He can FLY!

Went to work this morning after having a splendid and much needed two days off with my roomies Molly, Sherri, Amber, Jen, and Christa and found a great discovery! Eggbert can fly! Eggbert (actually Sir Eggbert) is our white throated magpie jay who was found abandoned on the roadside. He didn't know how to fly or self-feed and was so young he still had down feathers. Eggbert is progressing greatly! He has grown new feathers and can fly/hop from twig to twig now. I still have to feed him though, but it's one of my favorite jobs. I take small pinches of ground beef and put my fingers over his head while he opens his mouth widely and loudly. When he swallows he makes a gurgling sound before pleading for more. Here is a picture of our cute little Eggbert.

In other news: We have a jaguar and two cubs living in the forest behind the Rainsong farm! Apparently the mother jaguar put a hole through our white tailed deer fawns enclosure in hope of food for its young, but our fawn hopped the fence. He was found two days later with only a few scratches, and was returned to Rainsong and put into a locked and roofed enclosure. Enjoy a picture of Rudy, our fawn!

Land Thieves and Debates

I am on my second week here at Rainsong and all of my days are running together. It seems that there was so much going on when I look back at this week and yet when I am in the moment of this week I find that the other volunteers and I have our work done right away and so we simply putz around until more work comes along. We're definitely in the rainy season now as it hasn't stopped pouring for four days! With so much rain there isn't much we can do, work-wise.

Last week, neighbors of Mary's pulled out her fencing up at the lodgehouse near the farm and clear-cut all of her trees. They put wooden numbered stakes into the ground in hopes of moving their fence to those stakes and thus stealing a good portion of her land, simply for the ocean view. A few volunteers and I were up there pulling out their stakes and taking pictures for evidence while Mary called the police and an investigator. She's apparently been dealing with this for years now!

Once everything was handled with that situation and things quieted down on the sanctuary, Mary was invited to attend an important meeting about the prevention of animal electrocutions. She nvited me along and we brought Evey, one of her baby howler monkeys who is a victim of arboreal animal electrocutions. Her mother was in the nearby national park and was zapped on a telephone wire. A local had found Evey still clinging to her dead mothers back and brought her to Rainsong. When we arrived at the meeting we talked about Evey's background and what needs to be done to prevent these animal electrocutions. There was a big debate held where people discussed the pros and cons of building monkey bridges and insulating telephone wires. Things got pretty heated and it didn't seem like much progress came of the meeting. It was a long and challenging day and I was glad to be back in Cabuya by night, relaxing to a game of UNO with the volunteers.

Here! Enjoy a picture of Evey!

Hungry Mosquitos and Poo Flinging Monkeys

Finally here and adjusting to the heat and the living conditions. I met Mary, my Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary supervisor, as well as most of the volunteers. I've been living in a rustic lodgehouse with the volunteers for about a week now and we've been sharing our lounge with a cane toad, iguanas, some rats, and a baby scorpion. The days are humid and the mosquito bites are intense. I think I scratch myself more than the monkeys do!

In my first few hours at the sanctuary I got to bottle feed three baby mantled howler monkeys while learning about the history of the sanctuary and Costa Rica. I spent the first few days learning how to prep food for the animals and clean cages as well as give tours. The sanctuary has a wide variety of exotic and native species such as a white faced monkey, prehensile tailed porcupines, iguanas, white tailed deer, paca, guans, keel billed toucan, collared aracari, a variety of parrot species, and many more.

In the mornings, the volunteers and I walk down from our lodgehouse and feed all the animals and clean cages while a few of us warm milk for the baby howlers and bottle feed them. We get a 3 hour lunch break and then come back to work in the early evenings to re-feed some of the animals and give tours to the public. At night we get to hang out in our lounge together at the lodgehouse and talk about traveling and how many times the wild troop of white faced monkeys tried flinging poo down at us (YES! They actually do this!) It's been a long and tiresome week so far but I'm excited to get out of the dirty work, new beginner jobs and get into more of the hands on and interactive work!

Count Down!

It's midnight thirty. I just got back home to NY (8 hour drive! ugh) from attending Unity College's 2010 graduation ceremony. I can't sleep! There is WAY too much to do before leaving this Monday. Unpack then repack, make sure I have everything I need, brush up on some last minute Spanish vocab, breathe maybe?

Now, you won't be hearing from me this coming week as I am not starting my internship until May 16th. Before my internship even starts, my mum and I will be taking a much needed vacation to the Arenal Volcano and to Monteverde for some ziplining and hiking adventures!

Can't wait to post pictures and share with you all the stories of rescuing exotic wildlife, partaking in a fasinating culture, and assaulting illegal gillnetters! (OK so that last one may not be true..)