This is going to be a two part blog post.  I was hoping to get this one posted last week,
but it turned out we weren’t able to get internet access.  This post covers two weeks ago, and then tomorrow or the following day I will update a post with what has happened this
past week (the best week yet…).
So here I am attempting to write up a new post in some very difficult circumstances.  We are en route to the village Surama on the back of a retired war-era Bedford truck, traveling on the same pothole ridden road (if you can call it a road) that led into the Iwokrama research station.  I have both palms firmly planted on the base of my laptop to keep it on my lap every time we bounce off our seats so it doesn’t go out the open sides.  The trip normally only takes an hour or so by small truck, but with us averaging a speedy 5mph, it should take roughly 4-5 hours.  However if we are lucky we will chance upon a jaguar or large anaconda sunning itself in the open clearing.  At least we will have plenty of time to watch it as we snail on by.

In this camp we will be boating up and down the Burro-burro river doing surveys for Giant river otters, Anacondas, caimans (black, spectacled, and dwarf if we are fortunate enough), as well as capybara and water birds.  My nights will be spent surveying the forest for whatever reptiles and amphibians we can come across and are nice enough to donate a toe or some scales for DNA samples.  My long lenses will particularly come in handy for being able to identify otters individually as they all have unique patterns under their chin, much like our fingerprints.  The Burro-burro river is supposedly one of the best rivers for fishing, so we will never be deprived meals of tasty smoked piranha or fried catfish.  I’ll have to admit, it was a little weird at first cooking and eating fish I am so used to seeing in aquariums, but they are delicious.  Also weird was using cichlids and tetras, the same as in my tank at home, to catch these fish.  All part of the adventure.

We spent the past week a few hours up the Essequibo river surveying the camp Kabocalli.  No fer-de-lances to be relocated this week, or any other venomous snakes for that matter, but there was a myriad of other animals.  Another few large black caiman soon discovered our presence, undoubtedly attracted to the fish heads and guts tossed in after cleaning our fish.  It was a little unnerving having these river “monsters” hanging out at night in the exact place we bathe during the day, but there really was nothing to worry about.  Or at least that is what we convinced ourselves.  Nothing could stop us from using our makeshift diving “branch” hammered into some trees a few meters out of the water.  Our daily afternoon diving and flip contests had to go on, and no caiman would stop us.

In only the week I was there, I was able to add five new reptiles and amphibians to the list from he last time Kabocalli was surveyed.  These included a few different tree frogs (Osteocephalus sp.), the aromabatid Allobates femoralis, and arguably the world’s most unique amphibian, the Surinam Toad (Pipa pipa).  These bizarre beasties are denizens of the leaf-litter in the flooded swamps, and at first glance look just like the leaves.  Their bodies are flattened, their head like a flattened triangular pancake, and front hands with tree root like fingertips (likely with sensory receptors).

I was also so privileged to receive my first ever boa bites.  I was first christened by a small amazon tree boa (Corallus hortulanus), which required a small stick to remove its jaws from my forearm, before graduating to a sizeable adult.  Holy mother did that hurt, and that won’t even compare to my first emerald tree boa or anaconda bite (fingers still crossed they don’t happen) but I feel like it is inevitable considering the nature of my work.  They don’t seem to be as enthused with my PhD topic on their study as I am, and for some reason like to keep all of their belly scales in tact.  Talking to them soothingly beforehand doesn’t seem to ease them at all either, trust me I’ve tried.  There’s nothing like conservation through preservation.

Every morning nature’s alarm clock wakes us between 5:30 and 6:30am.  Howler monkeys are so loud you’d swear they are right under your hammock.  The sonorous tinamous aren’t so bad, but the macaws scream so loud, it echoes in your head.  I don’t understand why birds so pretty need to make the most awful screeching sound.  Whatever happened to “Polly want a cracker?” All jokes aside, nature’s alarm clock is a glorious way to wake every morning and I would not want it any other way.

The daily meals are very tasty and protein filled, though I have definitely lost some weight.  It’s okay, I had some spare to lose anyway, and I feel very healthy.  The air is so clean and it feels amazing to take a giant breath without worrying about having to filter out the usual pollutants.  All the Brits complain about the scorching heat and humidity, but this is no worse than Maryland on a hot summer day.  Especially coming from me, who sweats when I just think about sweating.  Though it would be nice to have a more consistent breeze.
This week upcoming is going to be just as exciting as the others, if not more.  I am going to be acquainted with the well-known Sydney Allicock, who is very keen on me surveying and inventorying the Surama forests and surrounding areas of the north Rupununi wetlands and savannahs.  My future PhD work will likely be a cross comparison and overall inventory of the herpetofauna of Iwokrama’s tropical forests and the transition into the savannahs further into the hinterland.  Little work has been done here previously, so there should be lots of amazing future discoveries and experiences to look forward to.

I think I will be car sick for the rest of the week if I don’t wrap this post up.  Internet permitting there will hopefully be another update this week.  If not, we are back at the field station on the 18^th, for that is the end of the road for this round of volunteers, so look forward to checking in then.

Fer-de-lances, rainbow boas, a jaguar, and piranhas fairly well sums up this first week out in the field.  We have been staying at Turtle Mountain camp, only a 30 minute boat ride up the Essequibo River from the Iwokrama field station.  As soon as we arrived we had to quickly set up the bird and bat mist nets and get to work with compassand GPS to clear the trails we intended to survey.

We are breaking the volunteers into actual jungle living which is why we chose to survey this camp first.  While we are sleeping in hammocks here, they are set up in large gazebos (the Man-zebo, She-zebo, and Staff-zebo so eloquently dubbed by the volunteers).  There is also a makeshift building for the kitchen and our eating area as well as flushing (well, only sometimes) toilets and two showers.  Luxury living compared to our next camp, Kabocalli.

I have already found about 25 different species of reptiles and amphibians, give or
take with lots of DNA samples already collected.  There’s been fer-de-lances, rainbow boas, amazon tree boas, whipsnakes (which bite like a mother-f-er), caimans, among many others.  I’ve also been bitten by my first falcon, who also decided to sink its razor sharp talons deep into my fingers with scary ease. It’s all part of the fun.

I was anticipating swarms of mosquitoes as thick as clouds but have been pleasantly
surprised.  While there are certainly lots of mosquitoes, those tend to be the least of our problems.  Instead its ants, and tons of them.  Black ants, fire ants, little ants, bullet ants (no bites yet), velvet ants (no stings either), all shapes and sizes, and they all think we are food.

I have been doing quite a bit of fishing in the afternoons here.  I take the boat out with our captain and a few volunteers, heading up the Essequibo river to find small alcoves that are good to tie off in.  It reminds me a lot of saltwater fishing, where you cast your bait out and have no idea what kind of fish you are going to pull in.  We’ve been catching all kinds of fish, black piranha, red-bellied piranha, many different kinds of catfish that they call either “skinfish” or “boots,” as well as a few others.  All are great eating, and after big catches we feast like kings.  It gets dark early here, roughly 6:15 or so and its almost black out.  When clouds don’t blanket the sky, the stars are like densely populated city lights.  I have never seen so many stars in my life.  We are so remote that the light pollution has little effect here.  Combined with the glass-like water on the boat ride back you can’t help but be captivated by the nearly perfect reflection of the night sky on water.

I’ve taken advantage of the night rides back to do some spotting for caiman and tree boas
along the river.  I’ve already landed two tree boas (amazon, no emeralds yet) and a few frogs and other non-venomous snakes).  We have a few big caiman that like to hang out where we tie up the boat, and since these are far less used to people than Sankar, the resident black caiman at the field station, we don’t do any swimming here.  Our first evening back after fishing we were greeted with the exciting news of a jaguar spotting
just by one of the bat mist nets.  Sure, it is a little nerve-wracking doing night walks in these exact spots, but they are far more afraid of us than we are them (or at least most of us).  I really hope that I will be fortunate enough to see one, and maybe even photograph it, this summer.  If not, at least I will have plenty more future opportunities here.

It’s really hot during the day and certainly plenty humid.  But in reality it is not much worse than a hot summer day in the Mid-Atlantic.  Usually we are graced with an afternoon rainshower that works to cool things down, even if it is only for a few minutes.

Stay tuned, lots more to come in the upcoming weeks.

Boats are getting loaded with all of our gear.  We are headed for the camp at Turtle Mountain any minute now, as soon as my ethanol and one of the volunteers bags come.  I likely won’t have internet for the next few weeks but will try to keep this updated as much as possible.  Look forward to my return with stories of Anaconda and caiman wrangling. It’s going to be a very productive next few weeks with hundreds of pictures to come.

Today has been really busy.  Lots of powerpoints and lectures to the volunteers-today all about the birds and bats in the Iwokrama rainforests.  We have taken them out and showed them how to set up the mist nets for catching them, and after catching some birds, taught them how to hold, identify, and release them.  The same is going on right now with the bats.

They have also learned all about what the Iwokrama Research Center is all about.  Essentially, the Iwokrama forest is a 1,000,000 acre (371,000 hectare) reserve that was established to investigate sustainable forestry services.  Guyana still has 85% of its natural rainforests intact, so it is the best opportunity to study selective logging and the impact on the biodiversity.  To sum up the complexities of it, basically there are divided regions in the reserve- those designated as Wilderness Preserve which can never be logged, and Sustainable Usage Areas, where logging occurs.  However it is not logging in the traditional sense where they come in and clear cut the forest.  Before ANYTHING is logged, an entire survey is done of the area marking off select trees that are to be cut.  No young trees are cut down, only full grown, and before so all vines are cut.  When trees are felled with vines still attached to other trees, many of them are often dragged down unintentionally causing far larger clearings.  Many of the tree species here require a certain degree of shade in order to thrive, so large openings hinder their growth.  Also before falling a tree, a designated path is established for its removal that won’t affect other trees as it is dragged out.

This all may still sound bad, BUT, only 29% of the trees in the sustainable use area will ever be cut down, and this will occur over the course of 60 years.  In 60 years, the small gaps from the original felled trees will have filled in the area.  So essentially the overall goal is to show that far more money can be made from the rainforest without clear cutting it.  My friend Jake Bicknell did his masters on the effect of this selective logging on large bird species and large mammals and found that there is very little impact on the overall biodiversity levels and is going to do further studies on this for his PhD.  There is an individual here who is doing her PhD on this topic with the amphibians, and I intend to focus much of my PhD on the logging effect on the reptiles.  After our studies are completed over the next few years, we should have the most comprehensive study ever showing that these methods of selective logging are imperative both financially for the loggers (over time), as well as for preserving as many of our tropical species as possible.

Food here so far is still very good so certainly no complaints in that department.  I wish it got dark a little later.  It is nearly pitch black by 6:15 in the evening.  But at least it brings the jungle to life with all new sounds.  The guttural call of all the marine toads echoes all around as does all of the higher pitch squeaks of all the treefrogs and insects.

Unfortunately pictures still won’t load so keep tuning in to flickr.

Wow, what an adventure the last few days have been.  I was really hoping to update the blog a day ago but I spent the day frantically traveling around Georgetown to get all of the last minute stuff taken care of.  What kind of last minute stuff?

Since some of my research is going to take place on Amerindian lands, I needed permission from both the chief of the village and then permission from the Minister of Amerindian Affairs.  I sent in my application well ahead of time and then stopped hearing back from the person I was in touch with.  Without permission I can’t do research.  Sooo, I had to taxi on over to their headquarters while Jake was working out last minute supplies for the volunteers, and basically demand my approval letter.

Finally got that taken care of, but I then had to take that letter over to the Environmental Protection Agency so I could get my research, collection, and export permit.  All of this, while also having to shop around stores for buckets for pitfall traps, getting rubber boots for the volunteers and making sure absolutely everything was situated before shipping off to the jungle at exactly 8pm.

I hope I never have to personally drive in Georgetown.  For one I’d have to get used to driving on the opposite side of the road, and then learn how to ignore traffic signals and also all of the other cars, bikers, motorcycles, and innocent (or not so innocent) bystanders.  There are also is a language of horns in Guyana that I am slowly picking up on.  As in the states, one long honk means “move the hell out of my way, I am not stopping and I don’t care if I hit you!”  Two short honks means “I am coming behind you, beware, I intend to pass.”  And three short honks seems to serve as an acknowledging “Hello, nice to see you.”

Georgetown sits a few meters below sea level, which is why there is a large sea wall and
no beaches.  A series of slow moving canals throughout the city redirect any extra water, but also apparently double as places of trash collection based on all the litter in it.  Between the canals and the rum distillery, Georgetown has a very unique, almost mineral rich smell.  There are many restaurants, fast food joints (including KFC and Church’s Chicken), hotels and small shops.  Everywhere there is the constant hustle and bustle of city life.

We were originally supposed to have buses to take us from Georgetown to the Iwokrama
but the roads have been so bad that they cancelled their service.  So instead we had to take vans the whole way.  When road conditions are fine it is supposed to take about 6 hours.  Let’s just say we arrived at the field station at almost exactly 8 AM.  Sleep was next to impossible, and the only times we were really able to stretch was every time we were stopped by the police to examine passports.

We finally arrived in Kurupakari, Guyana, which lies just across the Essequibo river from the Iwokrama field station.  The vans were all carefully loaded on a “ferry” to cross the river where we reached one final customs checkpoint.  That’s because not all of us on the vans were heading to the Iwokrama.  Many on my van were Brazilians heading further on to Lethem and into Brazil.

First impressions of the Iwokrama field station—WOW!  Certainly nothing at all like the base camp in Cusuco National Park in Honduras that I am used to.  There is a lot of ecotourism that goes on here so I suppose it is imperative that foreign tourists still receive some degree of pampering in the jungle.  Our cabins actually have beds, showers, and flushing toilets with many other large established buildings.  The food is great.  I have already consumed more meat here this summer than probably all of last summer combined, minus our epic pig roast.

Screeching macaws fly over every morning, cane toads dominate at night-wildlife abounds everywhere.  We have gone for a few swims in the Essequibo which literally is our front lawn.  Sure there are things to be careful of, stingrays, caiman, etc. but as long as you are in groups there is nothing to worry about.  However we did happen upon one large electric eel, thankfully not the hard way.

Our days until leaving on Friday morning for our first camp called Turtle Mountain are filled with educational lectures to the volunteers about what our research is going to entail as well as frantic searching for all last minute equipment we need.  We are supposed to have two 4km transects at each camp we go to but the flooding is so bad that they are going to have to be far shorter this year.

Last night I took the volunteers out on a little walk around the perimeter of the field station to see what was around which turned out to be quite productive.  As I mentioned before Cane toads (Rhinella marina) are everywhere.  While pointing out a particularly large male to the group and giving a little info about it, this thing must have mistaken my left foot for an attractive female.  It hopped on over, grasped my foot with its arms and legs, and refused to let go.  No amount of shaking would work, I literally had to pry it off.  So now I guess I can cross of getting foot-raped by a toad off my bucket list (no it wasn’t really on my bucket list before).

We found lots of the common species, the Amazon Giant treefrog (Hypsiboas boans), Scinax ruber (not sure of the common name), a small black caiman (Melanosuchus
niger), and the common ground frog (Leptodactylus bolivianus).

Anyway, lots to do but I hope to add another post later on today.  For some reason I am unable to load pictures right now so I will see if I can get them loaded later.  In the meantime check out my photo updates on my flickr page.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29096471@N05/

Never before have I been wished a happy Father’s day as much as I have today.  Men, women, children, stray dogs, it didn’t seem to matter, they all wanted to share in the celebration.  I even had someone pass by me on a bike and ask for some change and upon saying I didn’t have any, he says, “Oh that’s fine, have a happy Father’s Day then!”  Really?

I spent some time getting acquainted with Georgetown.  Figured it is only appropriate since we are sure to have a love/hate relationship over the next few years.  First we (myself, Jake Bicknell, Nina, and James) went to the Botanical gardens.  At first I was thinking lots of flowers and trees in confined spaces, but it was more of just an open park with some sporadic trees and random flowers.  There is however some large water areas that are supposedly full of manatees, though I was only priviliged enough to see some tail.

After checking out the botanical gardens we wandered over to the Georgetown zoo which was right next door.  After a hefty charge of about a $1.50 we passed through the gates and started checking out some of the cages.  They had some good representatives of the native fauna, including this Harpy Eagle below.  They are the world’s largest eagle, capable of snatching monkeys from trees with their massive talons.  It just doesn’t look right behind a cage, but I figured the zoo would be good to whet my own appetite.

We headed to meet up with the mammal scientist, Dr. Burton Lim of the Royal Ontario museum, at another hotel after our wanderings.  Sitting poolside with a few Banks beers and some fried snapper with habanero bbq sauce while going over all of the logistics for the summer’s research suddenly made it seem a little less like work and a little more like fun. 

Pretty much next thing we knew it was time for dinner, so with our last night in civilization for two months we wanted to do it right…can you say all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse?  Before gluttonizing ourselves on the myriad meats, we figured no better way to start a Brazilian meal than with Brazil’s national cocktail, Caipirinha.  A mix of sugar-cane rum, lime and ice, it’s very refreshing, and here they were made strong.  Certainly not a bad send off meal for the proverbial “last supper.”

So I have officially spent my first night in Georgetown, Guyana. After lots of flights, headaches, and all that good fun I am now getting the opportunity to do my first post.  Though, I think it’s going to take me a bit longer than expected since I have to keep wiping the sweat off of my computer.  Feels much like the weather in the mid-Atlantic, except that weather is inside too, not just outside. 

I am here as the Senior Herpetologist for Operation Wallacea, a British based conservation orgazation, and it is here I will also be conducting my PhD work on the reptiles and amphibians.  This is the first year of Opwall in Guyana, so the group will be very small.  Only 4 or 5 researchers and 9 volunteers the first half of the summer, and then we lose a researcher, the 9 volunteers, and pick up 18 new volunteers.  At least we’ll have fresh legs for helping carry our gear.

We are off to the Iwokrama on Monday evening.  A good 8-hour bus ride on an unpaved road in a region that has experienced more rain than it has in 15 years-should be fun.  Prepping for having to get out and push whenever we get stuck.

So what all goes with me for a summer’s worth of jungle research?  The answer is, all of this, all of the stuff I forgot to get, and we’ll subtract the cat-she stayed home. 

The List:

Clothes:  3 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of shorts, 3 long sleeve shirts, 4 short sleeve shirts, 8 pairs of expedition underwear (the special drying kind-essential), 6 pairs of socks, waterproof hiking boots, wading boots, and sandals-Lots of waterproof gear

Photo/Video- Nikon D300, Nikon D80, Sigma 70-200mm and 1.4x teleconverter, Sigma 17-50mm, Tokina 12-24mm, and my Nikon 105mm macro.  Then there are two SB-600 flashes, a dual flash bracket, lots of filters, many batteries, and roughly 100gb of memory and compact flash cards.  Lots of new stuff for this summer, as well as the addition of a GoPro video camera, and a Sony Everio camcorder just for casual stuff.  Then there are about 100 batteries and chargers and all of that good stuff.  Tripod and I am sure plenty of other stuff I am forgetting.

Packs-My REI 85 liter pack acts as my transport bag from camp to camp.  Photo/video/daybag is the new F-stop satori backcountry, which so far is proving to be one heck of a bag.  Then there is just one giant bag for everything else which will stay much of the time in the Iwokrama nature center.

Science-I’ve got my snake tongs, some guide books, and lots of stuff for DNA collection (2ml Microcentrifuge tubes, scissors, and supplies for preserving and transporting specimens. 

I know there is far more that I have forgotten to list but time is running short for the day’s activities of wandering around Georgetown.  I have to head to the EPA at some point, get my collection permits and establish some contacts of my own. 

While I have internet I will try to update this once or twice a day.  So that will be internet for the first 5 days or so, and then only for a few days in the middle of July, and then for the last few days of the expedition.