In Search of Frogs

I hate that I lost the majority of my lost post. It gave a lot of info about my daily life. I don't have time to attempt to redo it at this time so, oh well!

In a few hours I will be heading off to one of the satellite (sat) camps for the night. I've got most of my stuff packed and ready to go. It's about a two hour hike to the remote location where we will set up camp. This allows us to do some research and surveys at more remote locations that are harder to get to. Tonight we will be looking for different frogs that aren't found in the areas closer to camp. We will also set up some mist nets and tomorrow we will work on birds. I think that pretty much we see what birds we can get in the nets, measure and photograph them, then band them and release. That's what we did with the bats, except for the banding part. The bats were sent on their way sans bands.

I'm excited about the trip! I've really enjoyed the frog things. We actually had a grad student here from UT researching a specific frog and its call. I actually got to go out with her one night and "help" I pretty much just helped video tape them and carry some stuff. However, while she and her friend were doing the audio taping, Germania (staff member) and I did our own little frog survey. It was really neat to walk down a stream at night and see the life of the rainforest. I saw a huge butterfly sleeping under a leaf, a little bird tucked in for the night, huge spiders looking for a meal, the beady eyes of the little shrimp, and so much more! It's truely amazing what I'm seeing. Just the other night the whole group of 15 was out for an intro night stream walk. On the way back I was just shining my light all around, looking for whatever when I spotted a snake just inches from my face. I was at the end of the line and the whole group had walked past without even knowing what was there!

I hate to always cut things so short but we keep busy and there is so much to do. I hope to have a chance to elaborate and add pictures during a trip to Coca Aug. 1-4.

Just a small disclaimer: please excuse any typos or errors in my posts. I am rushing through this and whereas I totally appreciate my iPhone, it's not the easiest to type on. I know how to spell monkeys and when to use commas, etc. So please don't think less of me if something slips by. I'm not proof-reading!

Thank you for you comments, it's good to hear from home. I'm having a rough time being away from my family so a friendly word goes a long way!