same combination of black, yellow and red banding characteristic of the coralsnake group but it's yellow bands are narrower and paler almost to the point of white and it also has a black marking extending from its black cap down the back of it's head. A quick consultation of our reference books reveals it to be an Allen's Coralsnake (Micrurus alleni) and rarer species and one that Andres has never seen before (that means its rare!). There is not an awful lot of information about it but it seems that it is more closely associated with water than its cousin. This makes sense with the boggy nature of the boundary trail. I am excited by this – it's a new species for our records and for me personally.
I have the early shift turtle walk tonight. The moon is out again, though not as bright as last night and the halo is not present. Instead it casts a silvery light over the ocean giving it a mercurial look and magical ambience. We don't walk very far before finding our turtle to work. It begins to rain not long after we start and very soon we are all covered in wet sand and laughing at the state we are getting into. Unfortunately, our high spirits are dampened a little by the sight of somebody emerging from the forest with a bright white light. Guessing that it must be someone up to nefarious ends I call in to base to ask them to call the rangers to come and sort them out. In the meantime, we head the opposite way and look for some more turtles. We find three that have already been tagged in previous seasons, which is interesting. Hopefully, we can find out more about them and compare previous data to the measurements we take tonight at some point. We do finish a little bit early, because its raining and we need to clean off the kit a bit for the next team.
30th July 2010
Its kind of a day off for me today. The GVI Community Project with the school in San Fran has been shut down and Rich wants my help in picking up a few bits left from the project. This also gives us an excuse to conduct a bit of business in Tortuguero. This allows me to have a good chat with my family and have some nice local food, and just generally unwind a bit.
The 'few bits' turn out to be about 10 boxes of stuff ranging from school books to rice cookers, very little of it any use to us.
I drive the boat back.
31st July 2010
My turn on nest check today. Sam from Chicago and me amuse ourselves by coming up with a series of signs to communicate across the beach to each other. My favourite is the scratch of the nose, which means “itchy nose”!
In the afternoon, I get another chance to head down the boundary trail to check a camera that has been set up there in on effort to get some pictures of the mammals which seem to be using this trail a lot (we have fresh tapir, peccary, jaguar and ocelot tracks here). Sadly, the camera whilst working has only captured pictures of people before the battery ran out on the sensor. I do have another quite extensive look around for snakes and frogs but not too much luck today. No coralsnakes anyway.
1st August 2010
Early morning incidentals walk up north today with Marcus, Lauren, Deanna and Johannah. It gets off to a cracking start with a Rufescent Tiger-heron juvenile stalking along the edge of the beach and a Speckled Racer snake darting across our path. That's before we even get to the forest and we are greeted there by a Coralsnake (the commoner species this time) crossing the path in front of us. Very cool!
We take our time, walking a mile in three and a half hours and manage to see some six Eyelash Vipers, several cool birds (two new for the spotting challenge list) and some Capuchin Monkeys. Lauren also manages to spot a superbly camouflaged Red-eyed Treefrog, which is great as Johannah is leaving us in a few days and had not seen one properly yet. She also wants to see a sloth which unfortunately does not materialise. It's a really cool walk though and everyone enjoys themselves. Marcus proves to be an adept bird-spotter picking out a Slaty-tailed Trogon high, high up in the canopy.
I have the early shift turtle walk tonight with Sonja from Canada, Kim from New Zealand and Herman from Sweden. It's business as usual but we take out time tonight, working our way further up the beach rather than just working the first turtle we come across. I let the volunteers get a bit more participation in by following the tracks we come across and locating the turtles. I think they appreciate this and they've been doing this long enough to know what to do. We finally settle on a suitable nesting turtle and get our work done very efficiently. We then attempt to tag and measure a couple more turtles that have nested already. The first turtle we attempt this on is a feisty one and a bit of a dirty fighter. I get the tags in the flippers fairly quickly, but when Kim and Herman attempt to measure her she gives them a bit of a beating with her flippers. Poor Herman gets hit somewhere rather sensitive. I take over and finish off the measuring using the old foot block technique to deflect her flippers from me though the force of her blows still pushes me back. After this we decide to take a breather before heading back. I'm quite awake and talkative and talk to Kim about New Zealand, in particular the lack of wildlife compared to Costa Rica. I defend the birds of New Zealand as I believe they more than compensate for lack of numbers by having a vast amount of personality or uniqueness in most cases. We start walking back and Sonja is my next target of conversation. She is from Toronto so I start joking about it being no more than a suburb of New York, and the fact that it really should be called 'Canadia'. It sounds so much better, even in the National Anthem (honestly try it!). She's a good laugh and takes it all her stride and reveals that actually every time you cross the border you have to get hosed down in Maple Syrup (possibly by a mountie?). Hee hee. I then turn my attention to Sweden as I am genuinely interested about where everyone comes from. It turns out that Sweden is not a particularly nice place with quite a lot of racism and unpleasant characters (doesn't it have the highest suicide rate in Europe?), though they still do have a lot of open space and wilderness. Herman himself is actually quite keen to move to the UK. Grass is always greener on the other side I guess?
2nd August 2010
The five-week volunteers are sadly due to be leaving soon so today is the day of the 'BIG CLEAN' (to be said in a deep booming voice). This involves, as you may guess, of lbitzing everything in preparation for the new batch of volunteers. I end up attempting to single handedly eradicate the cockroach population from amongst the books and shelves in the kitchen and library area.
Unfortunately, the water pump decides to break today. We can get water from the wells, but its a pain in the backside.
Luckily, to take everyone's mind off things we are all heading out tonight to have some farewell drinks and a meal at a local riverside bar. It's a very entertaining night and I end up drinking way more beer than I really should have. But sometimes you just have to go with the flow. There's plenty of dancing and goofing around, with some very entertaining photos as a result!
3rd August 2010
I wake up feeling a little muzzy this morning! The interns and some of the 10 week volunteers are heading off for a long weekend in Panama early this morning and I get up to see them off. Then I go back to bed for a couple of hours before getting up to do the weekly Beach Profile measurements.
I'm tired today – not used to these late nights. But I have promised Eduoard, one of our most enthusiastic and nicest volunteers that we would explore the new south Boundary trail. Andres has been exploring here for the last couple of weeks and I have not had the chance yet. Marta also decides to join us and we troop across the field out the back of base to the forest edge. The is quite a gathering of birds and we spend a while looking at Trogons, Tityras, bright blue Honeycreepers and Squirrel Cuckoos, before entering the trail.
The new south boundary trail is dense and the path hard to follow. It's very muddy underfoot and the understorey is dominated by plants with spiky-leaved fronds. It's eerie quiet and not easy to see things. The odd bird call drifts through the air and we find a sleeping Red-eyed Treefrog, but that seems to be all apart from the incessant 'song' of the cicadas. Eventually, the path becomes little more than animal trails leading off in different directions. We explore a few of these that end up getting too overgrown to continue. The largest of these has the footprints of the previous group that explored along here so we decide to follow these for a while. Edouard flushes up a Great Tinamou, a brown partridge-like bird who's ghostly call is more often heard than the bird itself is seen. We also get buzzed by a pair of squabbling hummingbirds. Then we get lost. We decide to head back and find that we cannot easily retrace our steps. It quickly becomes apparent that it is very easy to lose your sense of direction in such dense forest. Luckily, we can hear the sea and try to orientate ourselves towards it. Thankfully, I have bought a machete! A compass might have been handy as well!!!!
Undaunted (well, I'm a little concerned actually as we will lose the light in another hour and a half or so) we forge new path, and then suddenly we hear odd noises ahead of us. Kind of a slopping, chomping sound punctuated by the odd squeal or snort. We hunker down in the buttress roots of a nearby tree and wait excitedly. There is a very boggy but slightly more open patch ahead of us and on the other side of this we can see dark shapes moving through the dense undergrowth. A musky scent fills the air that I am quite familiar with. I've smelt I many times whilst walking in the forest. Then suddenly one of the animals moves partly into view. It's a White-lipped Peccary, the wild pig of the Neotropics. It is rooting around in the muddy ground for seeds and fungi or whatever else it can find to eat. It's impossible to tell how many there are but maybe 30 or more are moving through the undergrowth in front of us. All of a sudden they reach the edge of the clearing in front of us and we get a good clear view of them. They aren't as big as I had expected, maybe being the size of a medium dog, maybe 3ft at the shoulder at most, but there are some smaller younger members of the herd amongst them. They are covered in wirey black hair and display the characteristic white hair around the bottom lip and chin that gives them their name. They have a potentially exaggerated reputation for charging if startled (anyone remember the classic absurb scene in the awful movie Anaconda where Jon Voight shoots a peccary that has just attacked Owen Wilson “Wild Boar” says Voight “Very dangerous. Go for the eyes” How exactly they accomplish this deadly attack I am still unsure, but I suspect it is just simply appalling script writing). Still, being trampled and gored by 30 odd wild pigs is not high on my list of things to do so I am a little nervous at how close they are beginning to get, although at the same time it's a genuinely thrilling experience. It is a thrilling experience to be on foot with a potentially dangerous and unpredictable wild animal and one that I have not felt since my time in Africa (though the Fer-de-lance comes close, but there was still the feeling that you were in control of the situation and once you know where the snake is and you are at a safe distance everything is fine). It's a direct mix of fear and excitement – a nervous thrill, if you like. They still haven't seen us and the air is filled with their grunts and barks, and their thick, musky scent. It does reach a point, however, when I feel that they have got close enough. If they keep coming and then suddenly detect us, that's when they become potentially dangerous and there isn't anywhere easy to climb nearby (believe it or not). So I stand up to move back. Well, they hear me straight away and most of them flee with alarmed barks. The forest is suddenly filled with running wild pigs, though thankfully running away from us! One grizzled male remains stock still and looks directly at us with his hackles up. I don't think he can see us, he seems to be looking past us, but he knows something is wrong. We all freeze again and wait with baited breath until thankfully, he turns and joins his companions. The sounds of the retreat fade surprisingly quickly. What a rush! The three of us are thrilled! It's a real wild encounter and another magical Costa Rica moment.
Whilst, all this was happening we can hear the barks of the dogs on the neighbour's coconut farm. I guess they can smell those pigs a mile off! This is a relief as I was getting worried about us being lost and starting to lose the light before long. Brandishing my machete we head towards the direction of the barks and the sea. Expecting any minute to be rushed and disembowelled (or possibly have my eyes removed?) by a charging peccary, it is quite a relief to emerge out into the field behind base – not even half a km from the original path! We all laugh both with relief and because we have had such an exciting afternoon.
4th August 2010
There is a bird survey today to our furthest canal, Cano Sirena. It's quite deep into the forest and not the best place for seeing waterbirds but there is always the chance of something else interesting. Sadly, I am not doing the survey but I am going to be on the boat team, which basically drops off the survey team and then waits around for them and takes them back again. This is actually quite a cool job because you just get to park up and enjoy the sights and sounds of a quiet area of the National Park that is visited by few people. Excitingly, we are treated to the sight of a pair of Great Curassow on the way. This huge turkey-like bird is an impressive sight with the male having strong black and white plumage with a characteristic curly crest of feathers atop his head. Their call is a deep booming that you can actually feel in your chest, it's so low! They scramble into the dense undergrowth of the riverside with agility surprising for a bird so large and ungainly-looking.
Sadly, whilst we wait at the entrance to Cano Sirena nothing else majorly exciting reveals itself, though flocks of racous parrots scream overhead at regular intervals and a couple of kingfishers flit past. Marta's maneuvering of the boat provides some amusement however. Like myself she is only just learning and it is difficult.
On our way back to base I note the appearance of increased numbers of wading bird species birds on the rivermouth. It being August of course, I guess its time for the first migrant species to start arriving, in particular maybe those inland residents who have finished breeding or individuals that did not breed successfully and have begun to move to richer feeding grounds.
Jaoa heads off when we get back to go pick up the newcomers from San Jose.
5th August 2010
Two very important things happen today. Firstly, Andres and I reveal our five-week total scores. I am on 175 whilst Andres has clocked up 178. I am actually surprised as I though he was wiping the floor with me! All to play for.
Secondly, all of the five weekers leave. We have had a good time so far and I genuinely wish they could stay for longer. It's quite emotive and there are a few tears as people say their farewells.
Then once they have left, almost everyone is heading off to Tortuguero today. I opt to stay behind and have a quiet day manning the base. Although my quiet day ends up with Molly and I getting hot and sweaty disassembling a heavy wooden bunk-bed to move it into another room. Oh for some IKEA flat-packed furniture right now....
6th August 2010
New arrivals coming today. The morning is spent furiously tidying the place and cleaning up. Luckily, we have Sonja and Karen L to help us out, having opted out of going to Panama with the others. I end up getting hot and sweaty again putting the bunk-bed back together in it's new room. I borrow the Ipod Speaker dock to help me along. The perfect music for hitting heavy bits of wood with a hammer in a sweat pit of a room? Why none other than Texas' finest 90s metal act, Pantera. The only downside is that I have to resist the urge to start dancing around in a moshpit circle with myself every time the frequently awesome riffs kick in. Sonja compliments me on my music taste and it turns out on further discussion that the girl from Canadia is quite a rock fan herself. She even loves the new Pearl Jam album! I think we are going to be good friends!
The new arrivals arrive on time in the afternoon. It's turning out to be a scorcher! They are a fairly even mix of Brits and Americans, with one Australian. One chap, Rick, has an aunt that works with my mum. Small world! They all seem very pleasant and I'm sure we will all get along fine.
Myself, Sonja and Karen L head out for the night walk tonight. The other long-term guys were due back today but sadly, Lauren's bag was stolen so they have had to stay an additional day to sort it out with the police and insurance.
It's an interesting walk and we manage to find a turtle to work. The girls graciously let me count the eggs, which is nice. Then on our way back a large group of figure materialise out of the darkness. It's Edwin the head ranger from MINAE and he's bought an army! At least 8 burly police officers are with him. Unfortunately, I can't communicate well enough to establish why they are there but I imagine as some kind of poacher patrol. I wonder how many turtles they have disturbed whilst they have trekked down the beach en mass.
7th August 2010
The new arrivals get their introduction talks and health and safety briefings this morning and then I take them out for a walk on the South Trail. It's quite productive with two Brown Vinesnakes, a lone Howler Monkey and a curious Western Slaty Antshrike all clearly visible. There is also an abundance of lizards, spiders and butterflies providing ample photo opportunities.
The police and Edwin stop by during the day and Andres exclaims that he has never seen such tough-looking policeman apart from when he was chased by the riot police in San Jose during his 'youth'. We don't quite establish exactly what the riot was about but still it's a good story!
Sonja and I spend a while doing the washing up to my Ipod this evening. Lauren has also seen my Ipod and is very impressed with it. Everyone seems surprised that I'm so into music. I guess I don't try put it on very much. I'm not pushy like that. I play Sonja some of my favourite stuff at the moment including Thrice, The Bronx and Biffy Clyro.
8th August 2010
I'm all excited today. I have an early morning incidentals walk with Sonja and Karen. We are going to start early and head up north to find some cool animals. We get off to an interesting start by finding a Green Turtle in the coconut plantation. She looks very lost and very tired. Well, we can't just leave her here so we try and push her back towards the beach. She's a big girl and it takes a little bit of carefully applied force to get her to change direction back towards the beach. Eventually, she looks as though she is heading off and all is well, when suddenly I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my head. I reach up and pull a nasty-looking black wasp out of my hair. Suddenly, they are everywhere. The turtle must have disturbed a nest somewhere! We start to run back down the trail. I can see several of them following Sonja and I pull several of them out of my hair. It's absolutely horrible! I have visions of us having to plunge into the sea to escape them. I notice poor Karen is behind us and has been reduced to tears by the stings. I run back and start pulling them off her, getting stung in the hand during the process. Thankfully, we manage to outdistance them but poor Karen has been stung on the eyelid and the ear and neck. Sonja has several stings on her body and I have two though the hand does not hurt anyway near as much as my head. Luckily, we are literally only five minutes from base and get back to apply some anti-sting cream. Sadly, it looks as though our walk is going to be off the cards and we sit in the kitchen to recover. It has been a pretty intense experience and not one I am keen to repeat and thankfully, none of us seem to be allergic to the stings. So we just sit around feeling sorry for ourselves and nursing our stings. I am a little worried about Karen, and sure enough her eyelid swells up but thankfully its just a normal reaction rather than an allergy. My head pounds like I've been hit with a hammer but otherwise I'm ok. Damn turtle!
The killer bug theme continues later that morning when base is invaded by army ants. Thankfully, nobody is bitten and they busy themselves hunting the spiders, cockroaches and scorpions that live in the crevices of our buildings. There is no way to stop them that anyone knows of. I know that in Africa, people use fire as a barrier, but I don't think that is a feasible plan here with our wooden buildings! Still, as long as people don't stand in the swarm they should be alright and it is quite an amazing sight to see. Sadly, because we are out of the forest there are no attendant antbirds to the swarm.
In the afternoon – I am still recovering from my stings which have given me a throbbing headache. Then intern Arno returns from his afternoon walk with incredible news. The turtle that we saw this morning is still lost in the coconut plantation some 6 hours later! We mobilise and head out to try and rescue her using a couple of hammocks as makeshift slings. The poor thing is exhausted and can barely move when we arrive. Molly and Lauren have been giving her salt-water to drink from the end of a fallen palm frond. Quote of the day comes from Lauren at this point: “I tried this once before with a Wombat but luckily I had a frisbee handy”. With a great deal of effort – she must way something like 400 pounds plus. We manage to haul her out onto the beach where we pop a tag in her flipper (in case she ever comes up to nest again or worse hasn't got the energy to survive). Then she manages to pull herself into the surf and disappears under the waves provoking a cheer from all of us. We name her 'Suerte' (Spanish for luck) and hopefully her luck will hold up as she has been through a tremendous ordeal.
9th August 2010
I'm on Camp Duty today with my buddy Marcus. We are a pretty good team and manage to get everything done including my presentations as part of training week. We also nail some great Gallo Pinto for tea!
Bird survey time! My first one for a while since the boat has been out of action and other people have been leading them. I am doing canal Sierpe Viejo which cuts into the forest and is full of submerged logs and overhanging fronds. Great fun basically!
Things start promisingly enough. I have the great team of Melissa (UK) up front doing the spotter role (for birds and logs!), Johannah, Sarah and Sam (US) and Kim (New Zealand) and our first obstacle is a great matted wall of weeds which takes a great deal of effort to plow through but has the bonus of flushing a Least Bittern, a secretive and small member of the heron family and a tricky one to see as it dwells deep in the reed-beds. It's the first one I have seen. Then we have a nice wide ope stretch of canal which is quite quiet but relaxing before entering Sierpe Viejo proper. Again a large patch of weeds/reeds has overgrown the entrance to the canal and it takes more effort to get through but thankfully everyone enters the spirit of things and we triumph. The canal is an atmospheric place. The waters are dark from the oil secreted by the decaying palm fronds that hang down into the water and there are submerged logs and branches at every turn waiting to snag us. Thankfully, with some frantic directioning from Melissa we don't have any serious snags and a bit of deft maneuvering from me sees us through! Birds and animals are thin on the ground here, though the surrounding forest echoes with bird-calls. Pygmy and Green Kingfishers make an appearance as does everyone's favourite canal bird, the Boat-billed Heron staring out at us from a thick tangle of palm fronds with its deep, round black eyes. It's a cuddly toy in the making I tell you (GVI Costa Rica soft toys – Jaguar, Turtle (with detachable head to simulate a jag attack), Capuchin Monkey, Sloth, Red-eyed Treefrog, Eyelash Viper (well I think they are kind of cute when they are little), Boat-billed Heron. They would sell by the bucket load!). But best of all Sierpe Viejo comes up trumps once more as just before we finish our survey I spot not one but two (and my third and fourth respectively) Agami Herons perched just above eye level in another palm. We immediately stop the canoe and sit taking pictures excitedly. I have only seen juveniles of these magnificent birds before and these two are still young but definitely seem to be developing some of their adult plumage. An adult Agami is the aristocrat of the bird world with a rich chestnut vest and deep pea green waistcoat. He has a artfully styled silver plume of feathers dangling from his scalp and a ruff of silver feather along his throat and belly. His bill is the longest proportionally than any other heron although for what reason is unknown. There is a lot still unknown about these birds due to their preferred habitat of rivers and streams in dense forest such as this one. My excitement is contagious and the girls are all very happy indeed to have seen these guys – and so they should be, they and myself are very lucky and privileged indeed.
We are all smiles on the way back from that survey and Kim even says this is the happiest she has been for ages and she's been very happy all the time thus far on this trip! Result!
I have the late night walk shift tonight which always messes with me a bit, I must confess. I try and sleep in the afternoon but its too hot so I end up sleeping after tea for a few hours before waking around 11:00 and as always take about 10 minutes to work out what is going on. I'm with Kyle from Chicago, Rachel from Nevada and Paula our newest recruit. She was with the team that saw 84 turtles last night so I guess we have a tough act to follow. Andres comes back in having seen a whopping 126 turtles in the first shift and even managed to tag a Hawksbill.
It's a full moon out on the beach which is very atmospheric and the visibility is astounding. Our mission tonight is to cover some distance and mark a nest further up the beach to spread out our data. There are turtles everywhere and I entrust Kyle with keeping a count as I will inevitably get distracted and forget as I go along. We find ourselves a suitable victim before long and Kyle and I settle down to watch her finish digging her nest chamber. The act of digging this chamber is one I find absolutely captivating and extraordinary. Normally, as you would expect a turtle looks very awkward out of the water. It pulls itself along the sand with what seems like a great deal of effort and when it covers its nest, front flippers flailing, it just seems to end up getting twice as much sand everywhere else as on top of the nest. But when it digs, well that is a whole new story. It's a slow and deliberate act. The hole is located directly underneath its tail, for obvious reasons, and it uses its back flippers exclusively. The back flippers are kind of square and paddle-shaped compared the long and narrower front flippers. It can't see what it is doing so it's all by touch and feel. First of all with a quick flick of one back flipper she kicks away any loose sand so as not to bring more down into the hole and then delicately curls up the end of one flipper into a scoop and slips it into the hole being careful not to touch the sides. She pauses for a while, we speculate to possibly gauge the temperature of the sand or maybe its to measure how deep her flipper is in the hole to gauge its overall depth – there seems to be some kind of thought process involved anyway. She then gathers up a scoop of sand and gently lifts it out of the hole and deposits it to the side. Then the opposite back flipper does the little flick and repeats the process carefully and slowly. In this fashion she carefully constructs and bottle shaped nest in the sand to fill with eggs. How she knows when to stop, I don't know. How she knows that she has got it just right, I don't know. There is still a lot we don't know about these creatures. It's a wonderful sight nonetheless and one I have yet to grow tired off. My team does a great job of counting the eggs and marking the nest and I tag her with no problem. It's quite easy to tag straight away after she has finished laying as she is tired and is not flailing her flippers about trying to cover the nest or get away from you. We then retire away to let her finish covering the nest up and take a break in the middle of the beach. The moon looks incredible tonight. There is a vast halo around it, something I have never seen before. It almost looks like a rainbow (you can just about see the colour gradient) encircling the moon. Amazing! We stop and look at this for a while before heading back to base for some well earned sleep.
29th July 2010
Lie in this morning after last night. I can't be kept in all day though and take Edouard and Kim on a walk along the boundary trail. This proves to be an exceptional idea as we have not gone far along before we stumble across my favourite snake, a coralsnake. It slithers quickly under a pile of fronds but luckily out the other side where it coils under a dead branch. Coralsnakes do not have the striking distance of a viper nor do they have much inclination to bite and a very small gape anyway. They are lethally venomous though. Bearing this in mind I am pretty confident in lifting away the branch to reveal it sat there in all it's glory. What a beautiful creature!
As always the boggy end of the trail is good for frogs and we spend a while hunting around for them and find three species including a sleeping Scarlet-webbed Treefrog.
Back at base I am looking at my pictures of the coralsnake and notice it looks a little different to the usual species that we occasionally see, the Costa Rican Coralsnake (Micrurus mosquitensis). It has the same combination of black, yellow and red banding characteristic of the coralsnake group but it's yellow bands are narrower and paler almost to the point of white and it also has a black marking extending from its black cap down the back of it's head. A quick consultation of our reference books reveals it to be an Allen's Coralsnake (Micrurus alleni) and rarer species and one that Andres has never seen before (that means its rare!). There is not an awful lot of information about it but it seems that it is more closely associated with water than its cousin. This makes sense with the boggy nature of the boundary trail. I am excited by this – it's a new species for our records and for me personally.
I have the early shift turtle walk tonight. The moon is out again, though not as bright as last night and the halo is not present. Instead it casts a silvery light over the ocean giving it a mercurial look and magical ambience. We don't walk very far before finding our turtle to work. It begins to rain not long after we start and very soon we are all covered in wet sand and laughing at the state we are getting into. Unfortunately, our high spirits are dampened a little by the sight of somebody emerging from the forest with a bright white light. Guessing that it must be someone up to nefarious ends I call in to base to ask them to call the rangers to come and sort them out. In the meantime, we head the opposite way and look for some more turtles. We find three that have already been tagged in previous seasons, which is interesting. Hopefully, we can find out more about them and compare previous data to the measurements we take tonight at some point. We do finish a little bit early, because its raining and we need to clean off the kit a bit for the next team.
30th July 2010
Its kind of a day off for me today. The GVI Community Project with the school in San Fran has been shut down and Rich wants my help in picking up a few bits left from the project. This also gives us an excuse to conduct a bit of business in Tortuguero. This allows me to have a good chat with my family and have some nice local food, and just generally unwind a bit.
The 'few bits' turn out to be about 10 boxes of stuff ranging from school books to rice cookers, very little of it any use to us.
I drive the boat back.
31st July 2010
My turn on nest check today. Sam from Chicago and me amuse ourselves by coming up with a series of signs to communicate across the beach to each other. My favourite is the scratch of the nose, which means “itchy nose”!
In the afternoon, I get another chance to head down the boundary trail to check a camera that has been set up there in on effort to get some pictures of the mammals which seem to be using this trail a lot (we have fresh tapir, peccary, jaguar and ocelot tracks here). Sadly, the camera whilst working has only captured pictures of people before the battery ran out on the sensor. I do have another quite extensive look around for snakes and frogs but not too much luck today. No coralsnakes anyway.
1st August 2010
Early morning incidentals walk up north today with Marcus, Lauren, Deanna and Johannah. It gets off to a cracking start with a Rufescent Tiger-heron juvenile stalking along the edge of the beach and a Speckled Racer snake darting across our path. That's before we even get to the forest and we are greeted there by a Coralsnake (the commoner species this time) crossing the path in front of us. Very cool!
We take our time, walking a mile in three and a half hours and manage to see some six Eyelash Vipers, several cool birds (two new for the spotting challenge list) and some Capuchin Monkeys. Lauren also manages to spot a superbly camouflaged Red-eyed Treefrog, which is great as Johannah is leaving us in a few days and had not seen one properly yet. She also wants to see a sloth which unfortunately does not materialise. It's a really cool walk though and everyone enjoys themselves. Marcus proves to be an adept bird-spotter picking out a Slaty-tailed Trogon high, high up in the canopy.
I have the early shift turtle walk tonight with Sonja from Canada, Kim from New Zealand and Herman from Sweden. It's business as usual but we take out time tonight, working our way further up the beach rather than just working the first turtle we come across. I let the volunteers get a bit more participation in by following the tracks we come across and locating the turtles. I think they appreciate this and they've been doing this long enough to know what to do. We finally settle on a suitable nesting turtle and get our work done very efficiently. We then attempt to tag and measure a couple more turtles that have nested already. The first turtle we attempt this on is a feisty one and a bit of a dirty fighter. I get the tags in the flippers fairly quickly, but when Kim and Herman attempt to measure her she gives them a bit of a beating with her flippers. Poor Herman gets hit somewhere rather sensitive. I take over and finish off the measuring using the old foot block technique to deflect her flippers from me though the force of her blows still pushes me back. After this we decide to take a breather before heading back. I'm quite awake and talkative and talk to Kim about New Zealand, in particular the lack of wildlife compared to Costa Rica. I defend the birds of New Zealand as I believe they more than compensate for lack of numbers by having a vast amount of personality or uniqueness in most cases. We start walking back and Sonja is my next target of conversation. She is from Toronto so I start joking about it being no more than a suburb of New York, and the fact that it really should be called 'Canadia'. It sounds so much better, even in the National Anthem (honestly try it!). She's a good laugh and takes it all her stride and reveals that actually every time you cross the border you have to get hosed down in Maple Syrup (possibly by a mountie?). Hee hee. I then turn my attention to Sweden as I am genuinely interested about where everyone comes from. It turns out that Sweden is not a particularly nice place with quite a lot of racism and unpleasant characters (doesn't it have the highest suicide rate in Europe?), though they still do have a lot of open space and wilderness. Herman himself is actually quite keen to move to the UK. Grass is always greener on the other side I guess?
2nd August 2010
The five-week volunteers are sadly due to be leaving soon so today is the day of the 'BIG CLEAN' (to be said in a deep booming voice). This involves, as you may guess, of lbitzing everything in preparation for the new batch of volunteers. I end up attempting to single handedly eradicate the cockroach population from amongst the books and shelves in the kitchen and library area.
Unfortunately, the water pump decides to break today. We can get water from the wells, but its a pain in the backside.
Luckily, to take everyone's mind off things we are all heading out tonight to have some farewell drinks and a meal at a local riverside bar. It's a very entertaining night and I end up drinking way more beer than I really should have. But sometimes you just have to go with the flow. There's plenty of dancing and goofing around, with some very entertaining photos as a result!
3rd August 2010
I wake up feeling a little muzzy this morning! The interns and some of the 10 week volunteers are heading off for a long weekend in Panama early this morning and I get up to see them off. Then I go back to bed for a couple of hours before getting up to do the weekly Beach Profile measurements.
I'm tired today – not used to these late nights. But I have promised Eduoard, one of our most enthusiastic and nicest volunteers that we would explore the new south Boundary trail. Andres has been exploring here for the last couple of weeks and I have not had the chance yet. Marta also decides to join us and we troop across the field out the back of base to the forest edge. The is quite a gathering of birds and we spend a while looking at Trogons, Tityras, bright blue Honeycreepers and Squirrel Cuckoos, before entering the trail.
The new south boundary trail is dense and the path hard to follow. It's very muddy underfoot and the understorey is dominated by plants with spiky-leaved fronds. It's eerie quiet and not easy to see things. The odd bird call drifts through the air and we find a sleeping Red-eyed Treefrog, but that seems to be all apart from the incessant 'song' of the cicadas. Eventually, the path becomes little more than animal trails leading off in different directions. We explore a few of these that end up getting too overgrown to continue. The largest of these has the footprints of the previous group that explored along here so we decide to follow these for a while. Edouard flushes up a Great Tinamou, a brown partridge-like bird who's ghostly call is more often heard than the bird itself is seen. We also get buzzed by a pair of squabbling hummingbirds. Then we get lost. We decide to head back and find that we cannot easily retrace our steps. It quickly becomes apparent that it is very easy to lose your sense of direction in such dense forest. Luckily, we can hear the sea and try to orientate ourselves towards it. Thankfully, I have bought a machete! A compass might have been handy as well!!!!
Undaunted (well, I'm a little concerned actually as we will lose the light in another hour and a half or so) we forge new path, and then suddenly we hear odd noises ahead of us. Kind of a slopping, chomping sound punctuated by the odd squeal or snort. We hunker down in the buttress roots of a nearby tree and wait excitedly. There is a very boggy but slightly more open patch ahead of us and on the other side of this we can see dark shapes moving through the dense undergrowth. A musky scent fills the air that I am quite familiar with. I've smelt I many times whilst walking in the forest. Then suddenly one of the animals moves partly into view. It's a White-lipped Peccary, the wild pig of the Neotropics. It is rooting around in the muddy ground for seeds and fungi or whatever else it can find to eat. It's impossible to tell how many there are but maybe 30 or more are moving through the undergrowth in front of us. All of a sudden they reach the edge of the clearing in front of us and we get a good clear view of them. They aren't as big as I had expected, maybe being the size of a medium dog, maybe 3ft at the shoulder at most, but there are some smaller younger members of the herd amongst them. They are covered in wirey black hair and display the characteristic white hair around the bottom lip and chin that gives them their name. They have a potentially exaggerated reputation for charging if startled (anyone remember the classic absurb scene in the awful movie Anaconda where Jon Voight shoots a peccary that has just attacked Owen Wilson “Wild Boar” says Voight “Very dangerous. Go for the eyes” How exactly they accomplish this deadly attack I am still unsure, but I suspect it is just simply appalling script writing). Still, being trampled and gored by 30 odd wild pigs is not high on my list of things to do so I am a little nervous at how close they are beginning to get, although at the same time it's a genuinely thrilling experience. It is a thrilling experience to be on foot with a potentially dangerous and unpredictable wild animal and one that I have not felt since my time in Africa (though the Fer-de-lance comes close, but there was still the feeling that you were in control of the situation and once you know where the snake is and you are at a safe distance everything is fine). It's a direct mix of fear and excitement – a nervous thrill, if you like. They still haven't seen us and the air is filled with their grunts and barks, and their thick, musky scent. It does reach a point, however, when I feel that they have got close enough. If they keep coming and then suddenly detect us, that's when they become potentially dangerous and there isn't anywhere easy to climb nearby (believe it or not). So I stand up to move back. Well, they hear me straight away and most of them flee with alarmed barks. The forest is suddenly filled with running wild pigs, though thankfully running away from us! One grizzled male remains stock still and looks directly at us with his hackles up. I don't think he can see us, he seems to be looking past us, but he knows something is wrong. We all freeze again and wait with baited breath until thankfully, he turns and joins his companions. The sounds of the retreat fade surprisingly quickly. What a rush! The three of us are thrilled! It's a real wild encounter and another magical Costa Rica moment.
Whilst, all this was happening we can hear the barks of the dogs on the neighbour's coconut farm. I guess they can smell those pigs a mile off! This is a relief as I was getting worried about us being lost and starting to lose the light before long. Brandishing my machete we head towards the direction of the barks and the sea. Expecting any minute to be rushed and disembowelled (or possibly have my eyes removed?) by a charging peccary, it is quite a relief to emerge out into the field behind base – not even half a km from the original path! We all laugh both with relief and because we have had such an exciting afternoon.
4th August 2010
There is a bird survey today to our furthest canal, Cano Sirena. It's quite deep into the forest and not the best place for seeing waterbirds but there is always the chance of something else interesting. Sadly, I am not doing the survey but I am going to be on the boat team, which basically drops off the survey team and then waits around for them and takes them back again. This is actually quite a cool job because you just get to park up and enjoy the sights and sounds of a quiet area of the National Park that is visited by few people. Excitingly, we are treated to the sight of a pair of Great Curassow on the way. This huge turkey-like bird is an impressive sight with the male having strong black and white plumage with a characteristic curly crest of feathers atop his head. Their call is a deep booming that you can actually feel in your chest, it's so low! They scramble into the dense undergrowth of the riverside with agility surprising for a bird so large and ungainly-looking.
Sadly, whilst we wait at the entrance to Cano Sirena nothing else majorly exciting reveals itself, though flocks of racous parrots scream overhead at regular intervals and a couple of kingfishers flit past. Marta's maneuvering of the boat provides some amusement however. Like myself she is only just learning and it is difficult.
On our way back to base I note the appearance of increased numbers of wading bird species birds on the rivermouth. It being August of course, I guess its time for the first migrant species to start arriving, in particular maybe those inland residents who have finished breeding or individuals that did not breed successfully and have begun to move to richer feeding grounds.
Jaoa heads off when we get back to go pick up the newcomers from San Jose.
5th August 2010
Two very important things happen today. Firstly, Andres and I reveal our five-week total scores. I am on 175 whilst Andres has clocked up 178. I am actually surprised as I though he was wiping the floor with me! All to play for.
Secondly, all of the five weekers leave. We have had a good time so far and I genuinely wish they could stay for longer. It's quite emotive and there are a few tears as people say their farewells.
Then once they have left, almost everyone is heading off to Tortuguero today. I opt to stay behind and have a quiet day manning the base. Although my quiet day ends up with Molly and I getting hot and sweaty disassembling a heavy wooden bunk-bed to move it into another room. Oh for some IKEA flat-packed furniture right now....
6th August 2010
New arrivals coming today. The morning is spent furiously tidying the place and cleaning up. Luckily, we have Sonja and Karen L to help us out, having opted out of going to Panama with the others. I end up getting hot and sweaty again putting the bunk-bed back together in it's new room. I borrow the Ipod Speaker dock to help me along. The perfect music for hitting heavy bits of wood with a hammer in a sweat pit of a room? Why none other than Texas' finest 90s metal act, Pantera. The only downside is that I have to resist the urge to start dancing around in a moshpit circle with myself every time the frequently awesome riffs kick in. Sonja compliments me on my music taste and it turns out on further discussion that the girl from Canadia is quite a rock fan herself. She even loves the new Pearl Jam album! I think we are going to be good friends!
The new arrivals arrive on time in the afternoon. It's turning out to be a scorcher! They are a fairly even mix of Brits and Americans, with one Australian. One chap, Rick, has an aunt that works with my mum. Small world! They all seem very pleasant and I'm sure we will all get along fine.
Myself, Sonja and Karen L head out for the night walk tonight. The other long-term guys were due back today but sadly, Lauren's bag was stolen so they have had to stay an additional day to sort it out with the police and insurance.
It's an interesting walk and we manage to find a turtle to work. The girls graciously let me count the eggs, which is nice. Then on our way back a large group of figure materialise out of the darkness. It's Edwin the head ranger from MINAE and he's bought an army! At least 8 burly police officers are with him. Unfortunately, I can't communicate well enough to establish why they are there but I imagine as some kind of poacher patrol. I wonder how many turtles they have disturbed whilst they have trekked down the beach en mass.
7th August 2010
The new arrivals get their introduction talks and health and safety briefings this morning and then I take them out for a walk on the South Trail. It's quite productive with two Brown Vinesnakes, a lone Howler Monkey and a curious Western Slaty Antshrike all clearly visible. There is also an abundance of lizards, spiders and butterflies providing ample photo opportunities.
The police and Edwin stop by during the day and Andres exclaims that he has never seen such tough-looking policeman apart from when he was chased by the riot police in San Jose during his 'youth'. We don't quite establish exactly what the riot was about but still it's a good story!
Sonja and I spend a while doing the washing up to my Ipod this evening. Lauren has also seen my Ipod and is very impressed with it. Everyone seems surprised that I'm so into music. I guess I don't try put it on very much. I'm not pushy like that. I play Sonja some of my favourite stuff at the moment including Thrice, The Bronx and Biffy Clyro.
8th August 2010
I'm all excited today. I have an early morning incidentals walk with Sonja and Karen. We are going to start early and head up north to find some cool animals. We get off to an interesting start by finding a Green Turtle in the coconut plantation. She looks very lost and very tired. Well, we can't just leave her here so we try and push her back towards the beach. She's a big girl and it takes a little bit of carefully applied force to get her to change direction back towards the beach. Eventually, she looks as though she is heading off and all is well, when suddenly I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my head. I reach up and pull a nasty-looking black wasp out of my hair. Suddenly, they are everywhere. The turtle must have disturbed a nest somewhere! We start to run back down the trail. I can see several of them following Sonja and I pull several of them out of my hair. It's absolutely horrible! I have visions of us having to plunge into the sea to escape them. I notice poor Karen is behind us and has been reduced to tears by the stings. I run back and start pulling them off her, getting stung in the hand during the process. Thankfully, we manage to outdistance them but poor Karen has been stung on the eyelid and the ear and neck. Sonja has several stings on her body and I have two though the hand does not hurt anyway near as much as my head. Luckily, we are literally only five minutes from base and get back to apply some anti-sting cream. Sadly, it looks as though our walk is going to be off the cards and we sit in the kitchen to recover. It has been a pretty intense experience and not one I am keen to repeat and thankfully, none of us seem to be allergic to the stings. So we just sit around feeling sorry for ourselves and nursing our stings. I am a little worried about Karen, and sure enough her eyelid swells up but thankfully its just a normal reaction rather than an allergy. My head pounds like I've been hit with a hammer but otherwise I'm ok. Damn turtle!
The killer bug theme continues later that morning when base is invaded by army ants. Thankfully, nobody is bitten and they busy themselves hunting the spiders, cockroaches and scorpions that live in the crevices of our buildings. There is no way to stop them that anyone knows of. I know that in Africa, people use fire as a barrier, but I don't think that is a feasible plan here with our wooden buildings! Still, as long as people don't stand in the swarm they should be alright and it is quite an amazing sight to see. Sadly, because we are out of the forest there are no attendant antbirds to the swarm.
In the afternoon – I am still recovering from my stings which have given me a throbbing headache. Then intern Arno returns from his afternoon walk with incredible news. The turtle that we saw this morning is still lost in the coconut plantation some 6 hours later! We mobilise and head out to try and rescue her using a couple of hammocks as makeshift slings. The poor thing is exhausted and can barely move when we arrive. Molly and Lauren have been giving her salt-water to drink from the end of a fallen palm frond. Quote of the day comes from Lauren at this point: “I tried this once before with a Wombat but luckily I had a frisbee handy”. With a great deal of effort – she must way something like 400 pounds plus. We manage to haul her out onto the beach where we pop a tag in her flipper (in case she ever comes up to nest again or worse hasn't got the energy to survive). Then she manages to pull herself into the surf and disappears under the waves provoking a cheer from all of us. We name her 'Suerte' (Spanish for luck) and hopefully her luck will hold up as she has been through a tremendous ordeal.
9th August 2010
I'm on Camp Duty today with my buddy Marcus. We are a pretty good team and manage to get everything done including my presentations as part of training week. We also nail some great Gallo Pinto for tea!
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