11:03 am: We’re playing “What’s That Smell?” in the classroom, always a good pastime. Sort of doing the bird lab. I’ve stopped counting my insect bites, major one on my left middle calf. Up at 5:30, set up nets, started right away; nice hummers. We “mite blotted” a Blue-Chested hummer’s beak, adhering two mites to a piece of duct tape, which were then placed under the microscope. Lots of waiting around between checking the nets at intervals. I handled two birds, the Xenops got away before I could get wing feather length measurements. Had gallo pinto, fried plantains (good mixed together), and cereal for breakfast as well as hot chocolate. We didn’t eat until 8am (usually it’s 6ish). Had a good long sip of sugary hot chocolate. Yogurt and cheese also available for the dairy-inclined. Saw Toucans and Paraques flying this morning.

11:44 am: Went chasing after a troupe of Capuchin monkeys, saw nothing once we followed them into the trees. Good weather, mainly cloudy with sun a bit of rain, but never too much of any of them. Humid, but comfortable.

3:52 pm: Back from mark-recapture lab. I don’t suck at catching damselflies, three at once on my second attempt. I caught one Nehelenia with my bare hands, mwahahaha. Allison, Athena, Sarah and I stayed behind and caught six more, but three were already red marked. I now have red permanent ink marks on my hands. (Praying mantis on the deck right now!) I also took random plant specimens, heard Howler monkeys and Toucans, saw Turkey Vultures flying quite close. I got a photo of me in “Ecology student” mode; specimens in plastic bags spilling out of pockets, butterfly net, rubber boots, etc.
    On the walk back I got into an argument with Sarah over alternation of generations in plants, turns out I was wrong, having confused bryophyte life histories with pterophytes. The conversation was sparked by seeing a solid hedge made up of ferns. “Good thing we’re all biology geeks here.” It’s still surreal to actually be here, to look up from the water in the pond to see Orosito volcano and the pastures of Guanacaste in the background. We’re in Costa Rica, and yet it seems perfectly normal that we should be here, dressed like this, catching damselflies, while Turkey Vultures fly overhead.

4:36pm: Hung my dirty shirt and socks out on the line; they’re still wet from the walk in. My socks from the orientation hike are also still wet. Today’s socks are still dry, yay for the boots. We had a really good lunch today, Gallo Pinto, rice separate from the beans; battered and fried white fish; what looked like mashed potatoes, if you used the Costa Rican butter that’s dyed deep yellow; and something like cassava. I’m treating Gallo Pinto as more of a staple, and not a dish in itself; still not sick of it.
    I just saw two toucans, which stayed around long enough for me to get my binoculars; lime green bill, orange stripe, red tip, lemon yellow chest. Parrots are also flying overhead. The mite on the duct tape is still alive. The sun is shining, the forest looks entirely different inside and out. I’m being swarmed by lots of tiny flies, moving away now.

9:16pm: Some people are asleep, I’m writing by kerosene lantern in the classroom area. Dinner was of Gallo Pinto; a fantastic spicy veggie mix of corn, carrots, chayote, and other stuff; fried plantains, shredded cabbage and tomato salad; and leftover mashed potatoes. Everything’s better with chili vinegar and Tabasco sauce. The conversation was of summer camp, elder sibling terrorism, and whether or not “personhood” was a word. Liz says yes, and Athena backs her up from her background in Philosophical writing. Sarah and Chantal are opposed. Liz’s logic goes along the lines of “personhood”, like “manhood, womanhood, selfhood… neighbourhood”.
    We took a night walk as lightning bugs lit up the grass and bushes around the station, echoing the constellations visible in the night sky. At the end of the yard we came across a small, thin snake, reddish, slightly translucent, although we were shining a large number of flashlights at it. On an adjacent tree, we spied streams of leafcutter ants destroying and carting off the foliage. Proceeding on to the horse pond down the road, Diane taught us to look for the retinal reflections of animals using flashlights. Holding the flashlight next to your eyes you shine the light out and look along the beam to catch the eyeshine. Different animals reflect red-orange to green-blue. Moths are a bright orange.
    We walked further down the road when Heather, at the rear of the group, said “There’s a snake on the road”. A small brown snake with a triangular head was coiled right in the middle of all our boot tracks. We clustered around and Diane says it’s a Terciopelo, a Fer de Lance, most venomous snake in Central America. It moves and we jump back, giving it a wide berth as it slithers off one side of the road.
    Hopping the fence to the pond, a flashlight across the surface reveals another snake, a swimming wave of red, yellow, black, and yellow. The Coral snake, also venomous, is distinguished from it’s imposters by the order of the colours of its stripes. The mnemonic device is RANA, the name in Spanish (or Latin) for a frog, the snakes prey, which serves as an acronym for Roho, Amarillo, Negro, Amarillo, or red, yellow, black, yellow. Far better than the convoluted rhyme used in English, which I can’t recall verbatim.
    This last incident exceeded several people’s level of snake tolerance for one evening, so they headed back to the station on their own in a tightly knit cluster. The rest of us proceeded to catch frogs by listening for their calls, walking towards them until they stopped calling, then killing all lights and noise. When they started calling again you’d repeat the procedure until you’re right on top of them. Sounds absurdly simple, but it worked; the first time I tried I clicked my flashlight on to perfectly spotlight a little yellow frog. We also found very similar orange ones that made chirping calls and green ones with darker brown stripes that made more of a “meep-meep” sound. We also found a turtle.
    We headed back as the species accumulation curve plateaued, illuminating the road ahead of us and not wandering too far from the main group. After getting back to the station I passed around the tube of anti-itch cream, read a bit, and wrote in this.