And So It Begins

25 June 2016

Tropical bird research is hard! Working with giant albatross & boobies in Hawaii was a cinch compared to this! First off, we have to get up at 5:30am – which is somewhat late, as Mario gets up even earlier (since he’s an early riser & his girlfriend isn’t – thank goodness I can be on her team) to head out to the research site, set up camp & put up the mist nets. (Mist nets are like a wall of very fine chain link fence made out of thin black thread so the birds can’t see it & are harmlessly tangled when they fly into them. We can then gently untangle them for analysis.) While he’s already up & out, Tatiana & I get ourselves ready, make breakfast & pack lunches for everyone, heading out around 6am. The mornings are a struggle for me without a doubt. We hike about a mile up into the mountain from the field station into the woods. If I’m not awake by then, which I’m not, a 30 minute vertical climb at high altitude does the trick! The hike up is about all the exercise we get though, which I wasn’t expecting. I thought we would be doing more hikes through the forest, hitting up different sites or searching for birds (again, lack of communication) but no, we wait for the birds to come to us.

Mist net

Once installed in a specific site for 2.5 days, we spend each day sitting on top of a plastic tarp, under a 5ft³ mosquito net, covered in a plastic rain fly. Very high tech ;P (Unfortunately, my old dilapidated body is not comfortable sitting on the ground for 12 hours a day.) Each hour, we head out to the nets (usually there are 8 or more set up around the site) & bag any birds that are entangled. Some of the birds freak out & thrash around, so it can take a while to untangle them; I’m still getting the hang of it & often need Mario’s help. Either that or the bird bites so viciously it takes 2 people to handle it: one to get bit & hold the beak while the other does the untangling.

Mario & Tatiana in camp set up

We bring them back to the camp & process them before releasing them away from the nets. We identify them (or rather Mario & Tatiana do – there are SO many different birds & I have very little knowledge of how to tell them apart…this must be what it feels like to sit in my marine biology class: What do you mean you can’t tell the difference between a blue whale & a gray whale? Just look at them!). We then record a series of about a dozen measurements of the bird’s body & state of health, take photos of it at different angles, search for & collect any ectoparasites, take a blood sample, & apply an identification band in case the bird is recaptured. In all, if you’re practiced like these guys are, it takes about 15 minutes to process a bird. I’m learning.

Set up inside camp tent

Most forest birds anywhere in the world are early risers (hence the 5:30am alarm) to avoid the heat, any possible predation, & to find food. So we will process quite a few birds in the morning & that makes the time pass. However, after 10am, their numbers dwindle significantly and we’re lucky of we get 1-2 birds an hour…most of the time there are zero birds until close to 3pm (again, to avoid the heat & possible predators). So it’s a VERY long, kind of boring day with nothing to do in between if there are no birds. On the first day, I didn’t know exactly what we would be doing (again, this group is not good at communication – very different from Tern, where there was a distinct schedule, with personal chores & assignments. Here I’m never quite sure what to expect), so I just sat there, on the tiny tarp with 2 other people, underneath the mosquito net, for 12 hours. Sometimes processing birds, but most of the time trying not to fall asleep or slide off the tarp (which, sadly, was set up on an incline). The second day I was a bit smarter & brought a book to read but nearly finished it in the amount of downtime we had & I only brought 7 books with me, thinking I could just download some more on my Kindle as needed…stupid, internet-privileged me. I have a feeling the days are going to go by very slowly. Hopefully the other camp sites won’t be on an incline, as that is painfully uncomfortable to sit on all day. Mario & Tatiana, being a couple & this being their project, are very comfortable just laying down next to each & going to sleep on the tarp. Did I mention that the tarp is 5ft³? And in addition to 3 bodies, there are lots of tools, bags & equipment also set up on the tarp, taking up space. It’s. Very. Uncomfortable.

Juvenile Andean pigmy owl

But the birds are fun. The first day we caught a baby Andean pygmy owl. A BABY OWL!!!!! We catch lots of hummingbirds – they are so TINY!!!! LOTS of different kinds of hummingbirds with beautiful colors & all different sized tails & beaks. Their little legs are so small it’s very hard to hold them. There are also a myriad of other birds that I have no idea how to describe other than medium-sized birds of varying colors & ornate feathers. All very striking & unique. It’s funny, I can go on & on about how to distinguish the different classes of fish, invertebrates, mammals or even sea birds, but I have no idea how to recognize different categories of these birds. I hope that improves over time :)

Male collared Inca hummingbird

Tawny-bellied hermit

At 5:30pm, we check the nets one last time, process any remaining birds & then close up the nets for the night so we don’t accidentally catch anything overnight. We break down camp & head back down the mountain. Mario & Tatiana start making dinner at around 7pm (the food & cooking situation is a whole other ball of wax I’m not quite sure how to figure out – more on that later), we finish eating around 8pm, they input the days data, some of which I can help with (I’m still at the stage where I have to translate words in my head from English to Spanish, so I’m a bit slow on reading off numbers, but I can bang out an Excel spreadsheet like nobody’s business!). I wash dishes (since they do the cooking & I’m not contributing much else just yet, I figured it’s the least I can do) & then I try to be in bed around 9pm since I have to drag my ass out of bed at 5:30am & start all over again. And so far, that’s my summer vacation for the next 30+ days ;P