Thursday 12/12/19 Birds and BATS

Day 5 Costa Rica


Bird Friend
Today was a super long day, 10 miles worth of hiking. At first I went out to the field with Mandy and her crew. We hiked the Ridge Trail to get soil samples (for her project). We came to the Ridge trail and Loop Trail intersection. Then K'Lona and I continued up the trail and got another soil sample at the Ridge and Wilson Trail intersection. The trail is uphill majority of the way. After collecting our samples we walked back down to the river. I had to do my data collection along the river by myself, but my friend (pictured above) didn't let me down and led the way to our first research plot. I am glad I was not completely alone because I was slightly scared but this bird made me feel a lot better. He was also interesting to look at and I wish I knew what kind of bird he was. After gathering my data, I headed back up to the lab at the station. Jessica needed help so I volunteered to go out with her to set some animal cameras near the ginger plants. We ended up going out pretty far down the Melissa Trail. By the time I got back to the station I had hiked over 10 miles total. I was beat! 

Myotis Bat
After dinner we had the option of going to check out some bats that another researcher at the station caught and was conducting research on. This was my first time seeing a bat up close and it was pretty interesting. This bat was a female. It had parasites that you could visually see crawling on it. We got to touch the wing of the bat which felt like nothing I have felt before. It seemed fragile but was not. The bat bit the woman who was hold it a few times! Luckily she has the rabies shot. Today was a very interesting day and I am glad I pushed myself to do so many things all in one day.



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