Other than the amphibians and reptiles post, which will be coming soon, I have covered the 2013 summer trip to the Firestone Center for Restoration Ecology. Here are two final pics and one of the scenery that greeted me when I got home to Oslo, Norway.
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Getting through all the pics from this summer at the FCRE. I have covered all the topics I wanted to cover except one, and I am not quite ready with the photographs and IDs to do it. Coming up in the next couple of days I want to do something on the amphibians and reptiles of the FCRE. But until then there are still a few interesting photos to have a look at. I should mention that the rainy season had arrived pretty much the day we arrived. The locals told us it had been wonderful weather, and then we brought the rain with us. Well, the rain was coming with or without us, but usually it starts a week or two later. For the most part during the whole time I was there it would start raining between three and five in the afternoon, and stop raining between eight and ten at night. But a couple times we had major thunderstorms roll over us. These tend to have a very well-defined front edge, and can be seen coming if you have the right vantage point and can be heard approaching as well by the loud sound of rain hitting the forest canopy. This summer there are a number of student science projects going on at the FCRE, plus the random stuff that needs done. Or, at times, just something that piques the curiosity and is worth a look at (see the last couple pics for one such amusing thing). First up is Devyn and the photo-trapping project. She has set up arrays of trail cams to study the movements of animals on the property. And finally, a project that only just came up on this trip. We were surveying a stream on the property, and it ended at a spring. That is not so unusual. But this area had some soil piping (soil moving underground) and at the upper end of such things there was a small hole. It was about 8-feet deep, had a small stream at the bottom, and the entrance was just barely big enough for Don McFarlane to actually fit in it. We needed to find out if there were passages going off from the bottom of the little pit. Soooooo... Random pics tonight,
With all the rain in the evenings, there was no chance to catch some bats. Until one fine evening the skies cleared and we set out to see what bats might be flying around. It was, for the FCRE, a quiet night, with only four species found among the 17 bats caught. In the past, for comparison, I have had 14 bats in one net at the same time of five different species, which is crazy busy fun (but maybe somewhat too busy to be fun). The most common bat for the evening, was Seba's short-tailed bat (Carollia perspicillata.) There were also a couple Chestnut short-tailed bats (Carollia castanea) which I did not photograph. These bats eat fruit, and show it with that big, broad nose and big eyes (you have to see and smell ripe fruit). However, they will also eat insects and pollen, so like many such bats, they are a bit more omnivorous and less easily classified as to what they eat than a cookie-cutter "fruit bats." When not dealing with the Carollia masses, I found a few of the small Thomas's Fruit-eating bats (Artibeus watsoni) had arrived. These bats look quite different, but have a fairly similar feeding arrangement. Another difference is that Carollia like a good cave, tree hollow, or similar while A. watsoni prefers to roost under foliage. Next up is Pallas's long-tongued bat (Glossophaga soricina), It is a nectar bat, so somewhat like a hummingbird. It can hover in flight and use its long tongue to lap up nectar from deep inside flowers. But it is also to some extent a generalist, as it will eat fruit and insects. And I while did find these bats the next morning, I am including the photo here as relevant... A few more pics for funlllll. And for a big finish...
This post has no rhyme or reason. Just a couple more photos from the FCRE.
The FCRE is 150 acres, plus or minus, and it abuts the Hacienda Baru, which is a bit over 800 acres. Hacienda Baru is a nature lodge with cabins and a restaurant, and one day we went there for dinner (which was excellent). I spent a few minutes trolling around their gardens for things to take pictures of, and the results follow. You can find out more about the Hacienda Baru at:
http://www.haciendabaru.com/ Mostly I am interested in animals. But plants and fungi at the FCRE can be interesting...to a point. A couple pics of such. And that's all I have on that for now. So next up is a more interesting exercise. You have thirty seconds to figure out what this is... So do you have it figured out? I'll give you another moment. This lump is... Another planthopper (two more obvious ones have been posted recently). This is one furry critter, and is facing right. An eye can just barely be seen at full size. So, after that, time to see some millipedes, more obvious than the previous. A while back I published a pic of a bee looking out of the nest. And to continue that bit, I have found more similar pics. And now just a few more pics And to finish tonight.
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Keith Christenson Wildlife Biologist Archives
September 2021
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