Day 6 -- Morning Nest Box Monitoring

Saturday, February 9

Each morning at 4am Maximo lights one of the kerosene lamps in the window between our bedroom and the porch. This is to alert  the person who has morning duty. He lights both if both have morning duty. Since Kathy and I never had morning duty together, we tried not to wake the other when we got up at 4am. After awhile, I had a pretty good routine, but several times both of us forgot to take our towel or bottled water or something else we needed to the distant bathroom. Without the bottled water, we could not brush our teeth The water from the spigot was not potable.

Anyhow, on this morning it was my turn to get up and monitor a PVC nest with Sheila. It had rained hard all night and there was still thunder and lightning when I awoke. Also nearby howler monkeys creating their haunting booming calls. Morning claylick duty was cancelled, but not so nest box monitoring. Sheila and I gathered our breakfasts, donned our gear and ponchos, and Fino led us in the dark on the wet, muddy hike to the site.

Once there, we had a good, quiet morning under our lean-to. Data collection was not as tough as it had seemed during our training, and because Sheila had pet macaws, she could often help interpret what was on the screen or help me distinguish between the adult and the chick. The chicks were just about to fledge, so looked exactly like adults . . .  except that their pupils were larger. Now try to see that at 100 feet.

Fino came to get us at 11:30, and we returned to TRC for showers and lunch. We got halfway down the trail when I realized that I’d left my camera hanging on my chair. Fino volunteered to go back. When he returned, he handed me a pen. Poor guy’s Portuguese to English is a bit rough, and he thought I’d sent him all the way back to retrieve a pen! Something got lost in the translation. He and I went back together and got the camera.

 

Post lunch coffee and time to update my bird sightings

When we got back to the Center, on entering my room, I found that the Chicos had been in the room and pooped on my socks and a shirt; thus, after lunch, I went to the wash area and washed my socks, shirt and a couple of other items and hung them on the staff line rather than the room line to foil the dirty birds.

Only three of us went on the hike to the overlook (top of the colpa)--me Sheila, and Richard. We saw another three-striped poison dart frog, more of the darling dusky titi monkeys, some naked men . . . . Ooops! We’d just come to the river from the trail as they were bathing in it and washing their clothes.

Dusky Titi Monkeys

Views from the top of the colpa; yes that is a macaw on the wing

 I took some more photos of the wonderful lobster claw heliconia flowers.

Richard called in Ruddy Ground-Dove, Chestnut-bellied Seedeater, Black-and-White Seedeater, White-necked Thrush, Tawny-bellied Screech Owl, Tropical Kingbirds, Thrush-like Schiffornis.

Thrush-like Shiffornis; White-necked Thrush

Chestnut-bellied Seedeater; Tropical Kingbird

Black-and-white Seedeater; Tawny-bellied Screech Owl.
We saw and heard this bird often woo woo woo woo woo wu-wu-wu