Tag Archives: hiking

2022

Trapping a Jaguar!!! (On camera, hopefully) (Day 10)

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Hi all, it’s Faith with Day 10 updates from the 2022 Belize trip!!!

Today we woke up extra early (mostly on accident) to birdwatch from Las Cuevas Deck! We didn’t see any macaws, but we saw two- four toucans flying across the sky. They were gorgeous!

Then we went to plan out next research project. For our question, we chose “which area (trails, jungle, roads) will each animal group (large predators, small predators, large prey, small prey) use the most measured by relative abundance?” Our hypothesis was that big cats would be the dominant animals using paths and roads whereas small prey and mammals would stay under forest cover. We planned on using trap-cameras to get photos of animals as they cross the trails. By the way, while we were planning, we saw 4 scarlet macaws flying around!

Then we set off to se tho the cameras. Our first trip out we ran into our first of three white lipped turtles (Kinosternon leucostomum). This one was easy to identify because of its white lip, it looked just like one of the ones on my taxa sheet, and we found it swimming in a muddy puddle after the morning rains. After we saw the turtle, I set up my first camera on the “shortcut path” back to Las Cuevas. Because I went first, I was deemed the “camera soldier” and had to fix/ mess with lots of peoples cameras.

We did so much in this hike: set up cameras, use gps markers, walk through the jungle, eat termites, climb a bird tower, trip on Mayan stairs, see huge cave spiders, the list is endless.

I didn’t see my taxa again until after a light evening rain, and they were two mud turtles swimming around in mud puddles. I’m finding that these turtles vary greatly in shell appearance and patterning. The last two turtles lacked the classic white lip coloring, which caused me to misidentify them at first. However, their “bridge shell pattern” between the carapace and bottom shell indicated their true species. Plus, they were found in the same environment as the other white lipped mud turtle!

I’m hoping to see other types of mud turtles, like the Tabasco turtle. The wet season is proving to be good for turtle hunting but bad for reptiles and snakes. I’ll let you know what we see next!

Til’ Tomorrow!

QOTD:

“ if you leave me I’m signing up for an online orphanage”

Giant Cave Spiders
The view at Las Cuevas
One of the three white-lipped mud turtles! (Generously picked up by Caio)
Scarlett Macaw!

 

 

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First Day of Hiking!

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Hey y’all! It’s Michiel again : )

I woke up today at 5:45 for my first full day at Las Cuevas. I was planning to wake up at 6:30, but the birds were so loud that I couldn’t stay asleep. Also, last night there was a black howler monkey (Aloutta pigra) right next to the station that was yelling at another black howler monkey elsewhere in the forest. It definitely kept me awake longer than I wanted to be. Anyway, I joined my fellow TFBs on the patio around 6 and we birdwatched together. I saw three beautiful turkeys, and a couple vultures. Later, we had breakfast, then we were tasked to come up with a research question that involved using camera traps. We came up with “Where are different functional groups (large/small predators and large/small prey) most abundant (forest, trail road)?” To answer this question, we decided to set up camera traps throughout forested areas, on trails, and on roads.

We left the station around 10 to begin setting our traps. For the first two hours, we were all so amazed by the surrounding fauna and flora that we only managed to set six traps – one on a trail and five on a road. While we were in the forest, we actually saw Scarlet Macaws! I’ve included a picture of them here.

After setting these traps, we made our way back to the research station for lunch at 12:15. Lunch was kept pretty short because we needed to go back out there and set more traps. When we went back out there around 1, we traversed through a trail with much more hills (it was actually almost completely uphill then completely downhill) than we had experienced on the other trail. We stayed on this trail until about 6:15 and managed to set 4 traps on the trail, 5 traps within the forest, and 1 trap near Frog Pond. While we were hiking this trail, we saw some beautiful bugs that Caio kept picking up, a cave with ancient Mayan pottery in it, and a lot of leaf cutter ants. We also came across a termite nest, and Scott told us to take termites from it and eat them, which, of course, we did. They tasted really fresh – like carrots. We also went up the bird tower, which had some amazing views.

Unfortunately, I did not get to see any mammals. However, we did hear a black howler monkey yelling while we were placing road traps in the morning. I’m expecting that any sightings of mammals will be really rare throughout the next couple of days, but hopefully the camera traps will take a lot of good pictures of them.

The rest of our day went pretty smoothly. We had dinner, had a break to recuperate from the exhaustion we were experiencing, then had some lectures. I’m hopeful that tomorrow I’ll get to see some mammals!

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Camera Traps Abound + >16,700 Steps Before Lunch

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Hello hello everyone! Before I get into any of the day’s activities, I have some very exciting news! Last night, I had two taxa sightings! The first was a black ground beetle (Pterostichus melanarius) in the family Carabidae spotted in the classroom in the building next to ours as it crawled along the walls. The second was a flat faced longhorn beetle (Callipogon barbatus) and was actually in one of my classmate’s hair.

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A banded netwinged beetle (Calopteron discrepans)

Today I was also able to identify three different beetle species. There was another ground beetle, this time of a dark coppery almost black color, that was crawling on the ground near the base of the Bird Tower and a banded netwinged beetle (Calopteron discrepans) near the base of a large fallen tree as well as many fireflies (we captured one and I believe it was the species Ellychnia corrusca within the Lampyridae family based on the stripes on its back and lack of distinct median ridge) flickering about during our hike through the rainforest.

A firefly (Ellychnia)
A firefly (Ellychnia corrusca)

Speaking of which, today we went out into the Chiquibul Forest for the first time and what an experience that was! Over 31,400 steps taken, over 13 miles covered, over 2800 calories burned, and over 120 flights of stairs later, we had set up 12 camera traps to take pictures of the species that roam the area for the next five days. Now I am going to head to bed and get some rest for tomorrow’s activities. Thanks for reading! 🙂

Made it to the top of the Bird Tower!
Made it to the top of the Bird Tower!
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Smile for the Camera

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Today’s task seemed simple: form a hypothesis and set up 12 camera traps in the forest surrounding LCRS. 

Twelve hours later, our work is finally complete, but it was much easier said than done. After a 5:30am birdwatching session and a hot cup of tea, we set off to develop our experiment. We opted to test the impact of human pathways on local species richness and composition in the Chiquibul by setting up camera traps along roads and trails, as well as in natural clearings. In five days, we’ll collect these traps and see what diverse organisms they’ve managed to catch on film.

The morning’s hike seemed manageable on a map, but many hours and some (incredible) scarlet macaw sightings later, we had set up only half of our traps. By our 3pm lunch break, I had walked 7.8 miles or 16, 652 steps. Talk about a morning workout. 

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View from Bird Tower near LCRS.

Right before lunch, we ended our work at the Las Cuevas Bird Tower. The rickety tower stands at over 600 m of elevation, and the view is almost worth the steep hike up. (Note to entrepreneurs: the Bird Tower would be an ideal location for opening an ice cream stand).

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Sumichrast’s skink (Eumeces sumichrasti).

Despite sweat and blisters, we loaded up on lunch and set off on the Monkey Tail Trail to install the remaining traps in clearings and a natural stream. The main reptile for today was the Sumichrast’s skink (Eumeces sumichrasti), an orange and black lizard with a bright blue tail. I saw evolution in action when we caught a blue-tailed skink; the lizard quickly shed its skin and darted off, leaving the wriggling blue tail in our palms (and the rest of the animal out of sight). 

With our twelfth and final camera trap set in a mud wallow for a prospective tapir sighting, we finally trudged our way home. Though we were all exhausted and covered in sweat (and ticks, in some cases), I found some  peace in the pitch black of the forest. The trees of the canopy arched over the trail to form a tunnel, just like the trees at home on University Boulevard. And just as the blinking lights of the city lead me home at Rice, the twinkling eyes of spiders lit up the trail with pinpricks of yellow light, finally leading us back to Las Cuevas.