it's shoveling snow month!

It's almost the end of January - the month dedicated to shoveling snow in the Dull Men's Club.
Yes there is such a club.

No i'm not a member seeing as I'm a woman.
But maybe they'd make me an honorary member for visiting their site.

In other news - the new Nittany Beagle Rescue site is finally up!! i redid it last SUMMER but now it's LIVE. Woo hoo! The original color scheme was blue and brown but they didn't like shifting from the all brown site I originally created - oh well.

crunch

It's crunch time. My second of four seminars is this thursday.

It's an overview of my research proposal which

eh-hem - isn't quite done (or started for that matter) yet as I've restarted my project and changed a good bit from my previous goals.

i've been reading reading reading - reviewing literature. the more i read, the more i find. And then i realize i'm no where near ready.

ugh! should be interesting. wish me luck.

glorious campario pii

rainbow on the way there (pat's picture)

the water was so blue!

Monkeys were EVERYWHERE. and they didn't seem to understand that the fruit on this tree WASN"T RIPE! they proceeded to chuck apples down from the tree - daily - after one bite. Left: howler monkey - in packs they sound like wild dogs! right: white faced capuchin.


The tree climb! being scared of heights this presented a particular challenge for me. i made it up - shaking the second half! hence the half-assed smile below.


The view at the top was incredible. we were joined by a chestnut-mandibled toucan!

more shots of campanario.

more monkeys! these are spiders.


Corcovado national park! a beautiful, and wildlife abundant place!

Left: white egrets; right: turkey vulture.


left: manakin; right: male caracaracow - their calls sound like frogs so they're easy to pick out!

Birds and fungus at Corco

Look whose in the tree!! an adorable pair of SCARLET MACAWS! i watched them for a while.



Left: an unidentified bird! i'm still working on this one! right: more MONKEYS!!!

Left: stingless bees. they might not sting but they do BITE! beware!

why i may boycott the superbowl

1. i seriously dislike eli manning.
2. brett favre is the man . why bother watching if he's not a part of the action?
3. i still seriously dislike eli manning.
4. we all know who's gonna win it. duh.

what a depressing evening. first, my little female krib took a nose dive. how is it that a fish that was actively tending to her babies just a few hours before, ends up belly up on the bottom gasping for air? i can only imagine she had a heart attack. i have read cichlids can have them but that it's more common in fish like discus and angel fish. poor krib dad is now a single dad tending for the kids. i'm hoping there's atleast one nice female in this batch.

then the pats won. we all knew the pats were gonna win. but in the back of my mind i still had a tiny glimpse of hope - that the chargers may just pull through.

and THEN, my boys lost! how is it that brett favre was DENIED again. will he play another year? his team is - after all - still growing. i was hoping for a 11 year superbowl reunion for favre but no such luck.

ugh.

i figured it was time for a break from incessant picts from costa rica. yes there are more to be posted - but today was destined to be a "vent about football" type of day...

onward to glorious campanario!!!

Arenal - what a view!

Miruna gazing out towards the water.

campanario is only accessible by boat (or foot if you're up for a long long hike!)

Mangrove forests - we spent some time climbing around these. Mangrove roots are incredibly strong.


Campanario - a private reserved located close to corcovado national park and cano island.

Faculty housing (and me since i was the only grad student and a good 10 years older than everyone!).

super cool twisty, old vines.

a little frog!

the forest - so incredibly dense.

This guy had just emerged from it's shell. the cicadas were INCREDIBLY loud in the forest. the dense vegetation amplified what we normally here in PA on a cicada year.

strangler figs These trees actually slowly choke and kill the trees upon which they climb around. How can this happen?

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enormous butressed roots! check out how tiny colleen looks next to them!

Eduardo - the jaguar expert! a brilliant (and SO NICE) man who's done some spectacular work.


The bat tree. we climbed into the hole above - two at a time and hung out with the bats. it was pitch black to headlamps were a must! bottom right: tom hanging out in the "bat tree" to provide perspective as to how big this hollow tree was!

Left: PONCHO the cuati! he hung around and made himself at home at campanario. right: passion flowers up by the kiosko.

left: jesus christ lizard - named so for their ability to run across the top of water! pretty cool. right: another gigantic unidentified insect.

the itsy bitsy spider - except this one was about the size of my hand totally spread out - if not larger and quite colorful!

brown pelicans were abundant.


Glorious - yes! and you haven't even seen the parrots yet! stay tuned for MORE. yes MORE!!!