Rains and wrapping up

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 storm was coming in from the right. It was not raining in the area you see in the left of the photo, and you would practically need SCUBA gear if you were on the right side.

Thirty minutes later, the storm had gone through and the little stream that flows below the field house became a raging river.

But life goes on, as the things living there is adapted to seasons with lot of rain and flooding rivers. Here is a red-bordered stink bug (Edessa rufomarginata) sunning itself near the top of the property.

This was a very beefy moth, with two horn-like structures on the shoulders.

Close-up shot of the face of the moth.

And of course another butterfly sleeping at night. Oddly, every time I post one of these someone asks me how I know it is sleeping...