Today we began our first student-initiated project of the trip, developing our own experiment and collecting data to test a hypothesis. 

As might be expected, it was at first a total disaster. None of our methods were effective, none of our ideas were clear enough to explain easily enough, it seemed like we would never have enough time to get anything done but at the same time had an endless day of frustration ahead of us… and then suddenly it got better. We waded out into the marsh with little more than a net, a sharpie, and some plastic bags, and got down to doing science. 

Maybe more tomorrow about the actual experiment, but for today here are some pictures of what we saw and how we went beast-mode out on that swamp:

For a while we were up on the cracked mud- the wetland dries up every dry season (it’s dry season now, who knew? It’s supposed to snow in Hanover the rest of the week…) surveying appropriate patches of invasive vegetation for sampling. Pretty much the whole marsh is in a state of constant invasion, and it’s hard to tell exactly what is native vegetation at this point. 

We soon got up over our knees in the wetter part of the marsh… boots full of snails, plants, and water were the result, and nobody really wanted to mention that under those conditions it would be very difficult to get away from the 10-foot crocodile we saw on the first day out near where we were wading… But the resultant boot-waterfalls were a great photo-op.

Long day. Hard work. But we’re the toughest.

Tommy asked for a photo of the watchtower:

Doesn’t look like much, but I promise it’s ricketier than it looks and more interesting than it seems.

Know what flies loopier than me after a really long day and little sleep? 

Bats. They’re the only mammals that fly… but they’re also crazy diverse in themselves. There are 70 species in Palo Verde alone, and 113 in Costa Rica! They eat insects, nectar, fruits, fish, frogs, small mammals and even other bats, and come in all shapes and sizes from palm-sized to almost a meter across with winds extended. Their wrinkly little faces and their big ears (all the bats in the Americas are Microchiroptera, and mostly evolved for echolocation) make them look like scary, creepy old men with a penchant for self-obsessive high school girls named Bella… *ahem* now I’m just off-topic… but honestly they’re fascinating and super important to keeping the balance in this crazy complex ecosystem. Sergio, the naturalist at this field station, studies bats and brought some in to show us tonight. 

Check out the wing structure and those tiny, flexible bones- like dude, do you even lift?

The watchtower is sort of a weird place for me to return to continuously. It’s rusty and partially held up by a tree, and shakes like a leaf in the strong winds that come through every afternoon here. There are spiders, and the ladder is only attached at the top by its own weight on hooks. Better yet, the bottom of the tower is actually in the marsh, wherein wait the crocs. Sitting on the top of the tower I am pretty much constantly facing several fears at once- fear of losing my stuff to the wind, fear of being blown off myself, fear of getting stuck up there, and fear of falling into a silver-screen nightmare of snapping jaws and splashing water. Why am I drawn back every day? 

The view from the watchtower by the marsh is more or less unparalleled. I’ve seen tens of species of birds, lots of plants, and the ever-present crocodiles every day from its top, watching the sun fall down across the sky. It’s a very lonesome view, and very zen. All you can hear is the wind and the birds, and it all goes on below you without your help or interference. There have to be some risks involved in getting that front-row seat- there must be some cost to climbing up so high. 

(To the concerned: I’m pretty sure I am imagining most of the dangers of this tower. My self-preservation instincts are kicking in, which just makes me think about this stuff while I’m high in the air. I’m not just being stupidly reckless.)

Big flappies. Most of the time, people call them birds, but not in my house.

This one’s a curaçao, about 3-4 feet tall. She’s a female, which is why she is brown- the males have black bodies and bright yellow faces, but I actually think the females are prettier. They’re more complex, and slightly more camouflaged, or as much as one can be when one is a giant land-dwelling bird with curly head-feathers.

These next two are obviously parrots. They are nice.

The little diggers are Antlions, the larval form of a type of biggish dragonfly-like insect (order Neuroptera, the net-winged insects). They build little cone-shaped traps in the fine dirt by the road, and when ants fall in they pretty much never get back out again.

I went for a short walk to take a break from work this afternoon, and came upon the same troop of capuchins (I think) that I’ve seen near the road a few times. They watched me watch them as they sat high up in the trees and cracked nuts with their teeth, seeming more wary and curious than scared. As it got darker, they decided to head for their sleeping-place and had to make several very impressive flying leaps across the road.

Goodnight, little monkeys.