Tag Archives: 2017

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Chasing the Last Day at Glover’s Away

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5.22.2017

I haven’t quite accepted that today is the last full day here at Glover’s. Although I know the rainforest will be a great experience, the Floridian/Cuban in me wishes I could stay here by the ocean forever. We took full advantage of the day, hitting three reefs over the course of about three hours. My favorite was “The Channel” by Long Caye. I saw at a spotted eagle ray from the boat, chased a Southern stingray across the sand, and glimpsed a spotted sun eel in the rocks. I saw a lot of soft coral on the reef, noticing that many of the fan corals (G. ventalina) were encrusted by fire coral.

“The Channel” in Glover’s Atol
Sea fan being encrusted and killed by fire coral

After that, we went to another part of Glover’s Atol called “The Aquarium” which is undergoing a phase shift and becoming overrun by algae. It was still beautiful, though. While there, I chased a nurse shark that had a remora on it and even saw a pair of Caribbean reef squid.

Nurse shark with remora under coral ledge
Pair of Caribbean reef squid swimming in “The Aquarium”

In the afternoon, I gave my lecture on mangroves and seagrass beds in preparation for tomorrow’s excursion. Then, I dissected Azlan the lionfish with Sarah T; in the spirit of full disclosure, having my hands full of fish guts wasn’t the most enjoyable.

Azlan the lionfish prepared for dissection

Afterwards, we as a class made our poster presentation quickly which gave us time to ride over to the resort at Long Caye. There, we ate delicious ceviche and (after bargaining with a fisherman for his shirt) came away with a class signed t-shirt that will (hopefully) hang in the cabana bar for memories. It has been such a fun afternoon full of laughing that ended with a beautiful sunset. I’ll be sad to leave here, but I’m really excited for all that’s still to come in the rainforest.

Sunset at Long Caye
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Another Day, Another Sunrise

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5.21.2017

I woke up today at 5:30 for the second day in a row. Although the sunrise this morning wasn’t as great as yesterday, it was still worth forgoing a bit of sleep. After standing at the top of the observation deck for about half an hour, I took the best nap on the hammock before breakfast.

Sunrise over Middle Caye

For today’s diversity activity, we headed out to the back reef to collect samples of our taxonomic groups. While I couldn’t bring back any coral, I was still able to participate in the fun. I caught a Coco damsel fish in a conch shell and brought back a purple-tipped Caribbean giant anemone. I also dug up a piece of turtle grass (T. testudinum) and some black mangrove (A. germinans) roots to demonstrate to the class, which is a good introduction for my topic lecture tomorrow.

Turtle grass roots, part 1
Turtle grass leaf
Turtle grass roots, part 2

The absolute best find, however, was a baby Caribbean reef octopus that I lovingly named Squishy. It was so cool to watch Squishy swim through the bin changing color; it was also funny seeing him ink.

Squishy, the baby Caribbean reef octopus

The day ended with a poster presentation of the marine debris activity from yesterday and a short snorkel before dinner. The current was ripping, but we were able to bring back four more lionfish. Yay for conservation and ceviche!

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Finding a Shell on an Island… Sounds Easy, Right?

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5.20.2017

After a calm day yesterday, I decided to wake up for the sunrise in the morning which was beautiful. The sun was unobstructed by clouds and bathed the small island in orange light. After that, I just napped on a hammock until breakfast time.

Sunrise over Middle Caye

Captain Buck said the wind was too strong to go out on the boat today, so we had lectures and then took a path through the mangroves to the back reef for a study on Christmas tree worms. The current was strong, making it extremely difficult to collect data while simultaneously trying to keep myself from bashing into the reef. On the bright side, I got to see all three species of mangroves in Belize: red mangrove (R. mangle), black mangrove (A. germinans), and white mangrove (L. racemosa). Javi, one of the marine officers, even showed me the salt gland adaptation present on the leaves of the white mangrove.

Salt glands (two black dots on stem) of a leaf from a white mangrove

In the afternoon, the class split up to do trash collection around Middle Caye. I was surprised at the sheer amount of litter we found on such an isolated place like Glover’s. The saddest thing was seeing Trash Crab, a hermit crab, using a piece of plastic as a shell. I tried to find him a real shell on the island (which you would think would be like looking for a drop of water in the ocean), but couldn’t find one.

Trash Crab in his plastic “shell”

The day ended with fresh coconut water and volleyball, then free time to swing on a hammock and sit at the edge of the dock conversing. Just like yesterday, today has been another day of relaxation and I feel energized and ready for hopefully another sunrise tomorrow morning.

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Day 8: Authenticity (05/23/2017)

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There we were, with flashlights in hand, meandering through the darkness of the Belize Zoo. The site was sprawling with tall tropical trees, including the Santa Maria tree (Calophyllum brasiliense) and the gumbo-limbo (Bursera simaruba), spectacular sights on their own. The Santa Maria trees, not very common and interspersed between shorter trees, had branches high up on the trunk and were some of the tallest trees at the zoo. The gumbo-limbo trees were also fairly uncommon and were shorter with bark that was peeling in fleshy-looking pinkish layers. I was unable to see any animal activity in the trees because we visited the zoo at night.

The trees were unscathed by the human activity necessary for the zoo’s survival; enclosures were constructed around established trees to preserve the integrity of the site. All of the zoo’s animals are native to Belize, and the zookeeper addressed each and every animal by name – Carlos the puma, Junior the jaguar, Maggie the frigatebird, Brutus the American crocodile.

Carlos the Puma

One could feel the zoo’s authenticity. The zoo lacked kitsch. It lacked glamour. It was about people learning about the animals of Belize.

Earlier in the day, my class departed from Glover’s Reef, our home for the past week. Partway through our boat ride to the Belize mainland, we hiked and snorkeled through the Belize mangroves. At a glance, the area would not have looked appealing, with its sediment-filled water, knotted overgrown tree roots, and an absence of colors other than browns and corrupted greens.

However, the mangrove housed a wide variety of creatures. Today’s sightings covered the whole spectrum –red cushion sea stars (Oreaster reticulatus) to sun anemones (Stichodactyla helianthus) to a seahorse (Family Syngnathidae). The red cushion sea stars were amotile and were about six-inches in diameter. The most memorable sighting was a manatee (Genus Trichechus). Although I got little more than a glimpse of shimmery gray with chestnut speckles, it felt a sense an overwhelming sense of awe being in the present of a creature as majestic as a manatee.

Ecologically, mangroves are essential to the survival of many types of animals, including coral-residing species, as the shallow waters and networks of plant materials protect growing animals from predators. Despite not being the most popular image to send home on a postcard, mangroves are a necessity for the survival of countless living things.

That is authenticity.

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Back to the Mosquitoes

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This morning, as part of our last day on Glover’s, a few of us woke up early to watch the sun rise from the watch tower. This time, no clouds obscured the view and the sunrise was perfect. We left soon after, though, and had departed by 8am. At this point, we set our course for Carrie Bow Cay, an island in the atoll that is owned by Smithsonian and used for research. It was a very small island that could only host a few people, but it was quite nice.

Our final sunrise at Middle Caye
Dwarf mangroves

After touring there, we went to the nearby Twin Cays, where we waded into a mangrove forest and snorkeled in the sea near the mangroves. We saw a manatee from the boat, and in the water we spotted tons of sea stars and even a seahorse.

We got back to land at about 1pm, at which time I can say that, for the first time, I have fallen asleep on a moving boat. We ate a big lunch at Calypso before driving back to the Tropical Education Center, where we will again be staying for the night. We walked some of the trails here, where I got mosquito bites on my face, ate dinner, and then went to the nearby Belize Zoo for a nighttime visit. We got to see lots of big cats like a puma, an ocelot, and an especially friendly jaguar named Junior that loved rolling around on the ground. We also saw a few reptiles; we saw a Boa Constrictor, a fer-de-lance (Bothrops asper), one American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus), and one Morelet’s Crocodile (Crocodylus moreletii). Once again, I can’t wait for my ice cold shower later, especially because the water pressure will be reasonable here.

2017

Day 8 – A Day of Change

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Hi friends,

Today we bid farewell to Glover’s Reef. It was amazing while it lasted. And I got to see the sunrise in the morning which was beautiful!

Sunrise in Middle Caye.

After leaving Glover’s Reef, we visited a neighboring field station run by the Smithsonian Institute on Carrie Bow Cay. The station manager didn’t expect us there and was supposedly busy so he was going to turn us away but Adrienne convinced him otherwise. And we got a really long tour in the end which turned out well. It was interesting to have another field station to compare with, and I could definitely see myself volunteering to be a station manager when I retire in the future.

We then went to the mangrove nearby for our last ever snorkel in the class. It felt kind of bittersweet but it was exciting too being in a different environment. The feather dusters over there were as magnificent as they come by, as seen in the picture:

Magnificent Feather Duster (Sabellastarte magnifica) in the mangroves.

It was definitely eye-opening to observe the schools of fishes hiding in the mangrove roots and how they would weave in and out of the roots. There were also a variety of organisms that I saw more abundantly here than in the reefs, such as echinoderms and anemones. Below are some cool pictures of organisms I saw:

Seahorse! Apparently a rare find.
Sea star on the seafloor.

We then sailed to Belize City and ate a meal at a local restaurant which was a fun change of surroundings. We travelled to TEC after and settled in, and as a bonus, my friend and TFB alumnus Lucrecia happened to be at TEC today too, as she was on her way to a Belizean forest to do her independent field study. It was great seeing her as she had been studying abroad at Tanzania and it was fun catching up after so long. After dinner, we went to the Belize Zoo! Apparently, as we were seeing the zoo at night, there were animal activities that we wouldn’t have seen if we had visited in the morning, and so it was certainly fascinating. I saw 10 species of mammals out of the 21 on my taxon ID chart, so that was fun. The ocelot was especially interesting as it was making totally unexpected noises when feeding, saying “NOM NOM” in a really low growling voice like a lead singer of a metal band. I was surprised at how tame most of the animals in the zoo are, with the jaguar even trained to do several tricks. I got to feed a tapir which had a really fuzzy nose that goes haywire as food approaches it. All in all, the Belize zoo was a fascinating short look into the variety of creatures in the Belizean land, and it has helped prepare me to face the Las Cuevas forest.

Jaguar (Panthera onca) in the zoo.

Till next time,

Damien

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The transition from water to land

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DAY 8 — Leaving Glover’s Reef was sad, but so far so good on land! We left Middle Caye at 8:00 am sharp and headed to Carrie Bow Caye. There we met Clyde, who is a volunteer station manager for the Smithsonian research station, who was generous enough to show us around. It was cool to see another research station, similar to the WCS facility on Middle Caye at Glover’s.

Another quick boat ride took us to Twin Caye, where we had our last romp in the water. We saw a manatee on the way, which was a fun treat. We walked through some mangrove peat among the red mangroves, which was mucky and wet, but a lot of fun. Then we suited up for a final snorkel among the mangrove roots.

There were many, many sponges growing among the roots of the mangroves. Lots of encrusting sponges grow on the roots and are able to get more nutrients that way. I saw the encrusting Orange Icing Sponge (Mycale laevis) and many other kinds of sponges, but I had some difficultly identifying them. I also saw lots of jellyfish, a juvenile spotted ray, and lots of juvenile fishes. Therese spotted and caught a tiny yellow seahorse. It was crazy to see a seahorse in real life.

PHOTO OF SPONGES ON ROOTS

We completed our journey back to TEC, saying goodbye to Javier and Adolfo. Before dinner, we squeezed in some hiking around the trails at TEC. I had a possible sweat bee sighting (Halictini tribe) but didn’t really get a good look.

The highlight of the day for me was our night tour of the Belize Zoo. It was easily the best zoo experience I have ever had. They only keep native species, and their enclosures are as close as possible to natural, untouched, Belize vegetation. Most of the animals were rescued or confiscated from people keeping them illegally and very few were captured from the wild.

I got to feed a Tapir, named Indie, which was a dream come true. I loved his little snout snuffling at and crunching on carrots and lettuce. We also saw nocturnal opossums, pacas (who happily chomped at the bananas we gave them), an ocelot, a cougar, and a jaguar named Junior who did somersaults in exchange for food. We saw a few species of owl: a spectacled owl, a barn owl, and a pygmy owl. We also saw a frigate bird, named Molly, who had lost an eye and the ability to fly. She had been fashioned little “shoes” because her feet are not used to standing so much.

At the end of the tour, we each got a chance to hold a boa constrictor. Five stars for the Belize Zoo.

PHOTO OF BOA

Finally, an EBIO 319 alumnus (Lucretia) happened to be at TEC the same night as us. She is back in Belize this summer working with jaguars. She talked to us about her time as a TFB and then as an independent researcher during study abroad in Tanzania. It was cool to hear about what she had done, how EBIO 319 had inspired her, and what she plans to do next.

Tomorrow we have another early morning and another busy day!

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Day 8: Back on dry land

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We had to say goodbye to Glover’s today and we are currently at the TEC…don’t tell Adrienne but I’m realizing how much I missed dry land! And never having to wear a dive skin again except on our future EBIO 319 crawl!

We toured a Smithsonian research station called Carrie Bow Island in the morning with the wonderful station manager Clyde, then had one last snorkel in the mangroves, where Therese caught a seahorse.

Poor guy, he looks kind of distressed.

We boated back to Belize City for lunch…

…and then moved in to the TEC for one more night. My single cabana feels like the height of luxury.

  

Around 7-8 pm, we had a night tour of the Belize Zoo. The animals were unbelievably cute!! Highlights include Bullet Head the tapir, a somersaulting jaguar, and an ocelot who purred violently, including while eating.

[no photos, camera died :(]

Lepidoptera sightings of the day:

Lappet moths (Lasiocampidae)

 

Silkworm moth (Bombycidae)

 

Geometrid moth (Geometridae)

 

  

Prominent moths (Notodontidae)

All were found at the TEC after 8 pm, most on lamp posts and a few at an insect lure.

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Fan Coral Fanatic

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5.19.2017

Today was another day of assessing reef health and collecting urchins, but this time in a non-protected area of reef.

Sarah T. holding our quadrat over a sea fan (G. ventalina)

The first thing that struck me about the reef was the abundance of sea grass, specifically turtle grass (T. testudinum), as well as algae. However, there were still many beautiful sections of reef that were packed with soft corals!

Non-protected reef in Glover’s Atol
Sea plume (P. elisabethae)
Swollen-knob candelabra (E. mammosa)

The predominant soft coral I saw while snorkeling through the reef was the common sea fan (G. ventalia). I noted a few interesting observations regarding these sea fans. I saw that a good number of them had white spots indicating that part of the coral had died, as well as some whose holdfasts had become unattached from the reef framework, causing them to fall down. I also saw a couple of animals feeding on the sea fans, including a flamingo tongue snail and (surprisingly to me) a surgeonfish of some sort.

Sea fan with dead areas and unattached holdfast
Flamingo tongue snail on a sea fan

Finding sea urchins to collect was significantly harder on this patch of reef, but I felt as though there were more large fish like angelfish, tang, and snapper swimming through. I also saw a huge porcupine fish and a nurse shark in some crevices of the reef.

Me holding a long-spined sea urchin

After returning to Glover’s, the afternoon was quite relaxing. As a class, we analyzed the data we collected in the past two days then made a poster presentation of our results and findings. I played a game of soccer (my team won!) before dinner, and had lecture for a couple hours. I even had time after class to swing on the hammocks and talk to Dale and John, two researchers here at Glover’s. All in all, today has been a nice, relaxing change of pace. So much so that I think I’ll have enough energy to wake up early and see the sunrise from the observation deck tomorrow.

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The Quad(rat) Pack

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5.18.2017

I finally got to use my quadrat today on land and in water. We started the day looking at crab density on Middle Caye and then snorkeled through the seagrass beds surrounding the island to determine the diversity of life in that particular ecosystem. Success was limited. I saw zero crabs or crab holes in my sampling area on land, and I only saw a couple of small snails and one anemone in my sampling area in the water. On the bright side, I got to closely analyze the seagrass bed which is one of my taxonomic groups. I noticed a lot of juvenile snapper and other small fish roaming around the sea bed, which is indicative of the ecosystem’s importance as a nursery.

Sun anemone in seagrass bed

The best part of the day was by far the patch reef – I’m pretty sure I died and came back to life in soft coral heaven. Although I didn’t bring my clipboard and identification sheet with me into the water, I was able to recognize a variety of groups including sea fans (G. ventalina), sea plumes (Pseudopterogorgia spp.), and sea rods (Plexaura spp.). The reef was absolutely stunning and I found myself constantly looking around amazed while working with my quadrat.

Patch reef by Southwest Caye in Glover’s Atol
Sea rod (Plexaura sp.)

While on the reef, we were also tasked with collected sea urchins to bring back to the wet lab for further data collection. One of the urchins I was able to find and successfully retrieve was a beautifully patterned pencil urchin. I also saw a long-spined urchin but got a bit too excited trying to pry it off the rock and ended up with a souvenir spine in my fingertip. The excitement didn’t end with a prick of my finger, though. I also got squirted by the aptly named Donkey Dung sea cucumber.

Me holding a Donkey Dung sea cucumber

The day ended late with a guest lecture by Alex Tewfik of the Wildlife Conservation Society, two 15 minute taxon briefings on sponges and soft corals (the former given by yours truly), and another 30 minute topic lecture on microbes. All in all, it’s been a really productive day but I’m most definitely ready to head to bed.