... with eggs!

Today I checked up on the nester and she wasn't there so I got to have a look at the pair of eggs she has been taking care of. I have never seen hummingbird eggs before and these are so cute -- I can't wait until they hatch!

Nester

Look at this cute hummingbird! She is nesting really close to the lab clearing (and let me get pretty close for the photo). I think this is a Black-crested Coquette (Lophornis helenae) female. I love the nests of hummingbirds -- they are so small and perfect!

Caterpillar

This caterpillar may look cute and cuddly, but he is spiny and painful if you touch him. This is Acharia sarans and he was feeding on a leaf of a Calathea marantifolia for a few days...before another researcher took him away for an experiment!

Coati on the bridge

I meant to post this yesterday, but time got away from me. A few days ago, another coati crossed that busy highway in the sky -- the bridge over Rio Puerto Viejo. Carlos and I were on our way home and saw this fella walking towards us. We just stood to the side to let him pass and he snorted really loud as he passed by (really close!). He kept on walking until he got to the other side.

Baby porcupine

A couple of days ago, one of the researchers here found a little baby Coendou mexicanus on the ground near a trail; it had apparently fallen from a tree and was near death. She took it back to the station and nursed him back to health. While this baby porcupine was recuperating, I got to hold him a little and he was so cute! He didn't bite at all and hadn't grown in any big spines yet. It was really exciting having this little fella around, but this morning he had to go to a wildlife rehabilitation center. I hope he will be OK -- he seemed pretty frisky yesterday and was crawling around everywhere!

Motmot!

Yesterday afternoon I was finally able to take a good picture of a Motmot bird! This little guy was very patient and was sitting in a nice warm sun spot. This is the Broad-billed Motmot (Electron platyrhynchum) and is pretty common here at La Selva.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's day everyone! I never celebrate this "holiday" and almost forgot about it completely. Carlos and I don't have anything special planned -- just a quiet night at home after a full day of work!

Today I set a camera trap at the entrance of a little animal burrow near one of my seed depots. Every time I check my seeds, I see a little mammal zip into the hole out of the corner of my eye -- I have no idea what it is! I think it may be a Heteromys desmarestianus (a cute rat), but I need the camera to know for sure.

Some things you can't find in Costa Rica

It is really weird to me that in a tropical country that grows a lot of Theobroma cacao trees (providing the seeds used to make chocolate), it is impossible to find good chocolate here -- you can't even find Hershey's brand chocolate bars!

While in Miami, I picked up a few chocolates to bring back here for nightly desserts. I eat only 1 or 2 squares of chocolate per night to conserve my limited stash of chocs!

Here are the chocolates that I have:

Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate 65% -- really simple, smooth, and chocolatey

Bouquet d'Oranges: dark chocolate with orange flavoring -- this chocolate is pretty good (I love orange and dark chocolate together) but not as smooth as the other chocolates.

Tiramisu: milk chocolate with a layer of tiramisu cream inside. This is probably my favorite chocolate that I brought back -- it tastes EXACTLY like a soft piece of tiramisu!

Although I prefer licorice, jelly beans, and gummy candies to chocolate, it is nice to have a little chunk of chocolate after dinner each night!

Monkeys on the bridge again!

The other day I was crossing the bridge and...hey -- the howler monkeys were crossing the bridge again! This time I had my camera with me. Here is a picture of a juvenile walking along the cable toward an adult (who is crossing onto a treetop). It is so cute to see the babies and younger monkeys trying to balance on the cables while adults can do it so effortlessly.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Yesterday marked the start of the Chinese New Year and this year is the year of the rat -- awesome! I am not a rat (instead I am a rooster) but I like rodents so this should be a good year.


While in Miami a couple of weeks ago, I ran into my friend Shu who had recently returned from China where she got married. She brought a lot of wedding candies back to Miami with her and gave me two boxes: one with a picture of a bride and the other with a picture of a groom in traditional Chinese wedding garb. I am supposed to eat the candies in the bride box and Carlos is supposed to eat the candies in the groom box. I ate a couple of these candies the other night and they were good -- like orange, peach, or raspberry cream hard candies. The best part is that these candies from China...were actually made in Germany -- they are very well-traveled!

Colones

Costa Rican money is so much prettier than boring old US dollars. I especially like the money here because there are lots of animals printed on the bills: sharks, toucans, jaguars, and pumas! The monetary unit here is the colon (pronounced like "cologne") and about 1$US = 500 colones. Here are some pictures of the different bills here. There are also coins of a zillion different combinations in silver and bronze -- mucha plata!

Natilla pop

Just after lunch today I tried a new type of popsicle called Pinoleta. This ice cream bar is Natilla (sour cream) flavored! It might sound very gross, but I actually liked it. It reminded me of a tangy light cheesecake that had been frozen. Wow, this was definitely one of the more weird desserts I have ever tried, but I liked it and may have to eat it again!

Random pretty things

I thought I would post a few photos I took of interesting things from last week.

The first picture is of a huge (maybe 15 cm wingspan) green and beige moth that I found under one of the lights of the old lab. It even has little transparent windows speckled throughout its wing pattern!

The next picture shows a ripe, opened fruit of Virola koschnyi (a wild nutmeg). The ridged brown seed is surrounded completely by an octopus-like bright red aril. Birds love to eat this fruit!

I do not know what this flower is, but it is found in abundance across the street from my house -- in the neighbor's garden.

Here is another photo of a pretty flower from the neighbor's garden -- a Hibiscus.

Coral snake

Last night, around 11pm, Carlos and I encountered a big (~1 m long) coral snake (Micrurus nigrocinctus) on the road home from the station. I almost stepped on it (since I was looking for mammals up in the trees). These are highly venomous snakes, but this guy wasn't very dangerous since he was in the process of swallowing a huge gecko. I didn't take a picture, but these are gorgeous snakes with bright red, yellow, and black ringed coloration (the famous tricolored monad that is common in coral snakes and mimics). This bright, contrasting coloration (called aposematism) is typical of venomous/poisonous animals (and their mimics) and basically serves to warn potential predators away. This is the first coral snake that I've seen and although scary initially, it was so pretty and cute!

Myers Briggs

I took some inspiration from my friend Christina’s blog and today, after working in the field, I took the Myers Briggs Personality Test for a little fun. Basically you answer a bunch of yes/no questions that are then tabulated to give your personality breakdown. I am apparently INTJ (Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging) and here is the breakdown:

• Very expressed introvert (89%)
• Distinctively expressed intuitive personality (75%)
• Very expressed thinking personality (88%)
• Very expressed judging personality (89%)

Here is the description of my personality type:

The Portrait of the Mastermind (INTJ)
Of the four aspects of strategic analysis and definition, it is the contingency planning or entailment organizing role that reaches the highest development in Masterminds. Entailing or contingency planning is not an informative activity, rather it is a directive one in which the planner tells others what to do and in what order to do it. As the organizing capabilities the Masterminds increase so does their inclination to take charge of whatever is going on.

It is in their abilities that Masterminds differ from the other Rationals, while in most of their attitudes they are just like the others. However there is one attitude that sets them apart from other Rationals: they tend to be much more self-confident than the rest, having, for obscure reasons, developed a very strong will. They are rather rare, comprising no more than, say, one percent of the population. Being very judicious, decisions come naturally to them; indeed, they can hardly rest until they have things settled, decided, and set. They are the people who are able to formulate coherent and comprehensive contingency plans, hence contingency organizers or "entailers."

Masterminds will adopt ideas only if they are useful, which is to say if they work efficiently toward accomplishing the Mastermind's well-defined goals. Natural leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command of projects or groups, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. Once in charge, however, Masterminds are the supreme pragmatists, seeing reality as a crucible for refining their strategies for goal-directed action. In a sense, Masterminds approach reality as they would a giant chess board, always seeking strategies that have a high payoff, and always devising contingency plans in case of error or adversity. To the Mastermind, organizational structure and operational procedures are never arbitrary, never set in concrete, but are quite malleable and can be changed, improved, streamlined. In their drive for efficient action, Masterminds are the most open-minded of all the types. No idea is too far-fetched to be entertained-if it is useful. Masterminds are natural brainstormers, always open to new concepts and, in fact, aggressively seeking them. They are also alert to the consequences of applying new ideas or positions. Theories which cannot be made to work are quickly discarded by the Masterminds. On the other hand, Masterminds can be quite ruthless in implementing effective ideas, seldom counting personal cost in terms of time and energy.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Ulysses S. Grant, Frideriche Nietsche, Niels Bohr, Peter the Great, Stephen Hawking, John Maynard Keynes, Lise Meitner, Ayn Rand and Sir Isaac Newton are examples of Rational Masterminds.

The test even tells you the best careers that fit your personality type:
• Librarian
• Corporate lawyer (BLAH!)
• Computer programmer
• Information system specialist
• Scientist (natural sciences) -- well that’s pretty accurate!!

Coendou mexicanus

A couple of nights ago I was lucky enough to get a good look at a baby Coendou mexicanus -- an arboreal porcupine! He/she was walking along the railing on the bridge and just stopped and started mewing. I really like this little guy's bulbous nose and although he looks kind of fluffy, this species has spines underneath all that coarse hair. After a few minutes, he climbed up a cable and completed his journey to the other side of the river. This is only the second Coendou that I've encountered in the wild and the first baby that I've ever seen!