Sunday is our day off. Every Sunday morning there is a trip
going to the supermarket with the pick-up truck because it is quite far to walk.
So with 8 people in the back we drove down the mountain to San Gerardo. We
first visited the secret gardens where we also had a Costa Rican breakfast. I
had no idea they existed but they had trees with pink bananas! I wonder what
that would taste like.
After dinner, when it was dark, we went out with a few of the volunteers on a training night survey with Jen. Our bags packed with gloves, plastic buckets and indication flags we set off to the transect close to camp to look for frogs and anoles. After not too long, close to the river, we found our first frog! An Emerald glass frog. They are very hard to see because they are as green as the leaf that they sit on and they are very small. On their stomach, where the intestines are located, their skin is see-through. We caught quite a good number of frogs in the end, two anoles and one crab. I did not expect to find a crab in the mountains! Every time a frog is caught we place a small orange location flag in the ground so we know where to release it again the next day. Clean gloves have to be warn whenever a different frog is handled to prevent the spread of the Chytrid fungus. We don't know whether this fungus is also present in this area, but to prevent any possible contamination we act like it is here. All the frogs are brought back to camp for identification as it is very difficult to correctly ID them in the field. The identification and taking of photos will be done tomorrow morning.
After dinner, when it was dark, we went out with a few of the volunteers on a training night survey with Jen. Our bags packed with gloves, plastic buckets and indication flags we set off to the transect close to camp to look for frogs and anoles. After not too long, close to the river, we found our first frog! An Emerald glass frog. They are very hard to see because they are as green as the leaf that they sit on and they are very small. On their stomach, where the intestines are located, their skin is see-through. We caught quite a good number of frogs in the end, two anoles and one crab. I did not expect to find a crab in the mountains! Every time a frog is caught we place a small orange location flag in the ground so we know where to release it again the next day. Clean gloves have to be warn whenever a different frog is handled to prevent the spread of the Chytrid fungus. We don't know whether this fungus is also present in this area, but to prevent any possible contamination we act like it is here. All the frogs are brought back to camp for identification as it is very difficult to correctly ID them in the field. The identification and taking of photos will be done tomorrow morning.
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