Due to the patience and generosity of Manuel, the Manager and staff I had a great 4 days at the Reserve. It was much appreciated at the time and re-reading this extract brings back great memories. I had a lovely ensuite double bedroom and lots of field trips with opportunities to practise spanish as some of the staff had no english and were fab in speaking slowly, finding other ways to explain something, listening to my utterances, praising and correcting.
So, nothing ventured, nothing gained, I asked that rather going on the standard tourist guided walks and just scouting around solo on the trails if I could join or help with any research work underway by visiting University Groups or staff. The Manager arranged for me to accompany his staff who do the butterfly monitoring during the first 7 days of each month. My timing was perfect for this plus other staff were setting up mist nets for bats to help a new PhD student.
The Reserve is privately owned by a public museum in the US and extends to 800 acres of mid elevation pre montane rainforest. Along with habitat protection, the main roles are to facilitate ecological research and provide environmental education to local people and tourists.
On the first day I got a lift with a driver going to their field station about 5km away. Another opportunity to practise basic spanish as he had no English. The staff were happy for me to walk back on my own towards the main Reserve HQ as this way, they´d know better where to look if I did not check back in. I did not meet anyone until 0.5km from the HQ so solo along a muddy trail next to streams. As in the other forests, a wide variety of leaves from very large, smooth like a plate to small, fine and serrated. From the 2nd longest foot suspension bridge in CR at 800 feet, across the Rio Tirimbina, I saw a yellow and black Coral Snake slither from one side to the other into the low canopy, a Two Toed Sloth with a baby attached. I’m told they climb down to the ground once a week to defecate and then return to the arboreal lifestyle. There was a small troop of Howler Monkeys with one well endowed male, low grunts and all looking cheesed off in heavy rain!
Part of the Reserve near the river is secondary forest with a former cacoa plantation so they have a very popular chocolate tour. I saw the trees, seeds, oven and implements being fired up for making chocolate. I was lucky to have this for free including chocolate tasting on the way back from a butterfly recce. The mountain or wild cacao tree had lovely wrinkled orange chinese lantern type flowers and a red poker flower is soft and creamy and used as a shampoo…or so I think in spanish! There is the walking palm whose finger tip or tentacle like roots can move it over the ground of 1m in its lifetime in search of water.
The bat mist nets were put up in 2 different locations, one by the river in secondary forest and the other on a coconut tree farm in a partly cleared and brashed tree plantation. We went scrounging for coconuts with a machete, oil drum to reach them and torches! At the river site, about 15 bats were caught all with the upstanding nose flaps and fruit feeders, but due to the greater moonlight and fewer fruit trees only 3 bats were caught on the farm. The PhD student will be using La Tirimbina or nearby as one of her x sample sites to investigate habitat fragmentation impacts on bats. Two professors from Texas Uni turned up who have done a lot of work on bats in USA and Costa Rica. They started asking the student about methodologies and statistical analysis methods she was intending to use. She seemed unsure or unnerved in front of others and I was glad I wasn’t being quizzed as my mind goes blank on such subjects! Chatted to other USA Uni tutors who were all sociable and welcoming and thought I was brave venturing solo!
On day 1 of the butterfly work, the 2 staff walk the 2 transects both on the main trails and off along muddy tree rooted sub paths, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, checking the nets and changing them if necessary. Due to the rain, some nets become compressed and narrow so any butterflies will be constrained in flying upwards. So, these are changed for a newer or dry one. Some nets are held 30m or so up in the canopy by a simple but effective pulley system and others are at ground level. The staff use a small catapult with a plumb to shoot this tied to wire wrapped around a plastic bottle up over branches to then wiggle downwards for attachment to a rope and a pulley system. I helped at one point by holding the bottle and not letting go!
On day 2, the task was to put out mashed banana into the plastic pots and put the traps into place. Sometimes these are knocked to the ground or the banana eaten by monkeys. Day 3 was to check the nets and either kill for a collection or mark and release various species. Some butterflies were killed by pinching the thorax and stored in special envelopes. The aim is to sample species presence at different heights within the forest structure. I think one project has been running for 5 years and then another or the same one, for a further 5 years. For these, wing length and sex are recorded and the wings are marked with a waterproof pen once the wing has been gently blown dried with trap and transect numbers. This should help to plot extent and type of forest use by an individual and species. I was shown how to capture a butterfly by using 2 fingers.
Under one net absolutely still and superbly camouflaged, and I could rarely see them until pointed out, was a coiled brown snake. The staff said it was a hog nosed viper and venomous snakes can be distinguished by their triangular head and vertical rather than horizontal slits. This one was in that category as High! Later on, a guide thought the photo was of a poisonous Fer de Lance which can reach 2m or more in length. I don’t know, but recall thinking sandals were not a good idea and the calf height rubber wellies must provide some protection regardless of their usefulness in glutinous mud and rain.
Due to ins and outs of trying to find information and organise travel etc, I moved out to a Posada about 15km away so used the local buses, ate in town and due to the boat not leaving for Tortuguero til a day later than planned, the La Tirimbina staff kindly had me back for another day…to do butterlies and speak spanish!
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