Philippines: The beginning

For my next research adventure, I’m in the Philippines for the next three months working with sea cucumbers!

Liesl, Jim, and I flew from Washington to Japan to Manila to Negros, the island on which we’ll be living just over a week ago. After 36 hours of travel, we landed in Bacolod and were swept off to a friend’s house for some much needed down time. Over the next two days, we unpacked, sorted, and repacked all the research gear that had been left behind from previous trips so we could move it to our final destination on the south of the island.

These days weren’t all work of course. Between the much needed naps (Hello, jetlag!), we got to see a few of the sights around Bacolod.

First, and my favorite, was a mountain sulfur springs resort. Before you wrinkle your nose, let me explain that the stinky hot springs are not what got me excited. These are:

Those are Golden Flying Foxes, if you can’t tell. Difficult to photograph, because they hang from the top off trees most of the time, these bats are about a foot tall and have a wingspan of almost a yard. Basically, we spent this part of the afternoon watching Red-tailed Hawk sized bats swoop through the trees. I was ecstatic the whole time.

After this, we drove to the Central Philippines Adventist College and too a quick tour. The campus is quite beautiful, with wide green lawns that are maintained by the local goat and sheep herd. The shepherd was quick to inform us that the herd numbered 53 in size and he knew each one by sight.

The last stop of the day was at the ruins of the Lanson Mansion. The Lansons were a powerful plantation family who basically poured their entire mansion out of concrete. When the Japanese invaded during World War II, they were forced to abandon the mansion and it was subsequently burned by the guerilla forces. It took them two tries (and quite a few barrels of gasoline) to catch the building on fire. When the fire finally burnt out three days later, all that was left standing was the concrete form you can see in the picture. The ghost-like remains of such an impressive house were interesting to explore, but the intricacies of building such a house were what struck us the most. They poured concrete continuously from beginning to end to ensure there would be no cracks in the mansion!

 

To finish off the day, the lady we were staying with bought pizza for supper. While this would not normally be such a noteworthy occurrence, this particular pizza was so big it could not fit through the door. Try as we might, we barely made a dent it. Thus, in true Filipino fashion, we had pizza for breakfast the next morning as well!

Punta Raton

Welcome to the beautiful Punta Raton! Apparently there is internet in the middle of nowhere. I am now working with PhD student, Noemi and living in this little community on the Pacific Coast of Honduras. It is about a three hour drive and then a half hour boat ride out here from Tegucigalpa.

We loaded all of our stuff into the bottom of Alex’s boat. Alex is a fisherman and our boat driver when we go out at night. That brings me to what we are doing here. Noemi has been here all summer and I’m hopping on to the projects for the last three weeks before we both head home. Down here we are working with Olive ridley sea turtles. These turtles are a little smaller than the Hawksbills I have been working with up until now. They also lay fewer eggs on average than Hawksbills. Their nesting season is almost over and nests are hatching everyday. There is a system down here where two different hatcheries pay people to bring them the turtle eggs, instead of selling them elsewhere.

What I’m working on with Noemi is hatchling tracking. She is studying the effect that the strong tides in this bay have on the hatchlings. We go out after the turning of the tide from coming in to going out and track the babies as they swim for eight hours. We attach a little boat to them with a string and the boat has a glowstick on it so we can track them at night. We are also going to be taking blood samples to do a genetic analysis of multiple paternity. Turtles can mate more than once, so hatchlings from one nest often have different fathers. The number of fathers for any particular nest can help us to estimate how many male turtles are out there, since they never come to shore. More fathers per nest means that there are more turtles out there.

Both of these hatchlings are Olive ridleys. Notice the size difference between them! Overall, the hatchlings are almost exactly the same size as the Hawksbill hatchlings, but the Olive ridleys have raised ridges down the back and a different shaped plastron (the lower shell, under the belly).

Macaw Mountain

There are two places in Copan I would say everyone should visit. The first, of course, are the Ruins. The second is the Macaw Mountain Bird Sanctuary. It is about 2 km from the city, up in the mountains and surrounded by forest. The small park is split in half by a large stream. They have a large selection of parrots and other birds native to Central America. All the birds they have are rescued or donated from people who could no longer keep them as pets. Many of them are there because they would not survive in the wild. They also have a breeding program for the Scarlet Macaw and have raised and released most of the ones that I saw at the Ruins.

Emerald Toucanet. He was my favorite bird of the trip and I had a hard time getting a photograph of him--he was too interested in trying to take a bite out of my camera!

Keel-billed Toucan. A beautiful bird who also happened to be pretty interested in my camera.

Olive-throated Parakeet. These guys loved to chat with me through whistles and squeaks. 

I kept trying to get a group shot of the Scarlet Macaws, but someone was always moving around and my camera was not cooperation in capturing the action--this is the best I got!

Group shots might have been out, but on the feeding station they were very photogenic.

River running through the park. There was a swimming hole just behind this but that water was COLD and it was not a hot day. I decided to pass on the swim.

Birds weren't the only cool animals around. I'm not sure what this is, but my best guess is a type of Scorpionfly. 

White-fronted Amazon.

I am back in Tegus now and we'll be headed to Punta Raton in the morning. There I'll be working under Noemi, who is working on her PhD. We'll be doing some cool stuff with Olive Ridley Sea Turtles--particularly with darling little hatchlings again!

Maya Temples and Capybara

Every morning when I wake up here in Copan, there is fog settled over the mountains and it is cold enough that I am actually wearing my sweatshirt! It almost feels like Fall, though (as you can see in the picture below) everything is much too green. The fog burns off before eight o’clock most mornings though; Autumn in Honduras is a short lived idea.


The Maya Ruins are about 1 km out of the town of Copan. I a marvelous day wandering about the main ruins (those around the Acropolis) and then the next morning I went down to “Las Sepulturas,” the secondary ruins, which are 2 km outside of town. Both sites were utterly fascinating. For the Acropolis, I decided against getting a guide, which allowed me to wander wherever I pleased and as much time as I wanted. However, for the Sepulturas I ended up with a guide almost accidentally, but I’m glad I did. My guide was an older gentleman by the name of Daniel. He only spoke Spanish, but my brain is finally starting to remember all that I studied in high school, so overall the tour was a complete success.It has been pretty exciting to realize just how much I understand and can communicate in Spanish. I’m a long way from fluent, but it has been a confidence booster to find that I can get around just fine in a Spanish-speaking country. Plus everyone gives you the best smiles as you stumble around in their language!
It is hard to nail down my favorite part of the ruins—there was a lot to see and though I tried to “limit” the photos I was taking to only the most interesting or well preserved carvings and such, I still ended up with about 500 pictures of the two sites. I’m still working my way through all of them, but I’ll give you a highlights tour of what I have so far.

Wild Macaws at the entrance to the Ruins

The "Leaf-nosed Bat" symbol (upper left hand corner) means "Copan" in the Maya's written language. 

Altar G1

A Maya "false arch"

Me at the top of the temples. The famous Maya ball court is over my shoulder.

East Courtyard with the entrance to the tunnels.

Entrance to the Jaguar Tunnels.

The capybara! Isn't he cute?

Reproduction of the Rosalila Temple. This temple was found buried, in tact, under one of the others. Even the paint was still on it!

Sculpture of a waterbird--one of the most detailed and well preserved  carvings on site.

After touring all of the Acropolis, I was headed back to the museum and decided to take a last look at the flock of wild macaws that were perched around the main gate when I had come in. Most of them were gone, but a couple were left around and I wanted a few more pictures. As I walked over to the feeding station, I saw something run away and into the forest. It was a capybara! To say I was excited is a bit of an understatement--it was difficult for me to sit quiet enough that the large rodent would come back so I could get a picture. Capybaras are the largest living rodents and can grow to over a meter long. This one wasn't very big, maybe twice the size of a guinea pig, but it was still cool to see such an animal in the wild! The icing on the cake, however, was just a few minutes later as I was walking through the forest between the parking lot and the main entrance. Up in a tree not too far off the trail was a Turquoise-browed Motmot. These gorgeous birds have very unique tails and beautiful plumage. He (I'm relatively certain this one was a male because of the length of his tail) wasn't sure he liked me getting very close, so all the pictures I have are bird shaped blobs in the far distance.

The museum was wonderfully put together. Many of the statues in the park are reproductions, with the real ones being placed here to keep them from being destroyed by the elements and/or people. The best part of the museum is the full scale reproduction of the Rosalila. This temple was so sacred that when another temple was built, they carefully filled it in and preserved it in tact. How amazing a find that must have been--an entire temple, in tact, from about 1,500 years ago!

Unfortunately, I don't have time to finish blogging about Copan. I am leaving right now for Tegus and then I go on to Punta Raton on the south coast for Internship: Stage 3. More baby turtle pictures and stories to come!

Copán Ruinas: Day 1

Between the two research projects that I am interning on here in Honduras, I get to take a week of vacation. So I decided to go to Copán Ruinas for a few days. I took a bus to San Pedro Sula and then another to Copán. It is about an eight hour trip, but as the bus left at 5:45 am, I got to Copán in the early afternoon.

Not wanting to waste any time, I found something to do as soon as I checked into my hotel. I went on a trail ride up into the mountains above Copán to a Maya village in the hills. This village has its own dialect and a special elementary school that teaches in their language. The kids I spoke with knew at least some Spanish as well. 

My (very) small horse. Her name is Princessa and don't be fooled by her size--she is more than up for the job of carrying a tall gringa up the mountain. 

The Copán Ruins can be seen in the very center of this picture, across the river.

An artisan weaving room. The women of this village weave cloth to sell to fund the village school.

I am staying in a very nice little hotel here on the edge of town called "Casa de Café." It has a wonderful little garden and they make a great breakfast. It is nice and quite most of the time because of its distance from the city center. The exception appears to be when there is a national fútbol game on, but that's another story.

The view from the garden along with the end of almost every street in Copán.

Casa de Café.

Copán is a beautiful city and I haven't gotten to explore all of it yet. There is plenty to keep one busy for quite a few days! I plan to go to a couple of famous Maya ruins as well as a bird sanctuary while I'm here, plus take a little time to relax and enjoy having a regular sleep cycle with no work to do!

Last Days in Utila

My time on Utila has come to an end. It was a good (almost) four months--filled with hard work and fun! Here are a few more pictures that didn't really fit in anywhere else.

Gene told us this was a "Highlander Lizard." There are a lot of them along the beach where we were working. The back of the head is bright yellow and there is often a turquoise blue on the stomach. This guy is a little duller because he was in the middle of shedding his skin!

Lindsey and I had a blast capturing this little guy. We have no idea was species he is-- apparently websites detailing Central American snakes are only really interested in the poisonous ones. (Interesting fact: there are no poisonous snakes on Utila!) So if you know what it is, please let me know!

We have been beach profiling on and off for most the summer, but with the hatching of the last nests, we started working on the double to get it done before leaving the island. This was helped out by the acquisition of a Transit Level--Terri brought it with her when she flew down. Basically it is a stand that holds a small telescope with a level on top. My job was to carry around the measuring pole to each spot on our grid so Lindsey could measure the height at that location. This way we measured the changes in elevation down the beach and can make a map. In total, we took close to a thousand individual points on our ~700m beach. 

Lindsey taking a measurement. If you look closely, I'm standing just in front of the middle set of bushes with the measuring pole.

 I've written before about the multitude of ATV problems we have had. However, I failed to put up a picture of this one:

The very dejected grad student realizing that there is no way that ATV is going to the beach that night. Luckily, it decided to go all pigeon-toed at the apartment, so we didn't have to push it anywhere. The ATV also gave us one more special gift, though this one wasn't completely its fault. Someone siphoned our gas and it conked out in the middle of main street, right before some sort of parade was scheduled. You do get a lot of cheers when pushing an ATV through a crowd--apparently it is a spectator sport.

 This is what we like to call the "Utila Low Rider." It's capacity is two people plus a dog or two. Definitely homemade, but it seems to be much more reliable than our rented four wheeler.


Finally, we did manage to take one more day off, right before Terri headed home. Lindsey, Terri, and I drove out to Coral View Resort. They have some nice reef right off of their dock. When Ariana visited Amy and I, we had tried to snorkel out here, but the surf was too high that day see anything. This time conditions were perfect and there was tons to see. The most exciting finds of the day were two Moray Eels. The evening ended with a beautiful sunset and moonrise over the bay.

Sunday, Lindsey and I packed up and flew to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. She then continued home to LA, while I hopped on a bus to spend a few day vacationing in Copan Ruinas before heading to my next assignment. 

*All the photos in this post except for the snorkeling and ATV are from Terri or Lindsey. They are both much better at remembering to carry their cameras than I am!

More Hatchlings!

I'm a bit behind on getting this up, but I should catch up this week on what has happened since I last posted.

First, we had our last three nests. The middle two hatched on the same day! We worked like crazy to process all 204 baby turtles so they could be released during the 48 hour window. If they are held for much longer, they begin to use up the energy they need to swim out to open water. . Luckily we are getting faster at working with them and we had a third person--Lindsey's mom, Terri, has been here and was a lot of help in getting everything done.

Gene, Lindsey, and I processing the last nest.

The first nest that hatched was invaded by ants and several hatchlings were killed by the insects. This time, we were watching the nesting locations very carefully, so as soon as ants invaded one of the nests, we dug it up. We were just in time. The hatchlings were beginning to emerge from their shells and many of them were already covered in ants. However, because we were so much quicker this time, not one of them died!

This picture shows a hatchling that is just starting to emerge from its egg. It is pretty amazing to have one of these little guys hatch in your hand!

The process goes like this: First, I weigh the hatchlings and record their ID number. Each hatchling has a number that tells us the nest it came from and what number in the nest it was. The weight is used to calculate how much blood it is safe to take from the little guys.

Next, Lindsey uses a set of calipers to measure the width and length of the hatchling's carapace (shell). After measuring, she takes a very small blood sample from the back of the neck. She always made sure to talk to the little guys. I would then take the sample from her and prep it to be frozen. The samples are now in a freezer, waiting for Dr. D to bring them back to the US.

 Each turtle then had its picture taken, so we can go back and look at size or other details later.

 After all the hatchlings had been taken care of, we got to take them back to the beach and release them into the water. Watching the little babies crawl down to the water is both exciting and a little sad. The horrible thing about turtle studies is knowing that most of these little guys won't live long enough to come back to lay eggs again. However, knowing that we helped a few more live to swim away may mean that one or two of these hatchlings will get to live to grow up.

These little guys are very photogenic--but it is hard to get them to sit still enough to snap a picture!