The Longest Blog Ever

Hi Everyone-

Sorry it has taken me so long to write, but I have been busy and also needed time to process some of the events of February before writing about them. Here are some of the things happening in my life...

Living With Wildlife

I have been surprised by the amount of wildlife seen while living at the Centro. We regularly see agoutis, coatis, and iguanas from our back porch. Howlers serenade us as we cook dinner, colorful birds flit around the nearby forest, and, as I mentioned earlier, one of our capuchin study groups often sleeps right behind our house. Of course even more interesting (or annoying depending on the animal) are the animals we find living IN our house. Bats use our walls and bathroom as their day roost, ants take advantage of every crumb we accidentally leave in our room, and scorpions, whip scorpions, spiders, and a plethora of insects abound. Of course we have a love-hate relationship with all of the wildlife...we love watching the bats fly around at dusk, but we could do without the mosquitoes and biting ants.

This bat likes to sleep by the bathroom door and we play a game of "chicken" to see how close I can get before it loses its nerve and flies away. I don't really want to disturb it, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Close-up of the bat. Sometimes it sleeps in my shower and then scares me as it flies within inches of me to escape as I open the shower curtain.

This boa constrictor was living in a cupboard under our sink. I was all for leaving it alone since I thought it might help with mice issues, but the cook here thought we should get rid of it. So the park guard tried to take it out of there with a stick and it slithered away into a hole in the wall. And it hasn't been back since. I thought it would be cool to have a resident boa, but of course my thoughts on boas changed a bit after what happened later in the month...

The Death of Thoreau

One day we were out with a monkey group and we were about to cross the river when I heard some crazy vocalizations and saw some monkeys running along the river bank. I figured that our group had found some monkeys from another group (which often occurs since all of the groups are along the river during the dry season) and were chasing them off. But then I saw about 4-5 monkeys jumping on top of something as they threatened it vocally. This seemed a bit intense for a normal intergroup so I climbed onto some rocks in the middle of the river to get a better view. The monkeys suddenly jumped back from the thing they had been attacking and I realized that it wasn't a monkey, but a huge boa wrapped around a monkey! We ran over to the other side of the river to check it out and found numerous monkeys alarming and breaking branches at this boa. The monkey that had been attacked appeared lifeless and since we couldn't see its face, we couldn't tell who it was. Judging by the size of the body, it was a large infant or small juvenile and by the way the group was reacting, it was clear that it was one of their own and thus it had JUST happened while we were on the other side of the river.

We were able to videotape the entire event, including the monkeys alarming at the snake and the snake devouring the young juvenile. Eventually, by censusing the group and getting a glimpse of the body, we were able to tell that it was a 2 year old named Thoreau. He was a curious and lively young male that I had studied in my previous field season so it was very sad to know he had been killed. The only way to describe the event would be chaos...monkeys alarming nonstop and running through the trees in circles, making all kinds of crazy vocalizations that I had never heard before, and shaking and breaking branches at the snake. Some of the monkeys continued to alarm for the whole hour and a half that it took for the boa to ingest the juvenile and even chased the boa down river when it began to swim away. This was one of the most intense experiences that I have ever had as a wildlife biologist. On one hand, it was an amazing opportunity to witness predation firsthand (something few primatologists ever experience) especially because this is the topic of my PhD. On the other hand, it was grueling to watch one of my babies being eaten and not being able to assist (because I am a biologist and this is something that occurs naturally). I have a healthy respect for boas as predators now.

This is a picture of Thoreau (the little one) spooning with Champignon (an elderly male) when they were still alive. They were good friends despite their age differences. Champignon disappeared about the same time as Thoreau, probably due to old age. I like to think they are off snuggling together in monkey heaven somewhere.

Vacation in Grenada, Nicaragua

But life has not been all sad. In fact, except for that crazy day with Thoreau and the boa, life has been pretty good. But of course the long, hot days wear you out and pretty soon I was looking forward to vacation. This time I headed to Nicaragua for my visa trip. I was able to visit Grenada and San Juar del Sur which I haven't seen for 8 years. Although these places have definitely gotten more touristy, I still had a great time there.

One of the best things about Grenada is the colonial architecture...check it out.

Views of the city from the bell tower of a church

Yay I'm in Grenada!

My artistic shot

The old convent

Another church

A hot dog stand outside this church

Sunset in San Juan del Sur

Life in Lomas

As I said, life has been pretty good. You just have to take time to appreciate the little things. For example, after following the monkeys up a tough hill full of vines and loose rocks and becoming drenched with sweat, I stopped to take a photo of the beautiful view from the top

And remembering how lucky we are to be able to hang out in such close proximity to monkeys

And how cool the monkeys are...

A juvenile carrying an infant

An adult female caught in the act of grabbing some delicious bromeliad fruit

Chambon, a juvenile male

I'm hoping to have a great research month in March. Hope you all have a great month as well!