Dec 30 2011 La Campana

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Carol's Nicaraguan helpers Christian Bonilla, Marlon Jelasquez, Jose Martinez we here to help again today. We left the house at 1pm to drive back to Don Daniel's ranch (Las Pampas). He had two of his kids on horseback and lead our truck to about a mile from our destination. The girl was 4 years old and obviously had been on horseback for a while. Don Daniel is a former Californian who escaped what he said was Disneyland and bought this ranch about 10 years ago. We followed them up the dirt road a ways, onto his land, driving a few miles through a couple of fields. We parked at a muddy gate under a large tree with parrots and then hiked our equipment with Don Daniel about a mile into the beautiful forest. We set up 5 nets along the creek. This was one of the "less fragmented" pieces of native forest.
We caught 37 bats of 10 species... 4 new to me from yesterday. The new ones were:
Rhogeessa tumuda, Central American yellow bat
Artibeus watsonii, Thomas' fruit-eating bat
Eptesicus furinalus, Argentine brown bat
Desmodus rotundus, Common vampire.

We caught 4 vampires 2 each of brown coated and very pretty orange coated. I even took one out of the net on my own! Definitely a bat to take seriously. The front teeth are very sharp chisel-shape. No one was bitten.
Christian, Marlon, and Jose are great at finding other interesting animals. We also saw:
Central American wooly opossum
Kinkajou
Vine snake
Scorpion
2 mantled howler monkeys
Ferruginous pygmy owl

Jose and Marlon collected acoustic (echolocation call) data from the species we caught, plus free flying bats. They are students working on the project with Carol. Jose also speaks English well enough to discuss project topics. I'm getting lots of practice speaking Spanish as the American with more than a few words. Carol is learning as she goes down here and doing pretty well at communicating.
We packed up the nets about 12:30 and hiked back out to the truck. Home at 2am.
Pictures: Following Don Daniel; Very big water spider (2" dia); on of the net sites.

Dec 30 2011 Morning at Escamaquito

Mornings are busy times around the house when the sun comes up about 5. I wake up just enough to register the rooster, Isabella the donkey, the howler monkeys, and all the various bird all greeting the morning. I then roll over and try to get a few more hours sleep before it gets too hot an muggy to sleep any more. This morning is cloudy and there is a nice breeze on the porch outside my room. I came out to listen to the birds, and a flock of about a dozen wood storks flew over.
These are the view from my room and Isabella the donkey.

Dec 29 2011 Las Pampas

We spent the early afternoon fixing mist nets, then got ready to head out.
I went out on my first night of netting for bats in Nicaragua. We left the house about 3:30 and drove north for about an hour to Las Pampas. We met Don Daniel, and American living in Nicaragua. We got to go on his ranch to net. We caught 35 bats of 8 species. We also saw a kinkajou, a 4-eyed o'possum, several frogs, and several parrot-like birds but the light was too bad to tell.
For those who wish to know, the species were:
Artibeus jamaicensis, Jamaican fruit-eating bat
Carollia perspicilla, Seba's short-tailed bat
Lophostona brasiliensis, Pygmy round-eared bat
Artibeus lituratus, great fruit-eating bat
Carollia suburbia, Gray short-tailed bat
Glossophaga commissarisi, brown long-tongued bat
Glossophaga sprucing, common long-tongued bat
Myotis nigricans, black myotis

We had help from Christian Bonilla, Marlon Jelasquez, Jose Martinez
We were home by 1:15.

It looks like Friday will be a long day, and we may camp out, so an update Saturday may we a little late.
Pictures are of Bill Nobel and Stu Tuttle fixing nets; our trap location at Las Pampas.

Managua to Escamaquita

The flight to Managua took us over the Gulf if Mexico, the Yucatan, San Pedro Soula (Honuras) to Managua. We landed in Managua about 12:30; made it through customs and found our driver, Jose Rojas, from Paso Pacifico. He spoke no English, I got to start using my limited Spanish right away. The trip to the study site is only about 70 miles, but took about 3 hours. Managua was very congested and dirty, but once out of the city, the scenery was beautiful. We went through Masaya, Rivas to outside San Juan del Sur. Then down a dirt road about 7 miles (20 min) to Escamaquita. This is a picture of our place. We met the Lopez family, who take car of the place. They are very nice. Virginia is a great cook, Martín keeps us safe and the equipment running. Daughter Jessica (12) is very quiet and son Victor (9) is lots of fun and very helpful with Spanish. The place runs on solar power, so Internet access is limited to middle of the day. Should be able to make regular posts. The plan is to go bat netting tonight!

Takeoff

Made it back to the airport; through security; found Stu Tuttle; boarded plane and soon to take off. Hope to post tonight after we reach southwest Nucaragua near San Juan del Sur.

Houston

I made it as far as Houston today. When the 737 plane was preparing for takeoff from Montrose, Captain Picard came on the speakers to introduce himself and crew and welcome us aboard. Thank goodness his co-pilot was not William Riker, or I would have been concerned.

Up early tomorrow to make the big hop across the Gulf of Mexico!

Packed and Ready

Guess I'm ready to go. I hop to Houston this afternoon. Should meet fellow traveler, Stu Tuttle (NRCS State Biologist for Arizona) some time before take off Wednesday. Will be good to have someone along for the trip. Should get in to Managua about 12:30-ish, then the study headquarters near San Juan del Sur about dinner time.

Bats fly better than reindeer!

  Had to share this christmas card!

More news from Nicaragua:

They are up to 35 species now.  Below are pictures of recent additions.  Artibeus toltecus is the chocolate-y brown bat with white facial stripes pictured below and Micronycteris macrotis is the bat with large ears pictured below. Despite its large ears it is a small bat (this one was about 8 or 9 g). They also captured a female with pup (also pictured...baby in the "arm pit"; they left together).

Wooly False Vampire

This from Carol last week: they capture 112 bats (mostly vampire bats) representing 20 species on a dirt road by Rio Escameca Grande. The big excitement was this false wooly vampire. It's not the biggest expected, but darn close at 83 grams. It's uncommon to rare, so great find!

More really great pictures from Carol in Nicaragua.  They are up to 6 nights of trapping, 171 bats representing 29 species!  Carol said she met her first common vampire (top) a couple of nights ago.  "Each night we're still capturing new species.  Other nifty bats included the fringed-lipped bat (eats frogs), greater white-lined bat (looks like a hostess cupcake), proboscis bat (tiny), greater fishing bat, lesser fishing bat."  Can't wait!

I now know the bats pictured, from top to bottom are:
Common vampire
Greater fishing bat
Seba's short-tailed bat
Proboscis bat

Friend Carol has been in Nicaragua for several days now.  They have started doing some locating of sample sites, trying out equipment and generally getting the project off the ground.  They did some practice mist-netting for bats and caught this really cute fellow.

Here is a map of where I'm going... we'll be in the southwestern corner of the country, west of Rivas near the town of San Juan del Sur.