Flashback: Tuesday

After a good night's sleep I've spent most of today watching TV and sorting through pictures. Here are the ones from Tuesday.

Tuesday was my last day in the field. I had been planning on going out Wednesday as well, but there were so many butterflies on Tuesday that I realized I just didn't have enough time to input all the data and do my analysis (hence my all-nighter). At one of the sites I observed over a hundred butterflies in just 15 minutes.

The most common large butterfly in San Lorenzo: Anartia fatima or "Banded Peacock."

There were also some gorgeous flowers...

A papaya tree...

Papaya!

And lots of leaf-cutter ants...

Leaf-cutter ants carrying a ficus stipule.

The coolest thing, though, was that the howler monkeys were all vocalizing. I'm not sure if it was because it had rained a lot the night before, or what, but you could hear multiple groups calling back and forth all day. I stopped to watch three, but there were some nearby that I couldn't find among all the leaves, and others that were farther away.

I thought these were particularly cute as they reminded me of a totem pole.

I love the way their tails curl around whatever''s nearby.

There was one monkey family in particular that I spent a lot of time watching once I finished by field work for the day. First, I noticed a monkey up in a tree on one side of the road, and then I heard noises behind me and realized that a monkey had jumped down quite close to me. It was clearly the alpha male, and not entirely pleased with me being so close to his tribe. It wasn't really howling, but it was making noises seemingly to warn me not to cross him.

Being carefully watched by Dad.

 And then, as I photographed Dad, I noticed movement above. It was a mother and baby who, after some looks from afar, also came down to see what was going on. I spent a lot of time just watching them and taking pictures before walking back to the bus.

Mom and baby.