Fun With Ficus (Dave Dunn)

I feel happy healthy and full of energy. I am not usually a morning person but here I am to excited to waste time sleeping. There have been so many new things that I have seen, and yet somehow I feel completely comfortable here as though a small part of me has always been here. For the last two days I have been working with a great group of people observing the interactions of birds species with several different Ficus trees. I was surprised by the variety of bird characteristics, from large to small, dull to colorful, herbivores and carnivores. If I were doing research like this for a career I would live a very happy life.  I am looking forward to every day here and what I might experience next.

It’s Been a Howl (Debbie Yarnell)

This is a very incredible place, even more than I was imagining.  We are in cabin rooms in a very civilized arrangement and steps away the trail into the rainforest takes us to a whole different world.  I am in a group that have been doing Ficus surveys for 2 days and it is a little deceiving regarding what we are doing.  It is actually a bird survey in numbered Ficus trees.  The ripe and unripe fruit estimate is done by the guide that we have, Emanuel, for the sake of consistency but we are responsible to spot and help identify the birds using those trees.  I have a total of 22 new species of birds just in a short 8 hours.  And today was a slow day because of the overcast weather.  Jesse, Dave and I were discussing today how very small we feel in comparison to the trees and plants here.  Everything seems to be giant size and so many colours of green that it is really hard to get any sort of a photo that gives a feeling of the magnitude of it all.  We all went on a night hike our first night here and that was a bit unnerving.  Got some really interesting camera shots and unbelievable sightings of things you would never see unless you were out at night.  One of the very coolest parts of the sound here are the Howling Monkeys which we think would be a good name for a rock band.  The sound they make is really unique and the guys are trying to imitate it so they can answer the calls.  Really neat stuff!!!

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees (Jesse Van Allen)

It’s safe to say that I came into this experience with an expectation of what the rainforest would be like, although I’ve never actually been to the rainforest.  I’ve since realized that after only a few short days the expectations I thought were lofty were actually conservative.  Walking through the rainforest it’s pretty easy to forget about the world existing outside of it.  The sights and sounds have an initial effect of a sensory overload while at the same time offering a sense of tranquility.  Since I’ve been here I’ve constantly tried to capture the perfect picture to convey the grandness and density that surrounds you while in the forest, but all the pictures have failed to do it justice.  My work thus far has been identifying different bird species using the Ficus tress in Tirimbina and I’ve been not only amazed at the wide variety of species present, but also their similarity to species commonly found in Ontario.  The work has been incredibly interesting and although I’ll miss the Ficus project when we switch in the next few days, I’m also looking forward to seeing some of the other surprises the rainforest has in store for me.