Or favorite tour guide Christian also made an appearance at breakfast, telling stories of his past life working at the zip line place we went to yesterday. Apparently there was a guy who worked there named "Loco" who apparently made old ladies enjoy life. Not sure what that means, but I can't say I'm not glad he wasn't still working.
After breakfast, the real work began. We broke into groups and began to devise our independent research projects. Here is the breakdown of proposals:
The boys, or as they like to call themselves "the man team", are looking at the epiphytic load on the trees in the elvin forest by the continental divide to see if there is a difference between the Pacific and Caribbean sides.
Team Hummingbird is planning on quantifying the "come at me bro" tendencies of three species of hummingbirds which frequent the feeders the hummingbird gallery.
Team Awesome was going to look at the communities housed by bromeliads and compare those at lower and higher elevations, until we realized that spoons and tupperware were not effective scientific instruments, and changed our study. So is life in the jungle. Now we are measuring the volume of liquid bromeliads can hold, comparing the two sites as well as height from the ground.
Much of the rest of the daylight was left to exploration, and oh did we explore. Collectively we saw 2 quetzals, a snake, 3 gangs of coatis, a kinkajou (aka Pikachu), about a million hummingbirds, an Azure hooded jay, a toucanette, army ants, a black guan, some kind of weasel, 2 squirrels, a frog, a couple Lew-dawgs (including the pelecinid wasp) and a bunch of monkeys going ape. I would call that a pretty successful day. We went from Kelsey staring out of the window yesterday saying "I'm looking for some mammals" to us not being able to get away today even if we tried.
Kelsey, Emily and I were the first to spot the famous resplendent quetzal. Well, actually it was the tour group in front of us that told us to be quite who spotted it. Luckily they were nice and only charged us $40 for a picture through the guide's scope.
The hummingbird team had quite the surprise when they found more than just hummingbirds at the feeders.
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| Kinkajou at the hummingbird feeder |
Though everyone had a successful day, the boys (including Prof. Lewins) came back with the biggest find. On their way our to the continental divide, they decided to take to longest trail, which was the left-hand boarder of the park. Little did they know, their minds were about to be blown. According to Lewins, it's the best hiking trail in the reserve. There is a beautiful waterfall they visited, but that was not the main attraction.
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A gang of about 12 coati crossed their path. The coati, or coatimundi, is a member of the procyonidae family, which is the same family as the raccoon. The females and young travel in groups, while the males typically roam alone.
After that, they stumbled upon a wilder sight and sound. So much for Monteverde being peaceful. (please excuse the language in the video)
A monkey fight broke out above their heads.
Another monkey fight almost broke out at dinner as well. As we were sitting, sipping the delicious raspberry juice, a huge group of about 25 other college students walked in. After a few questions and some quick deduction, we realized they were staying at our lodge. Our nice, private, quiet lodge. So much for running the place. But I guess so is the way of nature, and I am sure we will learn to coexist, like the hundreds of thousands of species in the cloud forest.
Oh, and tonight Lewins chased a moth around outside for a few minutes.
#classicbill
We all send lots of love from Costa Rica and miss everyone at home!
Brianne
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