A view of Palo Verde National Park from the top of the mountain we hiked up.

 

Another spectacular trip!  I love it here!  As if you couldn’t already tell!  (Don’t you love the high intensity of four consecutive exclamation points?)  “Right here, right now, there is no other place I’d rather be.”  The SFS Costa Rica program is amazing because of the places we see and the experts we are exposed to.  This week we have had a group of professors along as well as Mike from Palo Verde.

 

This fossilized algae is evidence of some of the first life on earth!

 

 I feel so privileged to be able to rack their brains.  I want to be a sponge and just absorb all the knowledge that they have to share.  I love learning for learning’s sake.

 

 

You can tell that this green iguana is just a yearling because they turn more grey as they age.

 

            For me, living in Costa Rica has been a HUGE deal.  I feel so lucky to be here because traveling is so expensive and you don’t get much free time off from a 9-5:00 PM, 40 hour a week job.  There is a very high probability that this is the longest time I will ever spend away from home.  It is also highly probable that I may never visit this region of the world again.  After all, I don’t happen to be independently wealthy.  This reality is one of the reasons that I conscientiously savor each moment.

 

View from our boat ride on the Tempisque River.

 

            Talking with Dr. Carson and his wife who both hold high level positions at Whitman College in Washington State, has given me a small epiphany…get paid to travel!  Ibit, a professor from University of Vermont is getting paid to go hiking up a limestone mountain, see monkeys and over 25 species of birds, go on a boat ride on the Tempisque River, and see an alligator.  Not a bad life. 

 

Great egrets, Cattle egrets, and top right is a White Ibis.

 

Here is our bird list for the two day trip:

(Note this is a rough draft of the bird list because I have to study for my finals so there are probably many misspellings – I apologize)

1          Roseate Spoonbill (Ajaijaja) Pink!

2          Great Egret (Casmerodius albus)

3          Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea)

4          Northern Jacana (Jacana spinosa)

5          White Ibis (Eudocimus albus)

6          Tricolor Egret (Egreta tricolor)           

7          Snowy Egret (Egreta thua)

8          Woodstork (Mycteria Americana)

9          Black Bellied Whistling Duck (Dendrocyna automnalis)

10        Double-striped ihknee (Burshinus bistriatus)

11        Crested Caracara (Polyboaus Plancus)

12        Limpkins (Aramus guarauna) –looks like a brown ibis

13        Tiger Heron (Tigrisoma mexicanum) -striped

14        Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) –flies with pointed wings

15        Spotted Sandpiper (Aititis maarbia)

16        Boat-billed Heron (Cochlearious cochlearious) Doe-eyed with a platypus bill!

17        Olivaceous cormorant (Phalacroco vaxolivaceous)

18        Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) swims underwater like a cormorant

19        Black-headed Trogon (Trogon melanocephalus) related to the Quetzel

20        Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus)

21        Cattle Egrets (Bubulues ibis) –blown from Afica 1950s!

22        Fork-tailed Emerald Hummingbird (Chlorostilbon canivettii)

23        Spotted-breasted Oriole (cterus pectoralis)

24        Groove-billed ani

25        Tropical Kingbird (Tyrannus melarcholicious)

 

Chelsea wears a bat pollinated flower behind her ear.  You can tell who pollinates a flower by its color and structure.