We have just returned from vacation. Every month the assistants for the monkey project are given 5 days off to explore Costa Rica so that they don't go crazy after working all those 14 hour days. I volunteered to guard the house (burglary is a problem in Costa Rica) so that I would be motivated to catch up on all those fun things I hadn't found time for during the month such as FAFSA, TAship apps, watching all of my experiment videos again, grant apps, checking on my health insurance app, etc. It actually turned out to be a very relaxing vacation since I also had some free time to watch movies, read books (Atonement: book=good; movie=bad), and catch up on my sleep. Living with 8 people really makes you appreciate your alone time. But too much alone time can also make you a little loopy. Luckily, by the time I had started having conversations with the cats and dog in order to avoid talking to myself, my housemates had returned with tales of their vacation adventures.
Also, one of my housemates visited Davis over vacation since he was interviewing for a spot in the UC Davis Ecology Graduate Group (small world, right?) He brought back a computer from my advisor equipped with video editing software. Now I can analyze the videos of my experiments while I am in Costa Rica and get ahead of the game. What good luck!
Now it is back to work. I had a great first day in the field. We found Rambo's group early in our search day and I managed to relearn the monkeys I had seen in early January. My snake experiment went well and the monkeys didn't take us anywhere too awful.
Me hard at work in the forestThe coolest part of the day was when the monkeys started snake alarming in the afternoon. We ran over, assuming it would be the usual medium sized rattlesnake or boa. But instead there was a 10 foot long boa hanging out in a small pool of water in the middle of the forest! It was the biggest snake I had ever seen in the wild. Now I have a lot more respect for snakes as predators. This thing could definitely take down a monkey (and maybe even a human)! We were all so amazed at the size that we almost joined the monkeys in their voracious efforts at alarm calling.
If I can figure it out, I will attach a video of the boa moving at a later time. I am both in awe of its beauty and a bit frightened all at the same time.
Nature is so COOL! It's hard to get a sense of scale, but 10 feet! That's nuts!
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you had some down time--I could use a little of that myself these days!
Keep it coming, loving the pictures!
-Dyani
(I used a lot of exclamation points in this post! I felt they were necessary! (!))
Wow baby! That's a snake! Hope everything is going great. If the monkeys look that cool in real life--awesome.
ReplyDeleteTake care