Well, gee, where to begin? With the 12 hours of plane rides? BORING. With the craziness that is Iquitos? BORING. How about the birding and work? Sure, that sounds good!I am in Peru, safe and (generally) sound. As I had written in my journal (and later put on here), I could not have predicted at all what it would be like down here. It is an el nino year, which means we are seeing much less rain than is normal. As in, nearly none. So, though I am in a rainforest, I have hardly seen much rain. We had a pretty ferocious storm about a week ago. And the rivers are s l o w l y beginning to rise again (they about 4-5 meters below normal height). Everyone is trying to manage down here, both the Peruvians and the tourists and researchers.
So, some quick facts about where I am. Duh, I'm in Peru (in South America, on planet Earth, in the Milky Way Galaxy). The town we are based out of is Iquitos, the largest city in the world (400.000) that you cannot drive to! The only access is by river, or by plane. It is near the junctions of the Nanay and Maranon, which form the Amazon river. Peru is shaped like a backwards facing block letter 'L', and we are in the top of the L. And for some more geography: the Amazon river has the equivalent water volume of the 5 largest rivers in the world COMBINED: Congo, Nile, Yang-tze, Ganges, and Mississippi. I haven't seen the actual Amazon yet, but I will.
My work down here involves examining the species composition of bird communities on white sand forest patches. These white sand patches appear in various areas in the 'jungle'. They are never flooded (terra firme) and have their own unique plant species that grow on them. And as a result, some of the birds are unique to these patches. The trees don't grow much higher than 15-25 meters, while in the clay forests, the trees grow upwards of 35-45 meters tall, or higher.
Our job involves setting up mist nets and banding the birds in the region. A good day will have us catch around 35 to 45 individuals, of various species. Above is a picture of me holding a chestnut woodpecker. We take blood samples of all the birds we can for population genetics, so that our boss can evaluate gene flow between the forest patches.
It's lots of fun! The crew will shift in size here and there (and we already lost one technician for personal reasons), but right now there are two Peruvians, one Argentinian, and four Americans. Plus our boss. So yes, my spanish, for the first time, is noticeably improving.
So it is hard to say what I love best about the job. I love that we have group meals every night and sit down 'family style' to eat dinner. Every night we have a 'pregunta de la noche', or question of the night, to help with conversation and learn more about each other. Right now, we all work together, all day, every day. We catch a wide variety of birds, many of which I have never seen before (so it makes for a great way to learn these new species, for when I see them free flying later). And of course, the rain forest being the rain forest, there are so many different and wonderful things to see, especially in the invertebrate (insects, spiders, etc) realm.
Of course, all this comes with a flip side, which I am dealing quite well with. We live in tents (though sheltered ones) in the field. No running water. No electricity. Egad, no internet! But of course I am used to all these things, so it's not that hard on me. I do miss the running water, or a decent stream to bathe in. I keep going back and forth on what place was hotter, Australia or here. I think here, if only because it's humid, and because the air does not really cool down at night (it drops to around 25 C at night, or high 70s) while in Australia I had much cooler nights.
And I am keeping to my resolution, of writing in my journal every night, and writing the highlight of the day for each day. And depending on the question of the night, I often write about that too, if only for some introspective. So, the highlights so far:
-I have added 38 new birds to my life list for the world (though I have seen more species, that just aren't new for the world). I do NOT count birds in the hand. I have others helping me find more now. I gave them the incentive of beer that I would buy when I get to 1.300 (31 birds away now), as well as beer when I get to 1.400. It is going kind of slow with the new birds, but I have yet to see a good mixed flock of birds, or find an army ant swarm with birds around it.
-My favorite new bird species so far? It's kind of hard, but I love all the different antbirds. Perhaps the Scale-breasted Woodpecker, or the White-tailed Trogon.
-We took a river trip up the Nanay River yesterday, to visit a conservation center. The work they do there (breeding certain butterfly species, and rehabbing and sheltering confiscated animals) is incredible. She had both an ocelot and a Jaguar that she was keeping. The Jaguar was stunted, because it was kept in a box when the person was trying to sell it. So, though it was about 100 kilos and 'full grown', it was still about 50 kilos smaller than it would have been! And seeing the animal, you realize how massive and strong it is. Oh, we were able to get much closer than you would in any zoo (and she had a nice large enclosure for it). Plus these animals should never be released in the wild anyway, for they have lost their fear of humans.
-walking through the Amazon rainforest.
-the wide variety of insects and other invertebrates.
-getting better (slowly but surely) at understanding spanish
So we leave for the field in another day or two, we expect. For photos of some of the things I have seen, please see the flickr link on the blog, and go to the Peru photo album.
I miss all of you, and though I am so glad I'm down here, I look forward to seeing and talking to many of you when I eventually get back stateside.
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