Penúltimo Dia

12 July 2016

Got into an interesting conversation with Mario & Tatiana this morning about what it was like growing up in Colombia the last 20 years during the guerilla wars & the drug cartels. They said they’re happy about the recent peace accords in Cuba made between the Colombian government & the FARC, but are still slightly skeptical that it will be lasting peace. Fortunately for them, they grew up in a fairly largish city outside the capital of Bogotá, so there wasn’t too much danger in their immediate vicinity. But they definitely recognize how much better things are now. There’s no longer a curfew by which you have to be indoors or you run the risk of being shot on site, no questions asked. People are now able to travel around the country on vacation, rather than sticking close to home. Pretty much the entire eastern half of the country (the Amazonian region, where the indigenous tribes that were unlucky enough to be discovered by the guerillas were enslaved to cultivate coca or killed if they refused to do so) & the three Andean mountain regions (including Farallones!) was controlled by either the FARC or the paramilitary when they were growing up.

Rufous-breasted flycatcher

It speaks a lot to how things have changed for the better that we’re even here, able to do an ecological study in former guerilla territory with no concern for the safety of the forest. Mario hopes this kind of work will help get his country back on its feet & help build an ecotourism industry (like Peru & Ecuador have). Colombia is blessed with both the Amazon & the Andes, with tremendous potential to bring in tourist & research dollars – but also contains tremendous natural resources & minerals. The government just needs to take advantage of tourism, rather than selling the country off piece by piece to foreign mining & drilling companies – which so many of these tropical countries do, sadly.

Blue-winged mountain tanager

Blue-winged mountain tanager

Blue-winged mountain tanager

Today was my last full day here – I leave (if all goes well) tomorrow afternoon. I will most likely join the crew for half day of field work, then head back to the station to be picked up at lunch time (fingers crossed). So I was trying to take advantage of my time & enjoy the forest, the sounds, the sights, (even the bird smells), the work, the birds. These creatures are really amazing: such beautiful plumage & such vast evolutionary diversity! It’s been really interesting learning about their different habitats & behaviors. I will really miss working with them & am really thankful I got the opportunity to do so.

Female v. Male Glossy-black thrush

We had a little bit of a death-defying scare today, at least for the birds (no humans were harmed). We had a rush of tanagers in the nets midafternoon & couldn’t process them all quickly enough, so I think their body temperatures started to drop (it’s very hard to keep your hands warm the entire time, the ambient temperature is so cold). Normally we just keep them in a cloth bag & stick the bag in our shirts so that our body heat keeps them warm until we’re ready to handle them. But with so many birds coming in, we had 3 that started to get really listless & wobbly; their eyes started to close as if they were going to sleep & they refused to fly away when we released them outside. All abnormal behaviors. We were afraid they might die on us, so we kept them warm for about 30 minutes in our shirts. They were still listless, so we perched them on some branches outside the tent to see if they would rouse & take off. They didn’t. So we tried a hail mary & fed them some agua de panela (sugar water is not something they would normally eat, since they’re not hummingbirds). Surprisingly & thankfully, they started to drink it, which we hoped would give them enough energy to revive. It didn’t seem like it would, but an hour later, after backing off & just giving them some rest on the branch, they finally flew off. Phew! No dead birds on our hands!

White-tipped sicklebill

Back at the station, after my first round of packing (I’m sure there will more shuffling & leaving of things behind tomorrow to lighten the load), Tatiana & I attempted to make a cross between arepas & pupusas with the left overs that we had. We were missing key ingredients to make either one, but thought a haphazard hybrid might be possible. Sadly, replacing butter with oil created a rather hard arepa but one that didn’t stick together, so we could stuff it with beans, like a pupusa. Not the greatest, but edible & something different at least. (I’ll be glad when my diet consists of more than just cold rice & beans) ;P