To start the day, I did some birding, where we managed to see a strange, turkey-like bird called the Crested Guan. After breakfast we went back to the rainforest to collect our traps, which we spent the morning evaluating our data from the last 24 hours and writing it up as a poster.

After a nice lunch, we were determined to see as many different places in our vicinity as we could. To start, we went into the cave close to the research station, which was another former Mayan ritual site. In the cave we saw one Helmeted Iguana (Corytophanes cristatus), and one Neotropical Rat Snake (Senticolis triaspis). We didn’t go to far into the cave, but we went in for long enough for me and Ellie to give presentations on our taxon groups in what would have been pitch-black without our headlamps. When we came back from the cave, we spotted a Litter Gecko (Lepidoblepharis xanthostigma).

After caving we hiked up to the Bird Tower, a short but difficult hike that left us with a spectacular view to see the Chiquibul forest from all angles. Therese gave us a presentation of her research up there, and by the time we descended it was dark out. We took this chance to have a night hike back to the research station, right on time for a late dinner to top off the day.