Our day started early again at 5:45 to catch some birds prior to breakfast. I really wasn’t feeling the breakfast this morning, so a small meal and then we loaded the school bus to get to our day trip location. Today we went partially up a local volcano to the San Cristobal Research Station, one of the outposts for the every caterpillar project I mentioned yesterday. The road was rough and the bus shocks poor, so it was a bit of a bouncy ride, but almost as soon as we got out of the bus and into the station the sun came out and there were quite a few flies out and about. Perhaps I should correct myself, there were a lot of micropezids flying! Within minutes of entering the jungle we found a tree fall where some Scipopus-like flies were freshly emerging and pumping hemolymph into their wings. I can’t positively identify the species to genus, but it was great to get a glimpse into the possible larval habitat. As we walked through the forest, it seemed as if everytime we looked up there was another species and a different genus flying nearby. I believe I ended up with 9 or 10 species in 6 or 7 genera and a total of almost 30 specimens. A very productive day for me, with specimens contributed by several people from the group. The rains set in right as we came back for lunch, and unfortunately stayed in for the remainder of our time at the station. We left a little early and made our way back to the main ACG station where we’re staying and the sun was shining, so some of us ended up jumping off the bus and walking the final few kilometres back to the station looking for more flies. Unfortunately they seemed to have gone into hiding early tonight, so instead we did some birding and saw a number of interesting species including Crested Curacao, a large chicken like bird with a bright yellow beak and ornate head feathers. A cold shower to get rid of a day’s grime, a brief dinner, and I was pinning away with all my new material.
The bus was a little slow this morning, taking 2 hours to do what normally would take 45 minutes in a 4×4 truck apparently. It certainly gave us plenty of opportunities to enjoy the lack of legroom and shocks…
I had my first Coke since leaving for Costa Rica 2 weeks ago, and man was it good. So much for going cold turkey…
I’ve now seen 3 monkey species (howler, Geoffrey’s spider, and white faced capuchin), white-tailed deer (weird, I know), agouti, bats, a strange ground-hog like creature, and something rustling through the undergrowth like bugs bunny. Pretty good mammal list for a day’s work!
The unidentified genus:
MTC…