Bastante animals at Piedras!

The next two weeks at Piedras were incredible. The jungle around Piedras is teeming with wildlife and so so beautiful I couldn't believe it. Every morning we would wake up around 4 or 5 am and spend the morning helping out with the ongoing research projects. You may all be surprised that I was able to wake up that early every day, considering that normally I am more likely to be going to sleep at that hour! But I had no problems waking up that early because I was always so excited to go out into the jungle and discover more cool plants and animals. Our first full day there, we all did a short, 2 or 3 hr introductory walk along one of the trails through the jungle. Within the first 15 minutes, we came across 3 different types of primates: saddle-back tamarins, dusky titis, and spider monkeys! About a half hour later, we found a herd of white-lipped peccary (wild pigs), which are really lovely animals because they REEK like nothing else, the babies make retching noises, and they all make a ton of noise as they crash through the bushes. During our walk, Emma also pointed out some of the most common types of trees, although there are so many different trees in the rainforest, it is impossible to know them all! I was particularly impressed by all the different types of palm trees throughout the forest. Two of my favorites were the walking palm and the pona palm. Walking palms have these really cool, tall, spiky stilt roots that grow towards the light and thus move the tree little by little over the years. Then the pona aka "erotic palm" has shorter stilt roots that are so phallic looking that it borders on obscene! The two projects going on at Piedras are both really cool. The first monitors a large clay lick by the river, where brightly colored macaws and parrots come to feed. Here, Emma is looking at the impact of boat traffic on their feeding behavior, with the intent of also comparing her data to similar studies that are being conducted along a different river (Rio Tambopata). For the second study, Emma conducts 4 km mammal transects along trails in the forest, which basically means that you walk along these trails as slowly and quietly as possible and write down all the mammals you see along the way. Since loggers have hunted in the area around her land before, Emma is assessing how the mammal populations are recovering. On the mammal transects, we also looked out for 4 different species of bird, some of which are considered indicators of undisturbed forest. We spent the first couple days clearing the trails with machetes, familiarizing ourselves with the forest and the animals we would be seeing, and learning how to help out with the research. Then for the next two weeks, we worked from around 5 or 6am to 1 or 2pm, going out in pairs to collect data for the two projects. I especially loved collecting data for the mammal transects, as it basically meant a chance to walk through the forest for 6 or 7 hours and see a lot of really cool wildlife. I walked all of my transects with Garza, a really cool local guy employed by Emma to help out with the research and other jobs around the station. Garza spoke only a few words of English (mostly names of animals, including some that I didn’t even know the names for in English!). It was always great fun walking through the forest and practicing my Spanish with him. Sometimes he would test my Spanish when I asked him questions: "Garza, how high in the tree was that monkey?" "Dos mil kilómetros (2000 kilometers)," he would reply. I loved being out so early in the morning, when the rainforest is just beginning to wake. The rainforest is always quite dark anyway because the trees form such a thick canopy of vegetation overhead. In the dim morning light, the forest is even darker, and all around, the forest reverberates with the ghoulish sound of howler monkeys roaring. Garza and I would walk VERY slowly through the forest (less than 1 km per hr!), constantly scanning the surrounding forest for animals and straining our ears for sounds of wing-flaps or some animal rustling leaves. Anytime we thought we heard something move, we would stop and search for it. In a forest where everything is constantly moving and teeming with life, this was a painstaking process at times. But because the animals in the forest startle very easily and most have much better perception than humans, it is often very difficult to see anything in the forest if you walk too quickly or make too much noise.

On some transects, we would only see a few birds and squirrels, but on others we were constantly barraged by troupes of monkeys and beautiful birds calling to each other. On one particular transect, Garza came across a troupe of 5 or 6 Saddle-back Tamarins, quite small monkeys with beautiful multi-colored coats. We were whispering in hushed tones to each other, trying to count the number of monkeys jumping from tree to tree. Then suddenly, a Saki monkey jumped into view right in front of us, only about 15 meters away. Saki monkeys are the coolest monkeys ever; they look like they belong in the Arctic somewhere because they are covered in long hair and have very long, thick, bushy tails. Meanwhile, gorgeous blue morpho butterflies larger than my hand were flitting all around us. I had a very nerdy moment right then when I thought to myself, "Whoah, this is SO cool. I get to walk through gorgeous Amazon rainforest, watch animals, learn Spanish, AND contribute to science all at the same time!" Garza has grown up in the area and it shows; like Emma, he seems to have an extraordinary ability to perceive and identify all the animals of the forest. When we had finished the transect we would walk back to the lodge and often find even more animals along the way! He would also point out different plants, showing me palms leaves that are used to make the roofs on houses, green leaves that turn a deep blood-red color when crushed and mixed with water, roots that are used to treat kidney problems, and lots more.