Panama 2022 - Week 6

Day 36 – 28/10/22

An office day for me today, so quite quiet. I spent most of my day measuring and ordering pods, whilst listening to the old BBC radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

Dinner today was the worst of the trip so far. The vegetarian option was wraps filled with cream cheese. Now, I like cream cheese, but considering this was essentially a fully stuffed burrito, filled with about four tubs worth of cream cheese and nothing else, it was a bit much. I ate half of one wrap, which was quite enough. The current cooks seem to be unaware that either El is a vegan, or cream cheese comes from a cow. Either way, she wasn’t very happy. By all accounts the tough beef stew wasn’t great either, so not a great meal all round.

Day 37– 29/10/22

There was a huge moth by one of the lights that mark the edge of the path between the buildings this morning. A quick Google image search suggested it was an Atlas Moth, a species not found in the Americas. Instead, it turned out to be a Rothschild’s giant silk moth, a species that looks almost identical, right down to the translucent wing patches, despite being found on the other side of the world.

We got another lift today to the other side of the island, halving our walking distance. The day was still hard going, but easier than it would have been otherwise. At one tree, we saw a large, beautifully patterned lizard, a Bridled anole, whose camouflage looked like small vine leaves wrapped around a branch.

In the evening we had hoped to watch a film with all the other residents, but the conference room was locked so we couldn’t use the projector. In the end we headed to the lounge for a couple of hours chatting and playing table football.

Day 38 – 30/10/22

We headed to the Chapman peninsular today. I’d not been that way before and it turned out to be a lovely patch of forest with an open understory and a few shallow streams crossing the path with no accompanying gullies. Early on we saw a crimson headed woodpecker, which is a fairly stunning bird.

The walk was shorter than usual and we were back by 1pm. We had hoped that, as it was the weekend, there would be tour groups visiting and as a consequence cake at lunch. With this in mind we power walked back in the hopes of getting to the canteen before lunch finished. There was pudding available, but only melon. Most disappointing. To pick myself up I spent an hour wandering around camp bird watching. All in all, a good day.

Day 39 – 31/10/22

We all had a day off. A proper day off. Up to now it’s only been possible to leave the island and get back the same day by taking the cargo boat. This provides just a two hour window in Gamboa whilst it restocks. They’ve now updated the boat schedule with a whole fleet of boats, including a 6:30am water taxi to Gamboa and a 5:30pm return boat.

We took the 6:30am boat, arrived at 7:00am and spent a couple of hours along pipeline road. This started very well with new and interesting species popping up every few minutes, but by 8:00am the temperature began to rise and the bird calls began to drop and we saw fewer less and less. Kane came along with us today, and as an entomologist with minimal interest in birds he found our excited reactions quite amusing. El had said she thought she was fairly into birds until she met me and Paddy. I wouldn’t say I was that obsessed, it's just that Paddy and I are now locked into a competition to see the most species. It's a good way to pass the time when you spend most of your time stuck on an island.

We then headed to the café in Gamboa for a coffee stop before heading up to the Rainforest Resort. STRI residents have a tradition of sneaking in to use tho pool so we thought we’d give it a go. We spent about an hour in the pool, which was bliss, although we got a bit sun burnt. To make up for our ill gotten pool usage we had lunch in the restaurant, getting mains, puddings, cocktails and coffees. It was a treat day. Including tip we spent around $150 dollars between us, more than a fair exchange for access to the pool.

As we finished a monumental rain shower passed through for about 40 minutes. Once it moved on we headed back to the boat, stopping at the shop en route to stock up on island supplies. On the way we had a good view of a very grumpy looking Capybara. We’d seen some in the distance from the resort restaurant, including one with a Caracara sitting on its back, but this one was up close.

Back at BCI, there was just time to shower before dinner which was followed by a residents meeting. An opportunity for the site managers to update us on happenings and to hear about any complaints we might have. This went on for an hour and then we all turned in. Tired, but refreshed.

Day 40 – 01/11/22

It was my turn in the lab agains whilst the others went into the forest. We’re a bit behind on pod measuring, but I managed to clear some of the backlog. I went to collect the camera trap, expecting to find it dead after a few days recording, but it was still going. I had a quick flick through the videos, and to my delight there were two videos of an Ocelot. One where you could just see it walk out of shot and another where it walks right past the camera. There were also videos of Coati, Aguti, Paca, a Possum and a Red Brocket deer. I’ll recharge the batteries and put it out again somewhere different next time.

Day 41 – 02/11/22

As I left my room for breakfast this morning, a Broad-winged Hawk was sitting atop a cut tree branch ten or twenty meters from my door. It sat there quite happily for a while giving me enough time to get a good look at it.

We set out as a three into the forest for the first time in a while. We were surveying in the 50 hectare plot today, an area part of the ForestGeo network that had been intensively censused for the past thirty years. The position, size and species of every tree has been recorded and as a result we can’t remove anything from it as we’d affect the natural processing of the forest. That meant instead of quickly collecting and taking pods back to the lab to measure, I rummaged around for them, Paddy measured them and El took the recordings. As a system it worked quite well.

In the afternoon I had time to head back out and put the camera trap back up. Afterwards, Paddy and I went for a stroll looking for birds, but there was very little about so we gave up. On our way to dinner though, we were stopped by Elsa who was looking at a large Spectacled Owl that was perched just above the path.

Day 42 – 03/11/22

Despite November being the height of the rainy season, we’ve had almost a week of hot, dry weather. That changed today. I was woken by the rain, rain which persisted throughout the day. Fortunately, it was a lab day for all three of us, so we didn’t get soaked in the forest for once. From 8:30am-4:30pm I counted and measured pods, pausing only for lunch. The radio adaptation of The Lord of he Rings is still keeping me company; Aragorn has just set off down the Paths of the Dead.

After dinner all residents headed to the terrace. Matias leaves tomorrow so we had a little social to say farewell. There aren't many of us here, so someone leaving leaves a large hole in the group.