The owner of the Campanario Biological Station, Nancy Aitken, decided that since we had the cave entrance rigged it would be an opportunity for her to check on her bats personally.  Nancy is amazing in a lot of ways, truly one of the best of the best, but most of her visits to the cave are for taking students and other visitors to the station to see the bat flight in the evening from benches above the entrance, not going down to the cave.

The cave itself is, for the most part, a place very few should visit.  The wildlife watching opportunity outside the entrance, is something not to be missed.  The cave is obviously an important breeding site for Pteronotus in Costa Rica, and for the most part they will continue to do just fine without anyone entering the cave.  While watching the bat flight is really fun and doesn't bother the bats at all.  It's a win-win.

So we went out one afternoon at low tide, and after finishing up with our work and pulling out Guy's ammonia sampler, Nancy got to check on her bats.  Now I am not going to tell you her age, but let's just say most with that many candles on their cake would not be dropping down a rope to visit a hot, stinky cave with the surf pounding away on the rocks just a few feet away.  Actually most anyone, of any age, race, gender, country of origin, or shoe size would not visit this place voluntarily.  But here is Nancy climbing out after getting a look at the cave and the bats.  Truly remarkable lady in every way.

And, just really want to thank Nancy here for all her wonderful hospitality.  She made this part of our trip work super smoothly and was just wonderful to hang out with and hear her stories.  Hope to return and spend more time out there at some point as Campanario was a real treat to visit.

Anytime we are out, any chance to find some more bats is a worthy goal.  Nancy told us that they had seen bats inside a hollow tree on the property so we decided to hike out there and take a look.  

No, that isn't really a Keebler Elf, but our hero Don McFarlane crawling in.  Access is through what is actually a hollow root, that leads to a cavity in the middle of the tree.  Sadly there were no bats, nor did he run into any of the myriad of fun critters that could have been living in such a place.

At the end of the cave one comes to a climb of maybe 8 feet.  This looks climbable, although not super easy.  But we ran into what might more be called a biological obstacle.  The entire climb was covered with a mountain of baby bats.  Lots and lots of baby bats.  

I was the first one into the cave when we got here so as to be able to assess what was going on with the bats.  There is a kinda low-ish spot right before the final room where you then stand up and are almost eye to eye with a whole lot of bat pups.  Odd the pups were down this low instead of on the ceiling, but...  It certainly was hot enough even down that low.  We took a temperature reading on the ceiling where the huge colony of adults was and it was a stunning 99.7 degrees F.  

There are three known species of bats in the cave, all in the genus Pteronotus.  I may be able to tell which species this pup mountain consists of, but that will wait until I get home and can work out the structures that separate them using the macro photos as I didn't handle any bats as that wasn't our purpose here.

Oh, macro photos?  Let's take a look at the bats from just a little closer.

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And just to show how absolutely adorable baby bats are, let's get right in close

Okay, just one quick image of the ceiling roost as well.  Of note, that is almost all I've got in the way of such images.  In a cave that hot, with humidity almost certainly 100%, camera lenses fog up very fast.  Plus their is a rather unpleasant rain in the cave, that is the rain created as all those bats are peeing and pooping and you are in between it and the floor.  Suffice it to say that when I went in to specifically photograph the whole colony, which takes three photos, I came out absolutely covered in, well, unpleasant stuff.  But also so was my camera and camera lens and flash covered.  Spent quite a while cleaning things later but still had to abandon one lens filter as it won't be clean enough to use again until after I get home.

So here is one of the shots looking up before everything was covered in fog and bat droppings.  

One of the primary reasons we were interested in this cave was to sample the ammonia levels under what is one of the larger colonies of cave bats in Costa Rica.  To do this required Guy to build essentially from scratch a tripod-mounted sampler that had five chambers that opened and closed at a programmable interval.  Got that?  

So what happens is that each of the five tubes near the top is spring-loaded, and you push one down and load an ammonia absorber into it.  Then you do that for the other four.  Guy previously hooked this up to his laptop and programmed in for the thing to work so that each tube was open for a couple hours before closing again, giving five samples over the course of a day.  Also key was that at that point we had to go and change the absorbers and it would hopefully be low tide.  The tide charts were consulted and Guy programmed his contraption to be timed with the tides as well.

So off we went at low tide, which was of course quite late at night when all the good people of the world should have been asleep.  At the cave entrance Guy got the thing out and ready to go.

Next was to lower it to the bottom and get it inside before a wave could come crashing in and soak it.

And finally, Guy installed it in the cave and checked things over and all was good I in the world.

For all intents and purposes, this was as far into the cave as we could go.  The climb right behind Guy was un-climbable, but we could actually see the end of the cave from there once we got a stepladder into the cave later.  Wait...climb was un-climbable...you had a stepladder in the cave...and...didn't use the ladder to do the climb???

All true.  It wasn't unclimbable due to the structure of the cave or it being too high.  Depending on which direction you are reading my blog you either know why, or the next post will answer exactly that question.

While at Campanario I saw white-face capuchins and howler monkeys (which of course were also heard howling).  But this sleepy monkey was high in a tree and at the time I wasn't able to hang around and hope for a better look at it.  So while Don asserts with British certitude that it is a howler, it sure looks like it only has 4 fingers which would make it a spider monkey.  So, here is one to guess at.

Every time I post an image of a great blue heron, I say it will be my last.  And then I post another one.  In order to fix this I shall hereby state that this will not be my last great blue heron image, as for some reason I just keep coming up with reasons to post pictures of them.

This most patient bird was on the beach right in front of the Campanario Biological Station.  And it would stand there for long periods of time, while only once catching a fish.  It ate a couple little things it found near the rocks at one point, but it's fish to time ratio was pretty relaxed.

Now what does a person do when they are at the ocean and a larger than average wave comes in?  Toss up their hands and let it go by, right?  Now what does a great blue heron do when they are at the ocean and a larger than average wave comes in?  Here is the answer...

Also on the beach was a spotted sandpiper.  Not sure if it is resident or heading north.

And finally, to end on a colorful note, I ran into this shining honeycreeper down the shore a ways.  Quite stunning birds and must say I didn't do a great job capturing the colors, but what a striking bird to see.

And just to make up for all those creepies in the last post, here is an absolutely gorgeous bare-throated tiger heron.  It was sitting in a tree near the cave entrance at one point while I was there.  Guessing here, but probably as the bat guano washes out of the cave it creates a bit of a feast for the local crab population, and that would attract herons.  True or not, that's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

Well, it's that time again.  My blog is widely known as a good place to see some creepy stuff.  These aren't super creepy I suppose, but I'll put them all up here for the lovers of cool animals that may or may not be the most friendly.

First up, let's just get this one out of the way.  As it was, quite literally, in my way on the trail I was walking.  When I asked about how common the fer de lance was in the area I was told that not all that long ago a female had apparently given birth nearby as they were seeing a lot of small ones.  And so I was hoping to see one, and sure enough there was a small one right on the edge of the path.  Pretty snakes, but best to see them and not step on them as they can be a bit aggressive.

Not too far from the snake I found another of those things that make wearing open-toed shoes a less than stellar idea.  This scorpion (Centruroides sp.) was tucked in up against a root, so not an amazing photo.  In general if you startle these guys they duck into a hole or under a rock so I just let him be and got the best photo I could.  I pretty much don't move or bother the things I photograph, even when I can't get the photo I would like.  I'm not working with the animal so no need to bother it other than with a photo.

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One of the most common things out there were spiders.  How do I know?  Well many species have eyes that reflect in my headlamp at night and in places there were many dozens of them looking at me.  Some nice big ones, too.  Not the eyes that were big, but the spiders.

This spider was one of several large ones I saw on tree trunks.  Many others were on the ground and there were some truly enormous web-making spiders (Nephila clavipes) as well.

One fairly fascinating animal I saw was a tail-less whip scorpion (Family: Amblypygidae).  These are pretty harmless, although they look wicked and I suppose if you grabbed one those spines on the pedipalps might give you a good poke.

One of the last things I saw wasn't creepy in the usual sense, more prehistoric-looking.  Some of the lizards can be quite interesting to look at up close.  I haven't had any time to identify this one yet, but it was very attractive and was found sleeping on a palm leaf.  Sorry to wake you up my friend, but a quick photo and you can go back to dreaming reptile dreams.

The first thing we did upon arrival at Campanario was to take a walk to the bat cave and rig a rope for access.  It's a sea cave so we really weren't sure how easy (or not) it would be to get in there.

At the entrance Guy rigged a rope that could be used either for rappelling or as a handline depending on how difficult it would be.  Sometimes rocks can be quite slippery, and nice to have the rappel option.  Don gave it a quick try and found that it worked okay as a handling as things weren't slick and there were a few foothold in there.

The other key factor here would be how much water comes in when a big wave hits.  It was mid-tide and so generally dry, but we quickly learned that it would be best to plan on getting wet.

From this little bit, we decided to mostly try and time our visits to the cave around low tide.  

We have just returned from Campanario Biological Station in southwestern Costa Rica.  One extremely nice place to stay and study things run by the most amazing Nancy Aitken.  I want to thank Nancy right up front for all the hospitality and help with our bat cave work and making the whole trip work out so well.  And as a side note, the food is so good there that as a caver one might start to worry about adding a few pounds and not fitting through everything they used to if you stay too long.

I can't write a whole description of the place, but you may visit their website to learn more about this field station

https://www.campanario.org/

We took a boat out of Sierpe, down through the mangroves along the river, and out into the Pacific ocean.  Bit of rough water right where the river meets the sea, but our boat captain circled until he saw a gap in the wave pattern and got us through with minimal bashing about.  Kudos to him, as he really knows how to read the water.

At Campanario it is a wet landing, as in there is no dock they just back the boat up to the black sand beach and you jump out.

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Mostly all this is stuff chucked on your shoulder or hand carried to dry ground.  For some reason Don seems to have thought this was a luxury tourist resort and, well, ended up trawling his wheeled luggage across the sand.

The Station itself I can not do justice to in a photo.  It maintains a small footprint with maximum usefulness, so pretty unassuming when seen from the beach.  But oh yeah, they've got it all worked out very nicely and working here was super easy.  And did I mention that the food was amazing?  

And it didn't take long to see some wildlife.  This red-tailed squirrel was bopping around in the trees beside the Station and cute as can be.  Things were now in place to spend a couple days figuring out the nearby bat cave and hiking some trails to see some wildlife.

My internet has been pretty iffy but that squirrel photo looks great in my files but terrible here to me.  I'll check and upload it again later.