Day 5--Jhin’s Commando Hike

Friday, February 8, 2008

Alice and I were scheduled for afternoon colpa observation, so had the morning free until departure at 10:30. Alan explained that if it rained, the colpa assignment would be cancelled. Sure enough, it rained all night and morning but it slacked off so the morning colpa team left anyway, but a bit later than usual.

At breakfast Richard and I went over my bird checklist and then I took a solitary trail hike, mentally noting turns and landmarks so that I could find my way back to TRC . I took many photos of the foliage, fungi, trees, and insects. Here is a sampling

Philodendron vine climbing to the sunlight; R - This vine with its little fungi umbrellas reminds me of Dr Seuss. I expect Dooungi to emerge from their fungi and sing or dance or something

Clay ant tower and interesting little vine just beginning to climb a walking palm to  the sunlight

Small ferny leaves establishing themselves on a tree; R - Drip tip and pink and blue berries—a baby bush?

Heliconia variety; Twin leaf?

Beautiful pink leaves struggling for sunlight for chlorophyll production; Juicy red flower; 
red was the predominant flower color

Motmot burrow nest . The blue-crowned motmot, is not the type of bird one would expect to live in a burrow.

Protection from climbing vines

Batwing? No just chicken in my lunch box

At 10:30am I met Alice and Jhin under the porch portico. We gathered our plastic lunch boxes  our snacks of cookies, orange, apple, crackers, and a weird bar of what seemed to be tiny round seeds glued together with something. We tucked all these things into our day packs, filled our water bottles, donned our boots, strapped our day packs and ponchos around our waists, picked up our clipboards, hiking sticks, and extra stools (to set our packs on out of the mud). . . and thus armed, struck off down the trail to the river and the boat that would take us to the island opposite the colpa. Some trees grow thorns on their trunks to protect themselves from smothering vines (see above right).

As we neared the colpa, Jhin radioed the morning team to see if there were any birds on the clay. There were, so we were dropped off at the extreme near end of the island so as not to disturb them. This led to an interesting hike that we later called Jhin’s Commando Hike.

Muddy trail and a large tree with buttress roots

Jhin had not been on the island for over a year and so immediately got lost. After climbing up the steep, muddy point, he led us through exceedingly deep mud and close stands of bamboo and other trees in search of the trail. After 20 minutes of hard going, in which our boots were repeatedly sucked off, we came to what appeared to be a dead end. A 6- or 8-foot pile of driftwood blocked our forward motion. Seemingly undaunted, Jhin climbed to the top of the pile and motioned us to follow. We did, under protest. Remember, we are each carrying a stool and clipboard as well as our hiking stick . . . and this EW tour of duty was rated “easy.”

Jhin and Sally on a later Commando Hike

The driftwood pile stretched the length of a football field, so was fertile ground for a twisted ankle or broken leg. But, Jhin bounced up and down on the logs before we stepped onto them, and I thought this a gallant effort to see if they were sturdy enough to hold our weight. No so. When we finally got off them—into the worst quagmire yet— Jhin said that he was bouncing on the logs to scare off snakes. I think maybe he was pulling our leg.

When we finally got off the driftwood, Jhin told us to wait while he scouted for the trail. While waiting, I took the photos below just to verify the terrain we were wallowing, slogging, and hacking our way through—yes hacking. Jhin had to use his machete more than once to clear a path.

All told, it took us 45 minutes to reach the impatiently waiting morning team (intensive 6-hour shifts are tiring). We gave them instructions about how to get back to the waiting boat, but they really didn’t need any. They could easily follow our boot holes.

Later we heard that they had a much easier time of it as they knew where the trail was. Even so, my roomie, Kathy, twisted her ankle, which laid her up for several days. She stayed at TRC and input data on the computer during her convalescence.

The colpa station

Finally at our station set up in the heat and humidity

To heck with the hat, boots, and socks. It is just too hot. We heard many gruesome bug stories, but none about hookworm or any that entered one’s feet through the soil 

Alice and Jhin scoping out the birds across the water on the colpa; notice how sweat-drenched they are. We all wear long sleeves and hats to protect us from burrowing and biting bugs

 After the initial groups of birds, it began to slack off on the colpa. Two heavy rainstorms passed through also, lessening the numbers on the clay. But, this gave us time to take photos and to look at other birds in the area.

Airplane Grasshopper. It flew with
a flash of white

Along with chestnut-fronted and the large macaws, we observed cobalt-winged parrots, Violaceous Jays, and Purplish Jays as well as two blue-throated piping guans and ruddy and pale-vented pigeons on the colpa. We also saw a ringed kingfisher near its nest hole in the clay bank, and on our side of the river, Greater and Smooth-billed Ani’s, Great Kiskadee, Tropical Kingbirds, Fork-tailed Palm Swifts, and the tedious, repeated call of the Undulated Tinamou—whoo whoo-whoo, whoo whoo-whoo, whoo whoo-whoo on a rising note.

Large, long-legged spider and Undulated Tinamou; tinamous are heard much more often than they are seen

The spotting scope pointing toward section 3C of the colpa; unknown species of butterfly alights on the spotting scope

Purplish Jay (Cyanocorax cyanomelas); snuggling Smooth-billed Ani's (Crotophaga ani); Greater Ani (Crotophaga major); Internet photos 

Violaceous Jay (Cyanocorax violaceous) in cecropia tree; Forked-tailed Palm Swift 

At five we radioed for the bote bote, and at 5:20pm we finally heard our boat chugging toward the island. Since there were no birds on the clay, the boat could come close to our observation site, saving us the difficult hike back to the point. It pulled up to a little river bisecting the island a short hike from us. This river is purported to have caimens on it further up, but I never got a chance to explore it. Never saw a caimen on the entire trip. The river runs too high and fast for them and we did not see any on our next-to-last day at the oxbow lake.

Adrian and his team of tree climbers had been monitoring the three macaw nests on the island, so they piled into the boat with us. We were all hot and tired and very grateful to be going toward a shower and supper.

The bote bote coming to get us

A tired Adrian and Alice; Jhin and the boat captain enjoy their common language after a long afternoon 

I look mad but am really only hot and tired on the way back to  TRC

After supper, Alan gave us a PowerPoint presentation on the Macaw Research Project, explaining that a range of animals come to satisfy their need for salt or the soothing effects of the clay along the river banks of the region. These clay licks provide a regular wildlife spectacle that forms one of the fundamental attractions of the rainforests. It seems that geophagy in vertebrates may be due to all of the following factors:

-- Adsorption of toxic plant compounds onto clay particles and gastrointestinal protection

-- Mineral supplementation

--The clay minerals in the soil possibly alleviating stomach upset or diarrhea

-- Mechanical enhancement of digestion

My eyes were so tired after staring through the binoculars all afternoon that I could barely bring the slides into focus. Alan had scarcely clicked off his computer before I was in bed (about 9 pm), having first laid out all that I would need in the morning.