Bird Survey on Sierpe Viejo Canal

Getting up early at 4 in the morning was a challenge for the team as Mark and Karen stayed up all night writing their BTEC assignments. We had breakfast, porridge as usual, then had to get our gear together including water bottles, rain proofs and binoculars for spotting the target species. We walked through the forest to the location where the boat was waiting for our arrival. We gathered and got into the boat and were then driven to the Ranger Station to pick up the canoe. The canoe was put onto the boat and driven up the river to the canal where we dropped off the canoe and started the survey. Once in the canoe, we spotted a few species including the Northern Jacana, Great Blue Heron and a good spot by Mark who spotted a Green Kingfisher, what a guy!

We carried on further up the canal and arrived at a reed bed that we had to row through. This exciting but hard-going section of the canal took 20 minutes to pass through but with Mark and Steven’s unique strength we had the man power to fight our way through the reeds with no mercy (no birds were harmed in the making of this!)

We arrived at the dense and overgrown area of the canal where we had to use Karen’s super sonar navigation eyes to prevent us from getting stuck on the floating logs and fallen trees. We arrived at an area of the canal where we saw 9 Boat-billed Herons, some of which were nesting and building their nests. Karen spotted one Boat-billed Heron that had a stick in it's beak that indicated the building of a nest and was recorded on the survey. After recording the species, we went further on and came to an impassable section of the canal due to a tree that seemed to have been pulled down, blocking our path. We decided to call it a day but the jungle manly madness took over and we decided to find a way through. Assassin Alex pulled his rugged knife from his veiny shin and Ramboed his way through the fallen tree. We all held our breath in amazement and idolized him from the back of the canoe, (what a guy!).

After the passage way was clear, we canoed our way through the humid, compact, jagged and overpowering tunnel under the remaining tree. We got through and with Grace getting a slap in the face by a branch, we were free to meander on through the canal. We had a quick toilet break in the bushes where Assassin Alex encountered a suspected Agami Heron that flew into the undergrowth. We got to the end of the survey and we had to head back. We rowed and sing and made a great rowing team almost good enough for the Olympics with Assassin Alex steering at the back (what a guy!). We traveled back down the canal and headed back through the dense reeds and painfully all the way back to the boat where we met Holly and James. We traveled back to the Ranger Station where we gave back the canoe and Karen almost got decapitated by the boat. (No humans were harmed in the making of this).

-Karen and Mark, GVI Interns

Bird Survey on Sierpe Viejo Canal

2012 Off to a Good Start

Boat-billed Herons, Lineated Woodpeckers, Parachuting Red-Eyed Tree Frogs and Purple Gallinules. 2012 is kicking off with a lot of exciting things that would have sounded totally foreign and bizarre to the volunteers just a couple weeks ago. Nevertheless, people have not only already gotten accustomed to the rustic living/heat/humidty/insects but have made it through all of the first aid training and eagerly embraced the surveys that started this week. Already, all the volunteers have participated in various surveys including our Biological Assessments in the jungle, canal bird surveys, and jaguar track surveys on the beach, not to mention general duties such as trail clearing and building a covered outdoor structure to enjoy the open air at night. Tomorrow, the first group of the phase will take part in the first Jag Walk, walking 15 miles on the beach to the town of Tortuguero, collecting data on Jaguar activity. So far we have been largely problem-free which is quite nice! And needless to say, people have been very excited about the work so it's looking like it'll be an especially productive phase.

Some exciting things that have happened recently have included the arrival of a new diesel generator which has been much more reliable and fuel-efficient than the previous machine and the arrival of a car battery which enables us to carry out moth surveys in the forest where the types of moths we're looking for reside, instead of being limited to the length of our extension cord. Also, it was decided to attempt a bird survey on Sierpe Viejo this morning, a canal that has been utterly impassible due to reeds blanketing the water's surface. To everyone's surprise, the attempt was successful, and another blog will be posted shortly about their adventure this morning. Aside from that, we have an opossum attempting to call our kitchen and staff house it's home, and an Eyelash Viper that did call the quad-bike shed home for an unknown amount of time! Both have been dealt with properly fortunately!

A group of volunteers on a BAS survey

Additionally, preparations are underway for some environmental education classes in the elementary school of Parismina, a small town on the way to Jalova. 70+ students will participate in group activities relating to relevant environmental studies such as jungle animals, marine life, food chains, etc. The hope is to have monthly classes starting in February, and we're all excited to start reaching out to the community like we've been wanting to. Along the lines of community outreach, we also have completed our first bilingual newsletter called La Voz de la Selva (The Voice of the Forest) and are in the process of distributing them throughout the area.

Like normal, we have quite a diverse group of people on base at the moment. There are people from the US, Australia, Canada, the UK, and like usual a great deal of cultural exchange is happening. We have people putting sugar and lemon on their pancakes that have only ever considered using maple syrup! We're talking about major breakthroughs here!! Regardless of their origin, everyone is quite pleased with the nice weather we've had lately. Most days have been beautiful and sunny, a welcome change from the end of last phase which was very wet indeed. We never know what the near future will hold while living in the jungle but thus far it seems as though we have a strong start to the phase and promising things to come! Stay tuned!

-Kevin, field staff

2012 Off to a Good Start

First week back at El Cocal.

We hit the ground running back at El Cocal this week!

Our new volunteers are super happy to be here and doing a great job.  Their Spanish is coming along in leaps and bounds with their intensive Spanish course coming in really handy in trying to work out what the little ones are saying.

 Our summer school has been a big hit, particularly with the younger kids. Gemmeke and Miriam have been starting the morning of with some sports, then giving some English classes and finally some practice with maths and reading.  The kids have learnt the body parts, colours and animals in English this week. They also created some very imaginative stories inspired by hippos and pandas.

Our kinder is up and running again, now with 10 kids. It has been great to see how quickly they have developed in such a short time. Little Jesus is actually using words now…hooray. Courtney has been doing a great job working with them and developing their hand eye co-ordination and teaching them basic vocabulary.

After a successful first week in the community the volunteers had a great first weekend in Manuel Antonio, culminating on Sunday evening with a lovely bonfire and impromptu salsa lesson on the beach!

Here’s to a great weekend and hopefully another great week to come...

Community program staff - Quepos

First week back at El Cocal.

New Year, Fresh Faces, Exciting Times

A very happy new year from everyone working in the Caribbean rainforest of Tortuguero National Park. 9 very happy staff members returned to the base in Jalova this week to start preparations for the first volunteers of 2012 to arrive in just a few days time. Things have obviously been very calm in the area since we left for our vacation as capuchin monkeys have decided to set up home in the grapefruit tree to the rear of base and a couple of opossums were found in the kitchen (don’t worry, we have thoroughly cleaned after them). We were also relieved to see that there was no standing water left on base as things have no returned to their gloriously sunny best (but will it last?).

2012 is going to be an exciting one. We now welcome James Guilder to the staff team, an inhabitant of our previous base at Caño Palma. It’s great to see that he’s returned, although it did take him 5 years. Also our interns, Leo, Zach and Yannie, are refreshed from their Christmas holiday and also fluent in Spanish from their language lessons in the Nicaraguan town of Estelí. With Rich, Loraine, Alex, Benji and Kevin returning for the start of this year we are all ready to go. All we need now are some volunteers…

-Rich, Base Manager

New Year, Fresh Faces, Exciting Times

Summer School launch....

The GVI staff team hopes you all had a great Christmas and new years over this holiday season!  Thank you to all of our 2011 volunteers who have helped us out so much over the year- hopefully we will see some of you again!

We are back to work in Quepos and El Cocal again getting everything ready for our summer school.  The kids are on vacation until the end of February, so we wanted to give them something fun and educational to do during their holiday.

Our summer school program, ‘Vacaciones Utiles’ will be starting on Monday, offering kids free English classes, sports and art activities as well as reinforcement for  reading and maths, we don’t want them forgetting what they have learned over the past school year!

Our kinder program will also be kicking off next Monday with 5 more kids signed up!

With 7 new volunteers arriving this Saturday I’m sure we will be off to a great start! Here’s to 2012!

Quepos Community Program Staff.

Summer School launch....

Incidental Animal Sightings Closing for the Year

A Rufous-tailed Hummingbird on base

We see a lot of animals on our various surveys, and exciting as it is, it’s to be expected because we’re out there looking for them. Fortunately, there are so many animals in Tortuguero National Park that we see them even when we’re not out on a survey. This is where our Incidentals project comes in. It answers the question: “What kinds of animals do we incidentally see in our everyday lives in Jalova?” It helps us to understand the abundance and diversity of the animals in the park because incidentals are recorded in various places including the beach, forest and on base, and are recorded at any time in the day.

Phase 114, the last phase of 2011, yielded some impressive results in our Incidentals database. This was fueled by the presence of volunteers and interns who were very passionate about learning as much as they could about the animals in the area and would use their spare time to ID birds or anoles or frogs. In this last phase alone we recorded 1,884 individuals split into 239 different species, quite a high number even for Costa Rica. In fact, this is even more species than what was recorded during our Biological Assessment Surveys, for understandable reasons described below.

Birds accounted for the majority of the incidentals, because of the fact that many different birds are visible from base, and are some of the most easily seen animals. If we sit and wait on our porch, various birds will come to feed on the plants that are nearby, whereas the amphibians and mammals are much more elusive. We counted 160 different species of bird, almost 4 times the number of the second place category: reptiles (at 42 species). Third was mammals at 21 species and last was amphibians at 16.

In addition to spotting these many different species, several species were recorded this phase for the first time this year. We were able to add various birds such as the Swainson’s Thrush, Crimson-fronted Parakeet, Gray Catbird, and Cinnamon Becard, as well as several mammals including the West Indian Manatee and Kinkajou, in addition to several reptiles including the Carpenter’s Anole and the Common Bluntheaded Snake.

Our Incidentals database will continue to grow as we live in the National Park, and this phase was definitely another strong step forward.
-Kevin, Expedition Field Staff

Incidental Animal Sightings Closing for the Year

Jaguar Camera Traps: A Tale of Jungle Paparazzi

A Jaguar smelling our scent station

Ok, so we’re not selling these pictures to the tabloids, but we easily could because this phase was absolutely outstanding for our Jaguar camera-trapping project. We never really know how successful a given camera trap will be because the Jaguar(s) have to use that specific path and also stroll by slowly enough for the camera to catch a clear shot, and both are things we have only limited control over. Nonetheless, we had a huge amount of luck this last phase of 2011!

Our cameras spent a total of 106 nights out on the trails, active and waiting for animals. Throughout these nights, the cameras took a huge amount of pictures, yielding 86 pictures of 6 different Jaguars. Not only is this a very high number, it also was enough material to discover several key things. Perhaps most importantly, 2 new Jaguars were identified, bringing the total number of different individuals that GVI is aware of to 9. This is quite a large increase for 1 phase and is extremely useful information. Additionally, we had 11 recaptures, meaning that we’re now able to know a lot more about how far they move from day to day and even within a single night, and also which ones come back to this area the most. One individual, referred to as Luca by GVI, was captured a total of 6 times, giving us very insightful data into his behavior and activities.

We decided to try the video-capture feature of our cameras this phase, something that we had tried before but experienced frustrating and disappointing results over and over. However, we had amazing luck, and captured 11 videos with incredible clarity (see several posts ago for an awesome clip!) One thing that helped this work was the use of “scent stations,” something Benji, our Jaguar project leader, learned from Panthera. The cologne Calvin Klein: Obsession was sprayed onto a rag and stuck to a stick to attract Jaguars. It sounds ridiculous but it actually works! We captured several good videos of Jaguars not only stopping to smell it but pawing at it, rubbing their face and neck in it, and overall clearly being attracted to it!

Aside from the spectacular Jaguar footage, we also captured various pictures of other animals that happened to wander past such as Deer, Great Curassow (a big bird), an Agouti with babies, and even an Ocelot! Needless to say, this was a fantastic phase for our Jaguar camera-trapping project.

-Kevin, Expedition Field Staff

Jaguar Camera Traps: A Tale of Jungle Paparazzi

Turtles Done Nesting, Jaguars Done Feasting, People Done Walking

Jaguar tracks on Tortuguero beach

Our GVI-Jalova Biological Station in Tortuguero National Park helps to provide field data on a variety of different conservation areas, but a select few stand out because of scarcity of such data collection around the world. Perhaps the best example of this is the jaguar predation of sea turtles that is witnessed every year on the beaches of Tortuguero. The sheer number of jaguars identified, along with the fact that the predation of sea turtles is quite a new phenomenon, makes this project particularly important and exciting. This is why we walked a total of 123 miles this phase alone, recording information on this topic.

We were able to conduct 9 “Jag Walks” over the phase, each one beginning at our base in Jalova at the south end of the park and ending in the town of Tortuguero at the north end of the park. 3 Jaguars were actually seen by participants during these walks, and jaguar footprints were seen on every walk. In fact, the footprints were found in nearly every part of the 15-mile section and many of the subsections had more than one individual that had walked there the previous night. Even though we’ve been here for almost 2 years, the prevalence of Jaguars still amazes us.

The beginning of the phase had quite a high number of jaguar-predated Sea Turtles, with 48 being found in total (all of them Green Sea Turtles). As the turtle nesting season slowed down, so did the amount of predated turtles. We still made some good discoveries though, even as the turtles became more and more rare. We have been finding quite a lot of scat samples on the beach, which is a rare place to find Jaguar scat. Some have included bones and hair of various animals, and one even contained sea turtle hatchlings, something never before documented. In the New Year we are looking to work with an organization called Panthera which will help us tremendously in analyzing these samples.

As the months go by, we continue to learn more and more about the jaguar predation of sea turtles, and this phase didn’t disappoint in the least for this research.

-Kevin, Expedition Field Staff

Turtles Done Nesting, Jaguars Done Feasting, People Done Walking

Happy New Year Tico style...

We hope everyone had a fabulous New Years Eve full of fun and merriment!

New Years Eve is just as big in Costa Rica as anywhere else, with parties on the beach, family gatherings, music and  food.

But if you want an epic party the place to be is Las Fiestas de Zapote, just south east of San Jose. It is a party of all things Costa Rican, from rodeos and cowboys to loud music and alcohol. 

Las Fiestas de Zapote marks the end of the year and is basically a four-day-long New Year's Eve celebration. 

If you are spending New Year in Costa Rica don't expect a huge roast dinner. Due to the heat the traditional New Year's eve meal of choice is tamales filled with spiced pork. You can see them being made around town and people putting up signs on their house that they have the best tamales for sale.

The Ticos also love their fireworks and fire crackers, you can hear them day and night for the whole month of December! It takes a while of getting used to but certainly puts you in the spirit.

Like all Latin American countries there is a healthy dose of superstition and tradition rolled into the festivities.

Here are some examples of of Tico New Year superstitions:

1.     Want to get a fresh start and remove evil from the past, spend the day of the 31^st sweeping them out of your house.

2.     To ensure all bad events are behind you, put water in a pan and throw it over your shoulder.

3.     Wearing yellow on New Year’s eve is said to bring good luck.

4.     To add a little spice, wear red underwear this will ensure your love life takes off over the next 12 months.

5.    If you want more travel in your life over the next year, take your luggage and walk around your house 2 times.

6.     Eating 12 grapes at midnight will grant you 12 wishes and good luck.

 Enjoy... and if you made a New Year's resolution try and stick to it for at least a week!

Happy New Year Tico style...