13 July 2016
My last day to wake up at 4am!! (…at least until I start
teaching at Pasadena next month, but at least that’s only 1 day a week.) I
joined Mario & Luke for a half-day of mist netting; sadly, Tatiana’s knee
was hurting her a lot & she decided to rest it for the day. Of course, we
didn’t catch much, being the 3rd day at this site, but it was
nonetheless eventful. I followed a large brown snake along the path for a
while. We finally had a brief respite of sun that I think even the snake was
trying to take advantage of (I was surprised that having gone without sun for
so long, hiking about 30 minutes in broad daylight already had my face slightly
sun burned). Not sure what species it was; didn’t get a good look at the head,
but don’t think it was venomous. I also had to disentangle a poor little streak-necked
flycatcher (probably my favorite bird here because they’re so common; cute
little guys that can’t tear your hands a part) that must have been struggling
in pretty badly because when I finally got it out, I noticed that its neck was
raw & bloody. Poor thing was quite entangled & must have been trying to
wiggle its way out for a while, severely rubbing against the net. I felt so bad
for it I wasn’t at all bothered when it frantically flew out of my hands once I
had freed it from the net (Shh, don’t tell Mario). There’s nothing we could
have done for it anyway – it would have just been kept it in captivity to be
processed for even more time – so at least it got to fly away without being
molested by humans any longer. Whether it lives or not, I have no idea, but it
might heal on its own. Fingers crossed.
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| Blue-winged mountain tanager |
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| Blue-winged mountain tanager |
I kind of felt like the harbinger of death after that.
Since I was going back to Cali today, Mario decided this would be a good time
to collect some hummingbird species for the University of ICESI’s bird
collection. So after we captured 3 hummingbirds of a particular species that
the museum was lacking, Mario didn’t release them: he just left them hanging on
a tree in a bag so they would slowly freeze & starve to death (hummingbirds
have a very high, demanding metabolism to keeps their bodies really warm). I
realize museums have been collecting live species like this for centuries &
it’s all in the name of science, but it still felt bad to “kill” them (i.e. let
their body temp drop until they slowly fall asleep & never wake up). Harbinger
of death.
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| Female Collared Inca hummingbird (already falling into death sleep) |
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| Female Collared Inca hummingbird |
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| She'll make a very pretty museum specimen |
When we closed up shop around midday & headed back to
the station for lunch, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Tatiana had
scored some chicken from the neighboring farmer. Real meat (not just canned
tuna or defrosted hotdogs – something the farmer brought to us before under the
guide of “salchichón”)! Sadly, however, the person coming to pick me up didn’t
arrive as planned around midday (of course); she arrived at around 2pm with an
Englishman who is now also joining the group. Just my luck that now that I’m
leaving, when I’m feeling more comfortable & really confident in the work,
we get more foreigners that I can talk to! Part of me is regretting leaving
early but arrangements have been made & either way, the timing works out
better for me & Nick anyway; so what’s done is done.
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| Mountain cacique |
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| Mountain cacique |
So as the Colombians went for a (2 hour!) stroll around
the place to catch up with old friends, Luke & I sat around & got to
know the English guy (who, I was surprised to learn knows even less Spanish
than I do – thank goodness he’s got Luke going into this!) & I got caught
up on a first-hand account of Britain leaving the E.U. When the Colombians
finally came back to the station, I was informed that we still wouldn’t be able
to leave until after 7pm now because the woman picking me up has a specific
license plate number that isn’t allowed to enter Cali between the weekday hours
of 5-8pm (I guess Cali has some regulations to try & control traffic
congestion). And since it takes an hour to get into Cali from here, we would
have to wait. Brilliant. Thanks.
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| Feeding aqua de panela to (non-specimen) hummingbird |
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| Speckled hummingbird |
So everyone but me & Tatiana went off into the forest
for another 2.5 hours to help Mario track his bird nests. We stayed to process
some data & just hang out. There was no real reason for me to get back to
Cali early, other than to have some time to relax & check email, reconnect
to the outside world (i.e. call my mom so she doesn’t keep worrying
unnecessarily), but I have to laugh at the idea of “best laid plans…”. Just like
previous field work, everything has to be flexible; schedules, I’ve learned,
are really a nebulous thing in the field.
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| Flavescent flycatcher (so tiny & cute!!) |
I finally got back to Cali around 9pm. It was kind of a
sad goodbye at the station. Mario & Tatiana seemed generally sad to see me
go, which was nice to think I had contributed something positive even if for
such a short time. (I also made a gift of my 1st aid kit to Mario
with the liquid bandage & alcohol swabs – he thought that was funny.) And I
too was a little reluctant to be leaving early, as mentioned before. I think,
too, Tatiana was not looking forward to now being the only girl in the group.
;) Although we did get a nice treat when the English guy just dropped trou (underwear
still one but enjoyable nonetheless) to change his pants in the middle of the
common room. So maybe there’ll be perks, after all ;)
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| Spotted barbtail |
I was exhausted upon arriving back at the hostel, having
been up since 4am, & was surprised to receive such a warm, familiar welcome
from the hostel staff. Very nice guys. There’s a lot more people at the hostel
right now (mostly, of course, young 20-something Europeans who quit their jobs
to travel in South American for a year or so), so I joined them when they ordered
some take out from a local BBQ place (eating a bunch of ribs after nearly a
month of vegetarianism did not turn out to be such a good digestive decision)
& got to hear about their travels. I don’t know if it was my sheltered
upbringing, my ignorance of the world at that age, or just the insular culture
of the U.S. (or a combination thereof), but it never occurred to me that I had
the ability to just leave everything behind & travel around the world for a
year as a single 20 year-old female with no agenda, no plan & very little
money, just willingness & a passport. My nearly 40 cranky old self is
definitely envious of their youth & cajones.
