by Carlos | Apr 28, 2012 | Featured Articles
Many smells encountered in the forest are expected: the smell of fresh, wet soil, warm and earthy, for example. Or the smell of the rain evaporating form warm surfaces, carrying with it the essence of the soil, the leaf litter and the vegetation. Often, walking on a trail, one encounters a perfume, a delicate scent of a flowering tree, usually hidden somewhere within the foliage, its perfume permeating a small patch, carried by soft, imperceptible breezes and diffuse air currents. Often too, the smells are more like odors, like the pungent, lingering tang of a passing band of peccaries, disturbingly close to the smell of ripe (very ripe) human sweat. Orchids produce aromas that remind us at times of bouquets, or a hint of vanilla, or perhaps a scent that seems familiar but that we can’t quite recognize. Ripe fruits carry with them sticky aromas, sugary or syrupy, attractive in a little sick way, like an overripe mango. These smells attract wildlife of all types, from mammals to butterflies, birds and flies.
by Carlos | Apr 28, 2012 | Featured Articles
This is a link to my ongoing photo-posts on facebook, chronicling flora and fauna found at the La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, where I now live. Let me know what you think! Carlos (1) La Selva Chronicled ...
by Carlos | Apr 21, 2012 | Featured Articles
I’m walking down one of the narrower trails at the La Selva Biological Station, in Costa Rica. On either side of the trail there is a literal wall of vegetation, a range of greens going from the pale lime tones of fresh leaves on the tips of shrubs, through the pea-shaded smooth leaves of vines and their paler tendrils that curl relentlessly on anything they touch; to the jades and olives and emeralds of older leaves, mosses, grasses and even swaths of bark. Within this riotous vegetation, a comparable—if not larger—palette of browns cover the gamut from the deep dark tones of wet soil, through the umber tones of rotting leaves, the hazel shades of different barks, the whimsical corky wings of vines thick as a baby’s arm, to the fawnish tones of fallen leaves, carrying with them the brighter tones of yellows, oranges and reds. Through gaps in this wall, a dark, dripping and richly scented forest beckons, a place to get lost easily, ensnared in its incredible biological wealth.
by Carlos | Apr 9, 2012 | Featured Articles
You get used to it. Walking about on a mossy, wet trail (the equivalent of a sidewalk at the field station) you encounter a diagonal line of little bits of leaves, sticks and fragments of flowers crossing the path in front of you. They move jerkily but unwavering, going from the source—a tree or shrub that can be dozens of feet away—to the inconspicuous entrance to their massive subterranean labyrinth. There, the leaves and flowers and other organic mater will be chewed, mushed and tenderly placed on a special chamber to serve as the growing bed of a nutritious fungus, the ants main source of food. You step over them carefully and hope everyone, all those busy researchers, students, staff, cleaning crews and others also see them and avoid squashing them too.
by Carlos | Apr 8, 2012 | Featured Articles
I just can’t help it. I start walking down a trail and within a few seconds something moves, shimmers, rustles, calls or sticks out and I have to investigate. Camera in hand is a great way to experience the forest for me. Every encounter possible gets recorded, photographically and in notes, to be analyzed, studied, identified and shared later. And these are only the ones where I can actually get a decent photo. The majority of the encounters are fleeting, high up in the canopy, far in the distance, or too quick to register on film (digitally, I mean).
by Carlos | Apr 5, 2012 | Featured Articles
The new routines are starting to set in. We go to breakfast in the dining hall, on the other side of the suspension bridge, a short, 5 minute walk across the well-tended grounds of the La Selva Biological Station. It is a short walk with a specific purpose, from the house to the hall and then back across the bridge, making a left on the trail, and heading around the clearing to the old lab where my new office is. Birds call from within the trees, fleeting blurs of movement and color, the scarlet streak of the red-rumped tanager; the yellow shimmer of an unidentified little warbler; the iridescent flash of a hummingbird.
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