June 11-
The morning started out slow because we were allowed to "sleep in" until breakfast, which was served at 7 A.M. (CST). After breakfast, we set up new transects in the Monteverde Biological Station and Crandell. We set three transects in each location and each transect had 20 small folding sherman traps and 5 big folding sherman traps. Ten trap stations make up a single transect and each station is made up of two small sherman traps and every other station has a big sherman trap. Every odd-numbered small sherman trap was assigned oats and peanut butter as bait and every even-numbered small sherman trap was assigned sunflower seeds and grains as bait. This assignment of baits allows us to see if there are any patterns of bait preference among rodent species that we trap. The large sherman traps are baited with both types of bait in order to trap as many rodents as possible regardless of bait preference.
Monteverde Biological Station had the more treacherous trails between the two locations as a result of Hurricane Nate. The trails along a small creek where we trapped had been washed out and all the vegetation along the banks had been torn away by the storm. Dr. Ribble had trapped in this area for his singing mouse study and was amazed by the destruction of the storm. With the vegetation and leaf litter that comprise prime singing mouse habitat gone, hopes of catching one of these rodents was low. Additionally, the previous year's group had not caught a singing mouse using the same methods of trapping so the possibility of catching a singing mouse along the now rocky creek bed seemed dim.
Setting up our transects around Crandell occurred uneventfully for the most part. The trails were most agreeable with little elevation change throughout the whole area. We split up to set up the transects and worked efficiently to get the job done. This is where we first encountered a new group of high school students on the trails on our way to set up transects who were part of a program known as Change the World Kids. Little did we know that we would encounter these students again and again throughout the week.
After setting up the Crandell transects we hung around the Monteverde Institute awaiting an evening lecture. We received a lecture about the history on natural history from a researcher named Deedra who was accompanying the Duke Engage students. The talk went over the history of the first great naturalists and their adventures in the new world and ended with mentioning more contemporary naturalists including Mark Wainwright. Being in the room with two other student groups, the Duke students and the Change the World Kids students, gave me optimistic sentiments about conservation. While we have heard saddening talks about our anthropogenic impact on the environment, here were students from all over the United States coming from various backgrounds and all concerned in making a difference in our environmental situation. A testament to growing awareness.
We finally had dinner once we arrived back at La Calandria and turned in for the night.
After setting up the Crandell transects we hung around the Monteverde Institute awaiting an evening lecture. We received a lecture about the history on natural history from a researcher named Deedra who was accompanying the Duke Engage students. The talk went over the history of the first great naturalists and their adventures in the new world and ended with mentioning more contemporary naturalists including Mark Wainwright. Being in the room with two other student groups, the Duke students and the Change the World Kids students, gave me optimistic sentiments about conservation. While we have heard saddening talks about our anthropogenic impact on the environment, here were students from all over the United States coming from various backgrounds and all concerned in making a difference in our environmental situation. A testament to growing awareness.
We finally had dinner once we arrived back at La Calandria and turned in for the night.
June 12-
We got to sleep in today! By that I mean we didn’t have to do anything until our 7am breakfast. After that, we split up into our two groups to go check our traps at Crandell at the Monteverde Institute and the Monteverde Biological Station. We were expecting to catch similar species as the past few trapping sites, Heteromys and P. nudipes with the chance to catch some singing mice at MBS. My group went to the Crandell station to check our three transects. While we only caught one mouse among the three transects, a juvenile Heteromys, the group at MBS caught 17 mice! After we finished checking our traps, we had time to go get ice cream at the old cheese factory and creamery before having to meet up with the group at MBS. As we walked there from MVI, we met a dog that we named Lola who followed us to the ice cream shop and waited outside for us. She was very nice and we asked Maikol if we could keep her but he said no. We met back up with the MBS group and reconvened at La Calandria for some downtime and assigned readings until lunch, including a paper published by Dr. Ribble himself. After lunch, we went back to MVI to listen to a talk from Deb Hamilton on Bellbirds. This was interesting and very fitting for our location because Monteverde serves as a biological corridor for the bellbird, one of Costa Rica’s most iconic birds. These corridors are important because they essentially serve as highways of habitat for these birds that allows them to travel around the country and from different primary forest habitats that are farther than the birds would typically fly without any suitable habitat in between. After the talk, we split back up to go reset our traps before dinner. We finished off the day with some post-dinner yoga and went to bed excited to see what we would catch the next morning.
Checking transects at the Monteverde Biological Station
June 13-
The food at La Calandria field station seemed to be everyone’s favorite. It’s really good. I’m talking about the kind of food your mother makes type good. This made the 7am early start and breakfast all the more bearable. Today was a group favorite...pancakes! One cup of coffee later (although if we’re being honest it’s more around 2~3 for us anti-morning people (aka me) ) we set out to Monteverde Biological Station and Crandall to check our traps. Since we had only caught one mouse at Crandall the previous morning, we were competitively hopeful of catching more. The hike up to our transects at the Crandall reserve was unbearably steep, where every five steps made us want to stop and rest. Some of us even resorted to crawling on our hands and knees towards the end of the trek. We ended up catching three mice, and so we decided that entitled us to some celebratory 8am ice cream (the best type of second breakfast). After leisurely eating our ice cream, we picked up the people that were checking traps at the Monteverde Biological Station and headed back to La Calandria.
June 14-
The morning started off with bird mist netting with Duke students. We were short on time because we didn't want to leave any rodents in the traps for too long and only stayed to watch the first two birds get tagged. We caught 4 birds (1 Rufous-and-white wren, 1 Orange-billed nightingale-thrush, and 2 Rufous-capped warblers) in about 30 minutes and it was interesting to watch the process of handling birds and tagging them.
We checked the Monteverde Biological Station transects while the other half of the group returned to Crandell to check those transects. To our amazement, sitting in a trap at transect 2, was a small dark colored rodent. As our excitement grew exponentially, Dr. Ribble confirmed our greatest hope of catching a singing mouse. Dr. Ribble handled the 6 gram mouse and noted that this individual was a lactating female. This was particularly exciting because that meant that not only did this female have a litter of pups nearby, but that there had to be at least one male singing mouse in the area that mated with this female. Perhaps the hurricane's creek bed destruction of singing mice habitat hadn't pushed all the mice out of the area. Later in the afternoon we headed to Nacimiento y Vida, and Finca Rodriguez to set more traps in different transects.
Rufous-and-white Wren
The elusive singing mouse
We checked the Monteverde Biological Station transects while the other half of the group returned to Crandell to check those transects. To our amazement, sitting in a trap at transect 2, was a small dark colored rodent. As our excitement grew exponentially, Dr. Ribble confirmed our greatest hope of catching a singing mouse. Dr. Ribble handled the 6 gram mouse and noted that this individual was a lactating female. This was particularly exciting because that meant that not only did this female have a litter of pups nearby, but that there had to be at least one male singing mouse in the area that mated with this female. Perhaps the hurricane's creek bed destruction of singing mice habitat hadn't pushed all the mice out of the area. Later in the afternoon we headed to Nacimiento y Vida, and Finca Rodriguez to set more traps in different transects.
June 15-
This morning, we returned to Nacimiento y Vida and Finca Rodriguez to check our traps. My group went to Nacimiento y Vida. While we started off slow, we did end up catching five mice across our two transects, consisting of two P. nudipes, two cotton rats, and one small oligoryzomys that we fondly named Nugget. Because Nugget was so small, a whopping 5 g, we brought the trap back to La Calandria so Dr. Ribble could safely handle her. The entire walk back from the transects to the van, all we could talk about was how we hoped that there was going to be french toast for breakfast. To our surprise, when we got back to La Calandria, the cooks had made french toast! It was another small win of our early morning. After breakfast, we met up with Julio from MVI to help plant 100 trees in the secondary forest surrounding La Calandria. We were, once again, split up into two groups and each group had two diggers, two planters, and two data collectors. While we were mid-plant, a local farmer came to pick up 500 trees to plant on his property. We all helped load the various trees into his truck, acting as a human conveyor belt. After we successfully planted our 100 trees, Maikol awarded us with snacks to hold us over until lunch. After lunch, we went back to reset our traps at Nacimiento y Vida and Finca Rodriquez. (Check spelling of all of these sites) We had been told that if we followed the trail of of one of the transects a little farther, we could find a waterfall at the end. A few of us decided we were up for the challenge and after resetting our traps in that transect, made the trek to see the waterfall. Although it wasn’t very big, it was beautiful and looked very refreshing. We made plans and suggested it to the rest of the group that we make a group trip there tomorrow morning after checking our traps. Once we got back, we listened to a presentation about bats by Richard Laval, also known as Batman. During this presentation, I learned some interesting things, including that aerial insectivores are the largest group of bats in the world and that the nectar eating bats have very long, funny looking tongues. After the bat talk, we were supposed to go catch bats in the mist nets. However, it was raining and our bat catching activity was postponed until another night. All in all, solid day.
This morning, we returned to Nacimiento y Vida and Finca Rodriguez to check our traps. My group went to Nacimiento y Vida. While we started off slow, we did end up catching five mice across our two transects, consisting of two P. nudipes, two cotton rats, and one small oligoryzomys that we fondly named Nugget. Because Nugget was so small, a whopping 5 g, we brought the trap back to La Calandria so Dr. Ribble could safely handle her. The entire walk back from the transects to the van, all we could talk about was how we hoped that there was going to be french toast for breakfast. To our surprise, when we got back to La Calandria, the cooks had made french toast! It was another small win of our early morning. After breakfast, we met up with Julio from MVI to help plant 100 trees in the secondary forest surrounding La Calandria. We were, once again, split up into two groups and each group had two diggers, two planters, and two data collectors. While we were mid-plant, a local farmer came to pick up 500 trees to plant on his property. We all helped load the various trees into his truck, acting as a human conveyor belt. After we successfully planted our 100 trees, Maikol awarded us with snacks to hold us over until lunch. After lunch, we went back to reset our traps at Nacimiento y Vida and Finca Rodriquez. (Check spelling of all of these sites) We had been told that if we followed the trail of of one of the transects a little farther, we could find a waterfall at the end. A few of us decided we were up for the challenge and after resetting our traps in that transect, made the trek to see the waterfall. Although it wasn’t very big, it was beautiful and looked very refreshing. We made plans and suggested it to the rest of the group that we make a group trip there tomorrow morning after checking our traps. Once we got back, we listened to a presentation about bats by Richard Laval, also known as Batman. During this presentation, I learned some interesting things, including that aerial insectivores are the largest group of bats in the world and that the nectar eating bats have very long, funny looking tongues. After the bat talk, we were supposed to go catch bats in the mist nets. However, it was raining and our bat catching activity was postponed until another night. All in all, solid day.
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