Dias uno, dos y tres.
Day 1-3 on the
refuge:
Two of these days I have not been able to find the birds I
was supposed to be “observing”. Two of these days we have gotten the truck
stuck in the mud. One of those days we
spent half the day in Mayaguez (second biggest city in PR, home to the
University we collaborate with at times). So I think I am averaging a 0 on
completely successful field days.
In the mornings we go out to certain territories to watch
the birds go from their roost tree to their potential nesting site. For those
not familiar with these terms I will give you some quick background facts:
Smooth-billed Ani’s are cooperative breeders meaning they raise their young
together in groups of males and females ranging from 4-12 (these numbers are
this years group sizes so far). Therefore, the Ani’s have roost trees where
they go to sleep and then in the mornings they will leave the roost for the day
to forage and tend to their nest/young if they have any. Multiple females may
lay eggs and their clutches can be very big- up to 26 eggs in one nest (our
biggest number this year). Older eggs
may be kicked out of the nest or buried and new eggs are laid on top.
Incubation will happen all at once.
Phew, now that we got that information out of the way we can
talk about the good stuff aka my “awkward field moments”. So as I said we climb
ladders up to 32 ft in the air, supported by one of the other crew members and
a few pathetic looking branches- sometimes they’re dead, “be careful the branch
supporting you is a dead one”… I have found that when I am at the top of the
ladder and reach my hand into a thorny nest (oh yeah did I mention these birds
nest in thorny mesquite trees?) that I cannot see into, I begin to sweat
profusely. Like my face gets hot, and I get sweaty palms. It is a bit scary
imagining your unfortunate tumble 32 feet down while getting a face full of
mesquite thorns. Or thinking about how one of those tree rats I saw may be
living in the nest…(unlikely but possible!).
When observing the groups we tromp through the waist-high
grass shirtless, (just kidding-wanted to see if you were paying attention),
which is often wet-the grass not our shirts! And today my pants were soaked to
my pockets. Sidenote: Caroline Brady thank you for the gaitors! There are
plenty of garden spiders in the grass which hop down at the vibrations of your
feet. Unfortunately I have ruined many of their intricate spun webs. My excitement
actually boils hearing the call of an Ani because then you know that even though
you cannot see them, they must be around- hope
it’s all we need people (Go Obama!).
Ok to the good stuff- the MUD. So we are here in the rainy
season, but it’s not supposed to “rain” on the refuge. Well it has rained
everyday we have been here which is great for the birds but bad for the storm
trooper (the name I have given our white trooper jeep/truck). The first time we
got stuck we were trying to go over a wee ditch and the truck couldn’t make it.
We were only stuck for about 20 min and when Jim came over to assist us we got
out with the 3 girls pushing and him driving- girl power! Today was a different
story…
We packed the ladder on top of the truck and headed out
toward a nest check. Once we turned the corner we saw a muddy little ditch and
debated whether or not to cross. I said not to. Leanne didn’t know if she
should or not so she decided to try to back up before it was too late. It was
too late. The path we were on was muddy and the slight incline of 5 inches made
it impossible for our truck to reverse over- even with the muscle mass of
Bonnie-may and I pushing; hard to believe I know. So after taking out the car
mats and using them as gripping tools, pulling out invasive plants (only would
do this to invasives-unless it was a life or death situation) from the sides of
the road and breaking off dead tree branches and finding scraps, we did NOT
make it. So Leanne went for it and drove
straight through the ditch and bam, were stuck. We spent TWO hours pushing the
car, sawing off tree branches (again from invasive trees), calling Jim who was
at home (he never picked up- he’s “not good with cell phones”), making
make-shift planks, sweating the whole time (obviously). I mean we took all the
equipment out of the truck to lighten the load, and we were all working off of
a bowl of cereal-too bad it wasn’t Wheaties. Finally we decided we needed to
walk to the farm to see if anyone was there to get help. It was Saturday when
this happened so everyone who works on the refuge was off. As Leanne and I were
rounding the corner to the washing station we see a truck! So we started
running and the game warden happened to be washing his truck.
So now he has two gringas covered in mud asking for a tow in
his brand spankin’ clean automobile. Like he has suds on his car when we came
over. I felt pretty bad considering that I was sitting in his nice
government/police vehicle after he basically detailed it covered in mud while
my shoes were full of muddy water. But hey, Bryan is my new hero. He gave us a
tow and we were so thankful. So after he left we started up the car and
wait….it started fish-tailing a little, I said “Oh hell no!” jumped out
immediately with Bonnie-may and we pushed that sucker up a little incline onto
the grass. We were lucky we got it so quickly.
After all that we still had 5 nests to check and now we had
to walk to them, with the ladder.
Oh wait as I am writing this a mosquito was just ferociously
sucking my blood and I could FEEL it, then I spilled olive juice everywhere.
Cheers to tomorrow!
Our not so trusty vehicle
This is more like it- old NAM truck
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