Minga at Puerto Rico

GVI Amazon base camp was quiet on Friday morning as the volunteers had left for Hectors Island ridiculously early. I’ll admit I smiled as I heard the rain at 4.15am when they’d have been waiting on the road for the bus to Coca. Me, Andy and Sam headed to Puerto Rico to help with a minga, a communal work session, at a slightly more reasonable 7am. We ended up in a field behind the community where an enclosure was going to be built for the school kids to grow some vegetables. First an area had to be cleared, most of it had been done but a small amount of brush remained. The border was marked out with large stakes then huge stretches of bamboo were cut, carted, then tied to the top of the stakes.

The temperature got higher but the work still continued and by midmorning we were inserting small stakes between the bamboo to make the fence – taking care to make sure it was chicken-proof of course. Standing back to look at them there were distinct sections with a slight lean but I’m sure it’ll do the job! By this point it was stupidly hot and we all collapsed in the shade of the school to recuperate with juice and biscuits. The kids, after investigating Sam and Andy’s tattoos, discovered my camera and crowded round for as many piccies as they could get in, piling on top of each other to get a look at themselves on the screen. We eventually escaped and returned to work to find that we only needed to empty sacks of soil onto the beds ready for the kids to start planting. All in all it was hard work but rewarding, we could definitely see what our hard work had achieved.

Amy Dutton, GVI Amazon Scholar October - December 2009

Minga at Puerto Rico

Bursting with Science and Fun, Fun, Fun!

Out and about in the reserve, there was a lot of action on the dung beetle front during the last few days. The miniature pitfall traps unexpectedly revealed a high yield of beetles from the secondary forest trap sites, with around 200 beetles being caught from one trap alone - that's a whole lot of beetles! This made identification arduous, but rewarding, as several new speies were identified.

In other planned work, there was a lot to be done in the form of preparing land for planting trees. However, the long awaited rain (it is currently the 'drier' season here in the Amazon and the river levels visibly drop on a daily basis), disrupted play. Further Management Plan work had to be postponed until a later date. Rain also disrupted the butterfly work, in it's final stages of trapping for this five weeks and the traps were closed until the start of the next five week phase in early November. From the few that were caught, a new species to add to the Yachana Reserve list, was still identified. One particular, rather aged, three month old butterfly seemed insistant on returning to the trap sites and has been recaptured and released multiple times - he just couldn't get enought of that tasty fermenting banana bait!

The reserch focus moved to the community development side and an uplifting and rewarding new English teaching session at another community nearby the GVI Amazon base camp, Puerto Salazar. A successful introduction between the community and GVI was had after what initially looked like a poor turn out. The day started with some English teaching and after a slow start to a football game, the whole day was concluded with some fantastic football action as other members of the community appeared in trickles and a great day of fun and education was enjoyed by all involved.

The following day, another trip, this time to our partners across the river, Yachana. A visit to the Lodge and High School was on the agenda. Volunteers and staff enjoyed a selection of cool refreshing milkshakes and a second football match in as many days. A suitable and well deserved spot of relaxation for all the efforts and hard work volunteers and staff have been putting in to the Ecuadorian Amazon Expedition during the preceeding weeks.

Bursting with Science and Fun, Fun, Fun!

Avian and Amphibian Antics

A busy week with GVI Amazon was jam-packed with all sorts of activities to keep the volunteers out of mischief! After closing the amphibian pitfalls, the project’s preliminary results showed a higher species richness within the primary forest compared to that of the secondary forest. There will of course be a lot more analysis of the statistics in coming months as there will still be more sessions of opening the traps throughout the course of the year, as just over six months of the planned one year study have been completed so far. Continuing on the amphibian theme, night transects began in earnest for the first time this phase with some successful results. In one transect, 16 separate individuals were found including Edalorhina perezi. That’s some good eagle-eyed spotting from the volunteers.

On the birding front, a surprise Piha project kicked off at the unsociable hour of 5.30am! It was however, an enjoyable introduction to a new project on Screaming Pihas (Lipaugus vociferans) and their calling behaviours. Sam Brimble was further surprised by the Western Striped Forest Pit Viper (Bothriopsis bilineata) centimetres from her head during this particular trip! That’s a couple of tricky snake encounters she’s had over the past couple of weeks.

For this particular phase, the first bird transects along the road (small gravel track, that cuts through the reserve) took place and teemed with a plethora of birds; these will be continuing throughout the following weeks to build on the data already collected last phase for this particular stretch of the reserve. Finally, initial work into a study about birds in relation to fruiting trees got underway, with promising prospects. Watch this space in the future to see how things progress.

Avian and Amphibian Antics

Easy as A, B, C....

This week has seen the closing of the amphibian pitfall traps for another few weeks and the start of the dung beetle collection. However, my personal highlight was teaching English at the local school in Puerto Rico. Hannah and I took the younger group of 11 children, whilst Leeron and Kristin took an elder group of children with Chris standing by to help.

We started with recapping their earlier lessons of numbers and the alphabet. Amid lots of running about to various letters spread across the room, I think they understood us. For the bulk of the lesson we introduced them to classroom objects. With another running session to various pictures (drawn the night before), spread across the room they eventually understood us. All this was followed by a colouring in session of pictures of the classroom objects, drawn by Hannah the night before (except one which Chris hurriedly drew for the extra student we had). In the last few minutes we got our cameras out at which point all the kids jumped on us to look at the photos and have some taken of themselves. So apart from the kids hiding behind the cupboard and an accidental game of tag it was a success. On the way back to camp we stopped at the local shop and discovered a new stock of chocolate bars – always exciting as GVI Amazon base camp is so far away from commercial shops. After a celebratory drink from a fresh coconut we continued on to camp to report on the good morning.

Ben Bagshaw GVI Amazon volunteer, Oct-Dec 2009

Easy as A, B, C....

Snake Encouters

At one point during on of the amphibian night transect held this week, I found myself face to face, eye to eye with a snake. It was “sitting” at eye level in a shrub only one meter away from the tip of my nose. Using as little movement as possible, I quietly shouted to the rest of the transect crew “Snake!, Snake!”. Chris, one of GVI's members of staff, rushed over to assess the scene, moving shrubs and plants on his way over, the movement of which was felt by the snake which triggered it to shift even closer to me. After a minute or two of careful visual analysis, Chris set everyone’s minds at ease and positively identified the snake as an Amazon Blunt-headed Tree Snake (Imantodes cenchoa), and that it posed no threats to us. Once my adrenaline levels dropped and my hands stopped shaking, I was able to move in closer, and began to appreciate its amazing features. The snake was long and thin, decorated with a brown and beige ribbon pattern wrapped around its entire body; on its tiny head sat these massively large pearly tiger eyes.

Later in the week, Sam, Mike and I were tasked with locating the lost end of the Cascada Trail and remarking it. Half way down the trail, Sam shrieked as she nearly stepped flat footed on an incredibly well camouflaged, highly poisonous, Lance head Viper. Needless to say we were all a little shocked after the experience. Once we calmed down, we took a few photos of the little devilish fellow for some positive identification on return to base camp and went on our way, being ever more careful as to where we were placing our feet. Just goes to show you always need to have your wits about you when walking in the rainforest as there’s critters lurking when you least expect them!

Tamara Ancaer, GVI Amazon volunteer, Oct–Nov 2009

Snake Encouters

Sat Camp in the Yachana Reserve

Sat camp was a great trip. We collected all our gear together with granola, snacks, baked potatoes, and a ready-made evening meal. I set out with some trepidation but made it OK!

We set up the hammocks and then went for a dip in the waterfall pool; covered ourselves with clay (to wash ourselves in the cool water). We then had supper. Andy ate his almost as soon as we arrived.

I attempted to light a fire but it went out. Andy showed me how to make a real fire. We had a hot drink then went on a stream walk. We started upstream. We saw a cane toad. What beautiful amphibians! The vegetation prevented too much progress so we went downstream. It was so good just to be out there. We found a frog which had a yellow back with yellow and chicken-flesh colored legs. On the way back we found a Gladiator Frog (Hypsiboas Boans) – beautiful.

After a few stories I was off to bed. The hammock was great; I only woke twice and didn’t have to get up for a pee which was just as well because of the rain!

After the granola breakfast, we went mist netting. One Great-billed Hermit (Phaethornis malaris), two juvenile Blue Manakins (Chiroxiphia caudate) - which were hell to get out of the net(!), a Sooty Antbird (Myrmeciza fortis), and one Rufous-breasted Hermit (Glaucis hirsutus). At about 11:00am we packed up camp and started back. We saw two Black-mantled Tamarins (Saguinus nigricollis) on the way back. I slipped at the start and Andy caustically said, “Good start, Giles!”

I dropped my bathing trunks and my tarpaulin. Everyone helped the geriatric cripple when things got a little dicey. It was a great trip and my back seems to be holding up. BUT I didn’t carry any firewood! Thanks to all concerned.

Giles Knowles, GVI Amazon volunteer, October - December 2009

Sat Camp in the Yachana Reserve

No Rain in the Rainforest?

On Tuesday morning, some volunteers had the privilege of waking up with the sun for a bit of mist netting fun, reaping the rewards of the hours of fiddly work repairing the nets the previous week. For many of the volunteers this was their first experience seeing wild birds so up close and personal, and what an experience it was. Two brilliantly coloured hummingbirds, the one pictured is a Grey-breasted Sabrewing (Campylopterus largipennis), two manakins, one of which was a Green Manakin (Xenopipo holochlora) and a Dusky-throated Antshrike (Thamnomanes ardesiacus), truly made it a successful birding morning. The icing on the cake for the day was enjoying a much anticipated, cooling dip below the Cascada waterfall, a natural beauty.

At the end of the journey to camp, the group of volunteers were greeted by staff member Chris, tossing cup full’s of water high up into a tree, with an attempt to water GVI Amazon’s most recent resident, osteocephalus deridens. Mr. deridens has recently taken up residence in a bromeliad that appeared in one of the trees during the phase break and can now be heard every night cackling away in the hope to lure in a mate. There has been a lack of rain over recent weeks and the tree frog was in desperate need of some water up in his bromeliad home.

Next week the volunteers are looking forward to getting knee deep into rainforest research, and will also be praying for some rain!

No Rain in the Rainforest?