This will be my last entry on this blog site as i am now back in Canada (for now - I can always make up new sites as the need arrises ;-)). The last few weeks in Panama were very memmorable, with a few excursions which were made possible by the co-operation of the last 2 bats who were tested and released quickly. A stream ecology Phd student from the States, Amanda Rugenski invited Alisha and I to her study site in El Valle (a cool mountainous region, but not high elevation cloud forest). Here, Amanda has been investigating the effects [View Full Entry]

---

---

I have definitely been sadly neglecting this blog page for the last little while... All my posts on here seem to start with that sentence or a similar one.. O'well. I have the night off tonight so i'm on a mission to try and remmember what i've been doing this past little while and write a little bit. I updated my Boquete post with a few details, I haven't read it over yet, so it may still be a bit unintelligible at this point (sorry). I really don't know where the time has gone. We just have 2 more bats that [View Full Entry]

---

---

Ok, well "I will update this soon" ended up being almost a month later, but that'll have to do i guess. Now i have to remmember all the boquete details. Let's see, we left very early in the morning and took 3 buses and a cab during the all day trip to Boquete. The bus station food at one of the stops gave us all a bit of tummy troubles (to put it mildly) and we found out later that it's been rumoured that the cat's in that area have been dissapearing (though people often say the same thing about KFC). [View Full Entry]

---

---

A few days ago Rachel, Katie, Alisha and I decided to drive out 2 hours to get to a beautiful little beach town on the coast called Santa Clara. Being the middle of the week and a bit overcast there weren't too many people (just mostly us and the seabirds). The water was a bit too turbid for snorkeling, but it was great just swimming and reading on the beach. After a while we paid some fishermen to take us out too a small island nearby that was full of sea-birds (frigates, boobies, pelicans and a few night herons). It was [View Full Entry]

---

---

I just got back from an early morning excursion into Ciudad del Saber (near Panama city). One of Alisha's friends does educational programs for the peregrine fund and invited us to come and see a captive Harpy eagle that they use for educational presentations. His name is Luigi, he's 6 years old (barely a reproductive male - it takes 5 years for them to reach sexual maturity). It was amazing seeing a Harpy Eagle up close, such a huge, powerful bird (and so rare!) - the females are even bigger! Right now there are "soft release" sites near Gamboa on pipeline [View Full Entry]

---

---

This is just going to be a quick update - it's been pretty much bat-work as usual lately. This week on Tuesday was Carnival (Fat Tuesday) so we went into Panama city for the festivities. Being a foreigner, I quickly got targeted for being squirted with waterguns and showered with confettii (all in good fun). There were street venders everywhere selling beer and Chorizzo (sausage on a stick - probably didn't even spell that right) and people were happily drinking and running around having waterfights with complete strangers and flinging confetti everywhere. By the time we were completely so [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, its about time that I post some actual text on here instead of just photos... Yes I guess i have been a bit lazy lately... The captive bats are doing well - we just released the first one a few days ago after he completed all of his trials. He had gained almost 5 grams in about a week which is quite a lot considering that his initial weight upon capture was only about 31g or so. It’s really funny how each of these bats seem to have their own behavioral quirks, some are content to stay on the perch [View Full Entry]

---

---