moloch05
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Greetings everyone,
It seems hard for me to fathom, but 30 years ago, I was a grad student in Costa Rica. I just looked back at my field notes and realized that 30 years ago today, I saw my first ever Bothrops asper as it crawled across a clearing in front of the dorm/dining hall of La Selva. I ventured to Costa Rica first as a student in the O.T.S. program and secondly for a short research project. The course took me and the other participants to a number of research stations and national parks scattered around the country and included La Selva, Palo Verde, Monteverde, Corcovado and Las Cruces. Memories of this wonderful experience still flash through my mind every day.
My second visit was at the end of the year to Palo Verde. I visited at this time since the ephemeral marshes were full of water and waterfowl were present in enormous numbers. "Los Pichiches" made a huge racket at night as they left to feed in the surrounding agricultural fields. This post will include photos from Palo Verde where I studied Muscovy and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. Photos in this post are all scanned slides. Palo Verde is located in the monsoonal northwest of Costa Rica at the base of the Nicoya Peninsula. Access to the site was awkward back then and required a 4x4 trip along difficult roads. On my trip in, the driver misjudged a flooded area and nearly rolled the truck. We had to get a tractor from the reserve to pull us out of the muck.
This was my home for nearly 6 weeks. It was the headquarters and dorm at Palo Verde. Has anyone been out there recently? I wonder if the building is still there. It was apparently an old ranch house that had been converted for use by researchers and staff.
... I like the quaint sign:
Here are a few of the locals. I believe that they are Black Ctenosaurs (Ctenosaura similis). These were pretty tame and walked around the veranda of the headquarters. Sometimes, these would visit me in my room in the afternoons while I sat quietly and wrote up my notes.
I loved this view of the wetlands, the Rio Tempisque and then the hills of the Nicoya Peninsula from one of the hilltops:
The hills near the headquarters were steep with cliffs. There was a trail up these and I headed up there early most mornings with my scope. From the clifftops, I could see a substantial portion of the flooded wetlands of the reserve. I always expected to find a rattlesnake on rocks along the trail but I never did.
I also spent a good deal of time wading through the swamp. I regularly saw small caiman but rarely encountered snakes. My best find was a large Boa constrictor at the edge of the swamp. It bit my knee when I foolishly nudged it with my gumboot.
I once saw a Jaguarundi trot across the airstrip in this photo. They are weird looking cats with a flat face.
Waterfowl were concentrated in these marshes at this time of the year. Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and Blue-winged Teal were the two super abundant species but Muscovy were also present in good numbers. The following is a photo of a male Muscovy ... so much nicer than the domestic version:
At times, the air seemed to be filled with Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. The Costa Ricans called these "pichiches", a word that is similar to the sound of the calling birds:
I saw other waterfall as well including Fulvous Whistling Ducks, Common Pintail, Northern Shovelor, American Widgeon , Lesser Scaup and sometimes the secretive Masked Ducks pictured below. My best find was of a single White-faced Whistling Duck. This bird was part of a tiny, isolated population that now has become locally extinct in Costa Rica.
Masked Duck:
I saw many other water birds including the huge and spectacular Jabiru, Limpkin, the common herons and this Bare-necked Tiger Heron
A grad student from the Univ of Kansas stopped in at the end of my visit. He was studying hummingbird territoriality and he worked mostly around clusters of Combretum flowers. These flowers attracted large numbers of hummers including Steely-vented, Cinnamon, Fork-tailed Emerald (Canivett's?), Plain-capped Starthroats and Little Hermits.
Steely-vented Hummingbirds were the dominant species:
Fork-tailed (Canivett's?) Emerald:
Little Hermit:
I also helped another researcher who was studying forest birds. He had up a few mist nets and was catching and banding the birds.
Long-tailed Manakin: There were several leks of these amazing birds near the headquarters. Males would cooperate at the lek with one dominant male and then a couple males in training all working together. I don't remember any wing snaps like so many other manakins but they had a distinctive "toledo" song:
Mixed species flocks were numerous. They included various migrant warblers, vireos, gnatcatchers and frequently two similar flycatchers.
Greenish Elaenia:
Yellow-olive Flycatchers:
This was the only Northern Barred Woodcreeper that I observed during my visit. They must have been secretive birds:
Olivaceous Woodcreepers were common:
I rarely saw Banded Wrens but heard their rich trills and warbles from thickets on most days:
An odd looking cousin of the Gnatcatchers was this Long-billed Gnatwren:
Scarlet Macaws were a daily sight and sound at Palo Verde. One pair was nesting in a tree hollow not far from the headquarters. Their calls were impossible to ignore and I never tired of their dazzling combinations of colour. In addition to the macaws, I saw flocks of White-fronted Parrots, Yellow-naped Parrots, Orange-chinned Parakeets and Orange-fronted Parakeets.
White-throated Magpie Jays were big and beautiful:
There was a concrete lined pool near one of the buildings. This was a death trap for animals like this unfortunate Coral Snake (Micrurus nigrocinctus):
One night, this huge Lyre Snake (Trimorphodon biscutatus) visited us:
Leptophis mexicanus:
I saw many Norops but I don't know the species. Any ideas?
Collared Peccary (Javelina) were numerous. I saw small herds of these at times as they clacked their teeth and then ran across the trail. I only saw a few other mammals and these included a Collared Anteater (a.k.a., Tamandua) that emerged from the edge of the swamp and Prehensile-tailed Porcupines.
Howler Monkey were impossible to ignore. One troop lived near the headquarters and their powerful roars were a common sound even at night.
My visit spanned Christmas and New Year. While I was there, President Rodrigo Carazo and his friends stopped in at the reserve for several days. It was so low key with no security at all. The president was a nice guy and was interested in the birds and other wildlife. I took him birding one day. He also organized a launch on the Rio Tempisque and invited me along with his party to observe nesting waterbirds and also to fish. I googled Carazo and found that he lived to a ripe old age and passed away last year. He was the president of Costa Rica from 1978-1982.
I am not certain but think that this distant peak was Volcan Arenal, an active volcano that was visible from the reserve.
Regards,
David
It seems hard for me to fathom, but 30 years ago, I was a grad student in Costa Rica. I just looked back at my field notes and realized that 30 years ago today, I saw my first ever Bothrops asper as it crawled across a clearing in front of the dorm/dining hall of La Selva. I ventured to Costa Rica first as a student in the O.T.S. program and secondly for a short research project. The course took me and the other participants to a number of research stations and national parks scattered around the country and included La Selva, Palo Verde, Monteverde, Corcovado and Las Cruces. Memories of this wonderful experience still flash through my mind every day.
My second visit was at the end of the year to Palo Verde. I visited at this time since the ephemeral marshes were full of water and waterfowl were present in enormous numbers. "Los Pichiches" made a huge racket at night as they left to feed in the surrounding agricultural fields. This post will include photos from Palo Verde where I studied Muscovy and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. Photos in this post are all scanned slides. Palo Verde is located in the monsoonal northwest of Costa Rica at the base of the Nicoya Peninsula. Access to the site was awkward back then and required a 4x4 trip along difficult roads. On my trip in, the driver misjudged a flooded area and nearly rolled the truck. We had to get a tractor from the reserve to pull us out of the muck.
This was my home for nearly 6 weeks. It was the headquarters and dorm at Palo Verde. Has anyone been out there recently? I wonder if the building is still there. It was apparently an old ranch house that had been converted for use by researchers and staff.
... I like the quaint sign:
Here are a few of the locals. I believe that they are Black Ctenosaurs (Ctenosaura similis). These were pretty tame and walked around the veranda of the headquarters. Sometimes, these would visit me in my room in the afternoons while I sat quietly and wrote up my notes.
I loved this view of the wetlands, the Rio Tempisque and then the hills of the Nicoya Peninsula from one of the hilltops:
The hills near the headquarters were steep with cliffs. There was a trail up these and I headed up there early most mornings with my scope. From the clifftops, I could see a substantial portion of the flooded wetlands of the reserve. I always expected to find a rattlesnake on rocks along the trail but I never did.
I also spent a good deal of time wading through the swamp. I regularly saw small caiman but rarely encountered snakes. My best find was a large Boa constrictor at the edge of the swamp. It bit my knee when I foolishly nudged it with my gumboot.
I once saw a Jaguarundi trot across the airstrip in this photo. They are weird looking cats with a flat face.
Waterfowl were concentrated in these marshes at this time of the year. Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and Blue-winged Teal were the two super abundant species but Muscovy were also present in good numbers. The following is a photo of a male Muscovy ... so much nicer than the domestic version:
At times, the air seemed to be filled with Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. The Costa Ricans called these "pichiches", a word that is similar to the sound of the calling birds:
I saw other waterfall as well including Fulvous Whistling Ducks, Common Pintail, Northern Shovelor, American Widgeon , Lesser Scaup and sometimes the secretive Masked Ducks pictured below. My best find was of a single White-faced Whistling Duck. This bird was part of a tiny, isolated population that now has become locally extinct in Costa Rica.
Masked Duck:
I saw many other water birds including the huge and spectacular Jabiru, Limpkin, the common herons and this Bare-necked Tiger Heron
A grad student from the Univ of Kansas stopped in at the end of my visit. He was studying hummingbird territoriality and he worked mostly around clusters of Combretum flowers. These flowers attracted large numbers of hummers including Steely-vented, Cinnamon, Fork-tailed Emerald (Canivett's?), Plain-capped Starthroats and Little Hermits.
Steely-vented Hummingbirds were the dominant species:
Fork-tailed (Canivett's?) Emerald:
Little Hermit:
I also helped another researcher who was studying forest birds. He had up a few mist nets and was catching and banding the birds.
Long-tailed Manakin: There were several leks of these amazing birds near the headquarters. Males would cooperate at the lek with one dominant male and then a couple males in training all working together. I don't remember any wing snaps like so many other manakins but they had a distinctive "toledo" song:
Mixed species flocks were numerous. They included various migrant warblers, vireos, gnatcatchers and frequently two similar flycatchers.
Greenish Elaenia:
Yellow-olive Flycatchers:
This was the only Northern Barred Woodcreeper that I observed during my visit. They must have been secretive birds:
Olivaceous Woodcreepers were common:
I rarely saw Banded Wrens but heard their rich trills and warbles from thickets on most days:
An odd looking cousin of the Gnatcatchers was this Long-billed Gnatwren:
Scarlet Macaws were a daily sight and sound at Palo Verde. One pair was nesting in a tree hollow not far from the headquarters. Their calls were impossible to ignore and I never tired of their dazzling combinations of colour. In addition to the macaws, I saw flocks of White-fronted Parrots, Yellow-naped Parrots, Orange-chinned Parakeets and Orange-fronted Parakeets.
White-throated Magpie Jays were big and beautiful:
There was a concrete lined pool near one of the buildings. This was a death trap for animals like this unfortunate Coral Snake (Micrurus nigrocinctus):
One night, this huge Lyre Snake (Trimorphodon biscutatus) visited us:
Leptophis mexicanus:
I saw many Norops but I don't know the species. Any ideas?
Collared Peccary (Javelina) were numerous. I saw small herds of these at times as they clacked their teeth and then ran across the trail. I only saw a few other mammals and these included a Collared Anteater (a.k.a., Tamandua) that emerged from the edge of the swamp and Prehensile-tailed Porcupines.
Howler Monkey were impossible to ignore. One troop lived near the headquarters and their powerful roars were a common sound even at night.
My visit spanned Christmas and New Year. While I was there, President Rodrigo Carazo and his friends stopped in at the reserve for several days. It was so low key with no security at all. The president was a nice guy and was interested in the birds and other wildlife. I took him birding one day. He also organized a launch on the Rio Tempisque and invited me along with his party to observe nesting waterbirds and also to fish. I googled Carazo and found that he lived to a ripe old age and passed away last year. He was the president of Costa Rica from 1978-1982.
I am not certain but think that this distant peak was Volcan Arenal, an active volcano that was visible from the reserve.
Regards,
David