Today was my first full day in the Osa, a small peninsula with incredible biodiversity. The compound is actually quite lovely and open with a dining hall similar to Kiuic in Mexico! Our mosquito nets are pink (stylish AND functional) and the houses we live in have their own bathrooms. It's a really nice setup. Not to mention the beach is but a 20 minute hike away (but more on that later - OH THE ANTICIPATION!)

Let's start chronologically. Well, for starters you should know that the internet has been slowest here. I am not sure how many pictures I will be able to upload (or rather, how long my patience will last while trying to upload photos). So sorry it looks like you all made need to tolerate some entries with more text than pictures. Nobody panic.

Alrighty so Day 1 in the Osa. We opened up our nets early and were rewarded for our efforts. Now briefly I should mention that this is another slow site for birding so we only put the nets up in the morning. But right off the bat we caught a common paraque and a long tailed hermit (hummingbird!) I don't have pictures because my camera was MIA at the time (*cough*Dawleystoleit*coughcough*) so I'll elaborate a bit more. The common paraque is a silly little bird with huge eyes, a little beak, and the biggest mouth EVER. It was actually startling. I got the bird out of the net and he just sat motionless in my grip with his wings out. I went to press his wings in with my other hand and he snaps at me, opening this enormous mouth, and naturally i whipped my hand back and yelled "OH WOW NEED SOME HELP!" He turned out to be an awkward fellow and my friend.

I had a good time taking out hummingbirds today (I'm getting better getting those little birds out now).


While we didn't catch many specimens, the morning went by quickly. We have instated a new schedule for the Osa that consists of bird nets down at 9, lunch at 12, siesta until 1:30, and then beach from 2-4. Dinner's at 6 and then I have the rest of the evening off!

The group happily trekked through the muddy hills of the Osa, to get to the beach (although we had been warned not to swim due to a riptide). And finally, mud-caked boots and all we emerged from the forest onto the beach.





More pictures later (sorry I was so excited to see water I focused on merry making instead of picture taking...

The waves were insane! Even just into to our ankles we were being knocked down. We played this game where we stood in a row and waited to see who could last longest. We would get hit and toppled over, falling over each other, and laughing like children. It was a glorious, youthful experience. Then a few of us wandered down to where a river meets the ocean and the lagoon that formed at this junction. The water was cool and calm and we sat in the pool skipping stones and relaxing for a while. But tragedy struck when we returned to our spot. As I was lying out, napping until the others returned and we could head back to camp, I heard startled screaming. I sit up and notice waves coming towards us. In my head all I could hear was my thoughts yelling "PICK UP YOUR SKETCH PAD!!!!" - I can't remember the last time I reacted so quickly. I snatched my sketch pad and noticing my bag (with my camera) next to it, I grabbed it too and hauled the items up just as the water reached my ankles and swept over my shorts and towel. The returning group was just getting close to us when the waves hit. I turned when I heard them yelling and saw a group of frantic students running towards the carnage. It was like a battlefield. Clothing, towels, and bags strewn everywhere. We picked among the wreckage searching for our valuables. I am still shocked by how fast I moved in order to save my drawings and camera. Many cameras were soaked in the fray - their status is still unknown.

With that said, I'll be going back there tomorrow from 2-4!!! It's the beach - of course I can't stay away : )

Today was our last full day in Las Cruces which is quite sad. Although I am excited to move on to a new station, it has been such a pleasant stay in Las Cruces. The house and the common room our really comfortable, the birding has been exciting, and the food has actually been good. Okay so I need to clarify. I don't like the food here. Sorry. I'm not typically picky but I really don't like cilantro and here cilantro is used as freely as salt or butter. It's in EVERYTHING. So that makes most meals intolerable. The food here has actually been good - I haven't had to force myself to eat. With that said I am still desperately craving my favorite homefoods. But that's neither here nor there. Back to my last day...

We caught more birds - YAY BIG SURPRISE THERE RIGHT??? I mean I'm always excited to catch birds but I'm finding it hard to reword my birding exploits to be interesting to you all. So instead here are some pictures of our birding successes!

Now on to the highlight of the day: Mission Bird Scare Alpha!!! After 9 or so birding gets pretty slow here and us birders get pretty bored. We are a very creative bunch and have been having a good time coming up with time consuming activities. Today, since it was our last day, we concocted a plan. If the birds wouldn't fly into the net - we'd just have to "encourage" them. The idea was to scare the birds into the net by surprising them at the compost and then shaking the bamboo around them to keep the birds from flying off to the sides. It would make more sense if you had a diagram. I have one, we drew it up, it was exciting. We all had codenames and we divided into three squads, the scare-er, the gamma squad, and the delta squad. We executed the plan only to discover that no birds were at the compost at the time. SO the mission was a complete FAILURE. But it was fun and it did kill a good chunk of time.










We also went on an incredibly grueling hike, almost totally uphill, across two streams, that ended with us cramming onto an already full public bus that drove us back to the botanical garden. The really cool part of the trip was finding this incredible strangler fig. It was spectacular. I'll end this post with this phenomenal tree.

Good night all! It's off to Osa tomorrow!

Today was another bird filled day but felt strangely slow and lethargic. Therefore I'll keep this post short with just a few of the day's highlights.

Tomorrow is our last full day of birding in Las Cruces so I hope that it's full of bright and lovely birdies!

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!!!

Greetings watchers!

Yesterday the internet at the hotel in San Jose was so super fast that I uploaded a bunch more photos from my adventures in Palo Verde! So here are some of my favorites that didn't get on before!

Here are some more birding and bird watching shots!














More pictures from our birding tour on the River Tempisque!