Wednesday, December 11th

Today was the first full day of field work! Yesterday I wasn’t prepared for the hike down to the Rio Java, but today I felt much more prepared for the full day of hiking. I brought two bottles of water, and I had better fitting boots, which made a world of difference. We were joined by another group looking for animal trails, and the Ngobe and Embera came with us to show us around the forest. The Ngobe and Embera are extremely knowledgeable about the different species of animal and plant in the area!

For lunch, since we were out in the forest a couple mile, we stopped at a “look out” point on the Melissa Trail. I say “look out” because everything was overgrown, and there wasn’t much to look out at! It was still an nice place to stop for lunch regardless, as there was a very nice little breeze that helped cool us down. After lunch we continued our hike and put up a few more camera traps on some animal trails the Ngobe and Embera pointed out to us. I’m so excited to see what our camera traps reveal!

We put a few camera traps up on animal trails, but we also put some up on clusters of the shampoo ginger (Zingiber spectabile). We want to see what animals are using the shampoo ginger! In previous years, we’ve seen birds, insects, and rodents on the flowers of the plant.

A photo of a flowering inflorescence of the shampoo ginger. 

Tomorrow we start counting the plants, and I’m eager to see the results of our research. I would like to know how fast the plants grow, so we will be comparing our numbers this year with the numbers from last year. I’m expecting quite an increase, we’re seeing the plants in the primary forest - a place they haven’t really been seen in years past. Tomorrow will be a very busy day, as will the rest of the field days, so I have to make sure I’m prepared for a full day of work!