December 8, 2018

December 18, 2018 Yesterday It was crunch time for finishing our projects/posters. We spent the day crunching numbers and putting them into a poster. Kate had done one of these posters before so she was a pro. The poster had a green gradient background and looked super nice. We put pictures in it from when we took samples, set up the cameras, and were processing our samples. Seeing this poster made me remember the past weeks in this program. The research and hikes, although draining at times, were so much fun and it's rewarding to see all the hard work from Kate, Bridgette and I on one poster.

December 17, 2018 After the fun day exploring San Vito, it was back to working on our projects. We processed the rest of the samples and retrieved the last two cameras. The cameras, sadly, did not catch anything. The cameras were too sensitive and took a picture with every movement of a leaf. The only things that we caught on the cameras were: people walking, a squirrel butt and an agouti walking in the background. Later that night, when I was using the bathroom, I spotted a tiny lizard on the wall. It was super cute. This trip I have seen everything that I hoped to see. I saw a frog, lizard, tiny black snake, monkeys, different birds, spiders and other animals that I do not have at home.

December 16, 2018 On Sunday we went to San Vito! This was our free day from doing research and we got to explore the city. Everyone had the choice to hike there or take a taxi at either 1:30 pm or 5:30 pm(for dinner). I chose to take the taxi at 1:30. When we arrived in the city, we got dropped off and everyone went off into groups. The first place that we went was a grocery store to shop around for snacks. I got some delicious cookies and two bags of chips. I then waited outside for others to be done. Mike Heim then came around the corner with a group and said that there was a bakery down the street. I asked if they had donuts and he said they did. At this point, I had been craving a donut for so long so I got excited. I then asked Mo if he wanted to go the bakery and we went. We got to the bakery and I picked out a delicious looking donut that had caramel and peanuts on it. After getting the pastries we set out and explored the rest of the town. My favorite part was visiting a play

December 15, 2018 On Saturday, we attempted to take down the rest of our cameras. We were unable to take them down. They were connected to the trees using zip ties and we had no tool to cut them down with. After we tried to retrieve the rest of the cameras, we came back to the lab and processed some of our samples. In each sample, we picked through them and got out any invertebrates that we found. In our samples we found mostly mosquitoes. The work was tedious, but interesting the see the life inside of the bromeliads.

December 14, 2018 Bridgett, Johnathan, Kassandra, Kate and I went on a hike to the waterfall. The hike was quite long, but we saw some interesting things along the way. We saw orchids and Kassandra pointed out the shampoo ginger that her group was researching. We also saw a cute, tiny glass frog. This was my first time seeing a glass frog so I was excited. She told us to smell the leaves (which smelt like Christmas) but to not touch our face, because it could possibly give us a rash. On the way to the waterfall, we spotted a bromeliad that we wanted to sample on the way back. The waterfall was beautiful and so refreshing. The mist coming off of it felt nice after the hike down. Kate and Bridgett dipped into the waterfall. We got some pictures from the falls and when Bridgette and Kate were drying off we explored a bit. Kassandra found some clay and possible frog eggs. I then found the carcass of a spider. Once Bridgette and Kate were ready, we set off towards the station since it wa

December 13, 2018 Thursday, Kate and I set up cameras pointing at a few bromeliads. We set up cameras to possibly catch some vertebrates using the bromeliads. We also saw two wolf spiders, male and female, using one of the bromeliads in the garden as a home.