The sun was sparkling through light cloud cover and the animals were alive this morning. Keel-billed toucans chattered through a nearby Cecropia tree, rousing students from a deep sleep after a wonderful day spent flying across canopy zip lines and lounging in scorching hot springs.
Clik here to view.
Dr. Oliver Frauenfeld and the HMS Soltis (tethersonde balloon).
As a new morning began, Ana and Laura headed down to the lab, diligently sorting through data on the chemical spectrometer while rainclouds gathered, poured, and then passed as quickly as they arrived. The PSA kids headed down to their sap flow site for a second tedious day of wiring sensors and rigging up their data logger box. Bugs, heat, and torrential rain kept everyone a little on edge, but overcoming the obstacles of the rainforest is all part of the tropical research experience. It was a big satisfaction to work through the difficult natural conditions, along with voodoo sensors and disappearing tools. That, and knowing that they could see the end in sight (hopefully…).
At the top of the sapflow trail, students caught a view of the first completed fog collector- all of Kaitlin and Josh’s hard work seems to have paid off, as it looks great. Now we just need some fog and they’ll be set! While Josh and Kaitlin were busy with their second collector, the climate group made rounds through the forest, collecting data from three portable weather stations to be analyzed back at the lab. A brief morning cloud passing directly over the Soltis Center offered a great opportunity for Casey to launch his tethered sonde into the cloud. The big red balloon made its way up into the wispy mass and captured our first cloud level data.
The afternoon brought dark, thunder-growling skies that threatened rain, but they never amounted to much precipitation. The howler monkeys certainly noticed, echoing rambunctious cries throughout the forest for much of the afternoon. For the first time since arriving, students were able to catch a glimpse of the noisy, allusive monkeys from a clearing at the top of the center. They were spotted basking in a canopy tree, lying completely still for hours on end and offering only a distant view. Hopefully the coming weeks will provide a more photogenic encounter. As the monkey show was ending, five exhausted primates appeared from the forest after a full ten hour day of surveying. Sweat-soaked and looking haggard from their journey, we left them to much needed peace and quiet.
