I drink my coffee cold, with milk, and in 1 liter increments. Who needs water?
Dry earth
This is what the wetland currently looks like, for the most part. The areas in this post that are dark, are caked mud, whereas the light brown areas are decomposing hyacinth beds or another plant species I’m working on identifying. 
Half way
Half way to Rio Tempisque…no water, only cow trails and a bit of Typha.
Thanks for the bird book, Mark
I saw and capture on ‘film’ two birds of prey today. Both were sighted while I wandered around looking for Laguna Bocana. I thought the Roadside Hawk might be something cooler than, well, a Roadside Hawk, which we saw on our CR trip last year, since the sighting was deep in the dry forest. It was still a cool bird and it perched nicely for me. The Spectacled Owl was the second one I have seen; the first was yesterday, while trying to find another large laguna that I never found. Mark’s bird book has come in handy (that said, I hope I have my identifications correct).
Ocelot
While walking to the wetland, I saw an Ocelot; my first wild cat sighting… ever. It was slowly walking down the road toward me and I thought it was a coyote (which I had seen a couple of days ago… along with two very young looking pups who were unable to run in a straight line away from the vehicle I was in). When it was about 75 meters away, I saw it’s long tail and immediately knew it was a cat. Unfortunately, my first reaction wasn’t to get my camera out, but to see whether or not I could get closer. I did, and at about 40 meters it noticed me, turned sideways and jumped into the dry forest. Here’s a poor picture of a dusty footprint.
What animals did you see at breakfast?
I saw angry monkeys.
Grazing cows
The little vegetation that is left in the wetland at Palo Verde is being punished by cattle. The patch on the left is primarily water hyacinth, some of which is actually living (although cattle do a good job of taking care of that). On the right… nothing but sparce patches of some spiny plant.
Crested Caracara
Is this a fly or beetle?
When I arrived at my current field site today, I started chopping a branch with my machete and found this larva with a gigantic head, presumibly housing huge muscles for chomping through bark/wood. My guess is a beetle larva.
Lowe’s and Los Lagos
While at the station in San Ramon, we decided to hike the 12 km down the mountian to buy some beer at Soda Los Lagos, a small restuarant at the bottom. On the way down, I took some pictures of ornamental plants being grown in the foreground, with mountainous rainforest in the background…. kind of sad but cool at the same time. The other picture shows Erin and Mike reaching Los Lagos with a team time of 2:23… which won me 2 free beers.
