Ready, set, go!

We were greeted by howler monkeys on the way into the forest today. Literally greeted--I'm always impressed by how much noise emanates from such a small monkey.

The male (left) was very vocal in his "greeting." Another individual (right) was snuggled peacefully--in stark contrast to the alarm calls--into a fork in the tree trunk.

I began my fieldwork in earnest this morning. I observed over a hundred butterflies and caught about twenty. I've only entered the first 50 observations into my database so far, but I've managed to identify a few of them to the genus level. I foresee many evenings poring over identifications. Many of the butterflies are a rather boring black/brown/white, small, and nondescript, but a few are quite spectacular. I haven't yet photographed the newly collected specimens, which include some of my favorites--with oranges and blues--but here's one of the ones I photographed in the field. I particularly like the "tails" on this one.

An individual of the genus Marpesia, I believe of the species chiron.

During the walk out of the forest we also encountered a Slaty-tailed Trogon (Trogon massena), a brightly colored bird. It was spotted and identified by Ioanna, one of our teaching assistants, who studies bird behavior. One hears all sorts of interesting bird calls while walking through the forest, but it's often hard to locate the sound to an actual bird. And even if one can actually find the bird, identification is a whole other matter.

Slaty-tailed Trogon (Trogon massena).