The Earthwatch story comes to an end: Part Uno (1)

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So, I've been a tad out of action for the last few days... It started on Monday night with sporadic moments of sleep, hot & cold sweats, aching muscles, constricted chest & tummy, nightmares and... Ok ok I'm making it sound horrid but it really wasn't great! So I attempted to do my daily 5h30am wake up and collect bird species but wizzled out like an invalid soon to crawl back into bed! By dinner I thought all was good and the next day I was revving the engine slowly...
BUT after a dinner of homemade pizzas (story to come...) with Oldemar and his family the real nightmare began! For the last few days I've been bed ridden, had a mix of diarrhea and constipation (I know too much info), cramps like you can't believe, completely exhausted and felt quite guilty for not being able to help out with the group as much (I did count pollen slides, one with about 1400 pollen grains! And I counted over 30!)... But what can you do? AND YES I'M FINE!!!! I have enough mothers here to make sure I'm doing just grand ;-)

So onto more fun stuff! First I need to make 2 apologies: I have highly deceived you in terms of my spectacular environment... I tragically downplayed it by saying I was in a rain forest, when in actual fact I'm in the midst of a CLOUD forest which is more windy, colder and at a higher altitude.

Second, I think I forgot to 'publish' my last entry once I had finished it... Not sure, but you may be reading it with some delay post writing... So now you'll be getting a whole ton of stories! I'll try, but can't promise, to keep them short and specific! So to try align the pics we're gonna do a mini-series novel:

EARTHWATCH MINI-SERIES PART 1-UNO
The animals... It is just impossible to capture all the creatures: mammals, butterflies, birds, spiders, insect on camera. And my little camera has decided to be a real stroppy lady and go weird on me when I zoom. But here we go:

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Photos

Leaf Cutter ants
These little things are amazing, you see them everywhere constantly carrying neatly cut pieces of leaves. These aren't the aweful army ants which are the ones to avoid at all costs!

It's all in a days ant work!
This path has been created by the incredible little leaf cutters...

The invisible vamplette
Ok so this doesn't look to drastic, but you have all these little bites all over you and they itch like mad! And 5 days later it's worse... You wake up in the middle of the night scratching crazy style! I call them the invisible vamplettes cos you never see these sneaky black flies, only the dripping blood and scars are evidence they ever payed a visit!

Hide & seek!
Spot the insect...

Nesting purple throated mountain gem humming bird
This photo was taken through a telescope in Monteverde. It's of a hummingbird nesting on her newly born baby and one egg still not hatched.

The hummingbird baby & egg sibling
A crap picture cos we had to hurry not to disturb the nest or the mother wouldn't return and couldn't use a flash as it could severely damage them.

My favouritist favourite!
This is the equisite blue crowned motmot! It is so beautiful... And it loves having its picture taken, it literally did an elegant turn to show it's back for another pic ;-)

The showoff takes it all in!
Like I said, it enjoyed every minute of being adored!

Ugh!
And they said I had nothing to worry about with snakes! This thing was about 2 metres, slithering out from under my bungalow, apparently shedding it's skin... I'd love to spice it up and say this is highly venomous and I was truly endangered, but unfortunately this is just a really big harmless reptile!

Night beauty
This is a beautiful night butterfly! I have been desperately trying to capture some of the amazing butterflies around here so very glad one of the Ticas helped out this time ;-)

Tarantulaville
A faithful corridor tarantula companion...

Comments

[Shakey77]

Cool Around Killer Creatures
I love how cool you are around creatures that would have us running for the panic room in England. Terrantula .......... "companion". Snake ........ "harmless". A giant butterfly similar to a Boeing 747 ...... casually holds out an arm for it. WHAT?! Glad you're enjoying yourself Dr. Dolittle!!

[Sambo Tag]

Such a girl Mr Shakespeare!
It's always easier to pretend bravery writing about it post experience! I did a little squeel when seeing the snake I must admit - but dont tell anyone :-)