By Cece Wheeler, Middlebury College
Hey everyone!
We’ve had an action packed week at Lomas del Sierpe, full of pungent aromas, early mornings, and some pretty amazing bird sightings. After spending Sunday working with dung beetles (see Jori’s blog for the details I’ve already repressed), we took a much needed morning off, and by the time we got up Christy had already left us for her long journey home. We took advantage of the ever-present sun to do some long-overdue laundry, and started our research papers; Avery will be writing about Neotropical River Otters, while Jori and I are covering bird densities at Lomas. Seeing as Scott was making a grocery run to Puerto Jimenez the next morning, we also took the liberty of finishing off all the Oreos and Chips Ahoy cookies we had bought, a decision justified by the 5 hours of hiking we complete each morning.
Butterfly traps plus Scott in his natural element
The next day we walked the Northern transect for the first time, stopping every 250 meters to count all the birds we saw or heard within a 10 minute interval. At around 7:00 am, halfway through our fourth point count, we heard a huge crashing in the trees to one side of the trail. Expecting to see monkeys, we were surprised to see a Crested Guan come hurtling out of the bushes and smack into a tree before making its way haphazardly into the forest on the other side of the trail. Seconds later, another large bird sailed (much more gracefully) across the trail before circling back around to perch in a nearby tree. Chris quickly (and very excitedly) identified it as an Ornate Hawk-Eagle. Any bird with both Hawk and Eagle in its name has to be pretty cool, and as it soared over our heads to attack the still squawking Guan, Chris was clearly overcome with enthusiasm at seeing this “lifetime” bird. Luckily the microphone we use to record bird calls at each point was still on; see below for our recording of this momentous occasion (no Guans were harmed in the making of this sound bite).
Although nothing could top the Hawk-Eagle that day, we did see our first primates at Lomas on our way back to the station; a group of squirrel monkeys passed by overhead before stopping to play in some bamboo. We also caught sight of a Purple Crowned Fairy, some Red-Legged Honeycreepers, and a Crowned Woodnymph. Most days we have a great view of birds just from our camp, and have spotted multiple Toucans, Fiery-Billed Aracari, and Pale-Billed Woodpeckers perched in the Cecropia sp. trees around our platform.
A Squirrel Monkey watches us from a bamboo tree
In our point counts we have been on the look-out for our focal species, which include the Red-capped Manakin (famous for its moonwalking display), Baird’s Trogon, Great Tinamou, Streak-Chested Antpitta, and Black-Faced Ant-Thrush. We chose to study these species as they all have limited ranges, are vulnerable to habitat fragmentation, or are listed as threatened/near-threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). So far we have heard a large number of Baird’s Trogons, and found a Red-Capped Manakin lek (an aggregation of males competitively displaying to attract females – fun stuff), but will have to wait for the data to come back to determine species density.
A male Red-Capped Manakin; slight blur due to his propensity for moonwalking
Wednesday was, if possible, an even better day for birding. It was unfortunate that Chris had already reached peak bird excitement the day before, as he really had nowhere to go when we managed to see a rare black-morphed Collared Forest Falcon. Luckily the previous night we had all watched The Big Year, a movie about avid birders starring Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson, so we were slightly more prepared for his reaction this time around. It truly was a spectacular sight though, made only better when the Falcon’s mate appeared as well. I think I may have found my new favorite bird, especially seeing as its call sounds almost exactly like the spaceship’s alarm during the Darth Vader scene in Rogue One.
A Black morphed Collard Forest Falcon perched in a tree
By Thursday we were back to Dung Beetles, but with the vast improvement of using rotten meat as bait instead of human feces. Scott and I set the traps, which Jori and him later collected, and Avery took vegetation measurements for each trap site. We collected far fewer Dung Beetles the second time around – I guess they really do prefer poop, as the name would suggest – but on the plus side we also ended up with less Lowland Rocket Frogs accidentally caught in our traps.
Friday we conducted our last point count, and had our natural history quiz in the field, where Chris stumped us all by asking us to identify the Great Curassow’s call for extra credit – we hadn’t heard it before in all our time at Lomas. We caught a Green and Black Poison Dart Frog and a cool looking lizard on our way back to camp, where we began the long process of packing our many belongings.
Chris angers a lizard by messing with its dewlap
As we’d won some popcorn and cookies as prizes in our orienteering scavenger hunt (where we all had to remember how to use a compass, and Avery learned the North Star is not a myth), we had no real choice but to end the night by watching Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest.
Riding the bus to Puerto Jimenez the next morning (after we’d somehow managed to cram all of our gear underneath), I had time to reflect on how much I’ve enjoyed staying at Lomas del Sierpe – I’ll definitely miss the beautiful sunset views from our platform, and the refrigeration – but I think we’re all looking forward to the weeks of butterflies and (hopefully) sea turtles ahead.
Until then, Pura Vida!
Cece
Sunset from the Lomas station
P.S. As promised, Chris’s reaction to the Ornate Hawk-Eagle
P.P.S. I absolve myself of all responsibility regarding the title. Scott made it against my will.