The station we're currently staying at is one of the largest botanical gardens worldwide and is known far and wide! It's pretty expansive and absolutely gorgeous. Today we wandered around with Ellen learning the plants for our plant quiz tomorrow and it was actually enjoyable! Who knew sedentary organisms could be so interesting!? Here are some of my favorite pics:

Of course the morning was filled with birding and what a day we had! We caught 15 birds in one day (just as a reference point - we caught 17 birds over the entire stay at Palo Verde). Unfortunately 5 or 6 of these specimens were clay colored robins - a brown, non-descript robin with a quick temper and frequent bowel movements. Fortunately we were able to escape most of the latter characteristic.





We also caught a bunch of hummingbirds! This is a very good site for hummingbirds. Most of them were hermits of some kind (with a curved beak specialized for a curved flower).





My favorite catch of the day was a golden hooded tanager. They are such gorgeous little birds. I was lucky enough to free and hold this little friend. Sadly this made it impossible for me to take pictures myself and therefore i didn't get the picture I really wanted. Hopefully we get them again tomorrow so that I can give you all a better shot. For now, here I am proudly displaying (and NOT crushing) this beautiful tanager.





We also set some fruit out and had some real up close bird watching!







It's been an incredibly long day but it's been such a great time! I can't wait to hit the nets again tomorrow! Hopefully we'll get my motmot!!!