Thursday, July 30, 2009

day 3

So we're finally in the swing of things. As I write this we're at breakfast and there's a huge thunderstorm going on.

Yesterday was pretty exciting. In the morning we through a gliding gecko off the top of a 20m observation tower and watched it land in the trees. It was pretty sweet. We tried to film it, with limited success. A little while later, when leaving the observation tower, we found a fairly rare species of anole and managed to catch and film it. It was very exciting. If you have a chance, google image search Anolis frenatus, it's very pretty. :) We also saw a couple of snakes and a really pretty striped bird that I'm still trying to identify.

In the afternoon we had much less success with the anoles but still saw a bunch of swallows and some parrots. Also, we're right on the canal here in Gamboa (the former site of operations for canal maitenance) so we get to see all the big ships passing by. We got caught in a huge rainstorm, which is part of why we didn't find that many lizards in the afternoon. It was very short but very intense. I was soaked in about 30 seconds flat. Thankfully the cameras were fine. Thank you, Ziploc. The joys of field work.

Other than the lizards, life is good here. I am extremely bugbitten and may have to resort to DEET. (Thus far I've been relying on the natural stuff which doesn't seem to be working.) But we're all happy and well here. Hope you guys are too.

Summary:
- found a rare anole, tossed a gecko off a tower, saw snakes: herpetological happiness
- rain is fun. and wet.
- bugbites are less fun. and more itchy.

1 comment:

  1. throwing geckoes... definitely sounds like you are hiding from PETA in Panama.

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