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). Today Claudia and I set out on one of the main trails into the preserve, the Stream Trail. Even before we started, we discovered a group of poison-dart frogs hopping, calling and interacting with each other on an old, moss and vegetation-covered rotting stump, right on the mowed yard near our house. What can I do? I spent the next 20 minutes crawling around on the soft, wet ground, looking for best photo angles, watching, chasing (without disturbing), and photographing these tidbits of natural history, thinking of all of the accumulated knowledge on this species that I have and how that would make an essay (nee, a book) on its own. Add to this that this species is the subject of a project right here at the station, where they are discovering and testing amazing theories on this species’ reproductive behaviors, and I’m hooked. The stories are endless.
On our short hike, we enjoyed being immersed in the morning normal activities and sounds of the forest animals. The nearly deafening trill of thousands of cicadas recently emerged from their years-long underground lives, ebbed and changed in intensity as we moved along the trail, at times almost too loud to allow conversation. Howler monkeys foraged high up a fruiting tree, surrounded by the gurgles of oropéndolas, the chatter of toucans and toucanets, and the small rain of debris coming down as a product of their work. Within the forest, a low “whoomp” sound, diffused and mysterious revealed itself later to be the call of the male curassow. There was a lot happening high up in the trees, and we, ground-bound creatures, could only look up against the bright sky and see the shadows and hear the sounds. It was like watching a very fun party through a glary window from across the street. Peccaries crossed the trail undisturbed by our presence; butterflies zoomed past us like flying swatches of bright color in their apparently purposeful journeys; a bullet ant foraged across a fallen log unperturbed by a column of termites moving across an open space, something you seldom see; a dead frog on the trail became a dining hall, carrion beetles carousing, feeding and even mating in the smelly gore, flies of several kinds and even a small golden bee partaking on the rotting feast. Nothing will be wasted.
I lingered in several places, observing the activities around me. On a fallen, rotting log, a bubbling slime covered the exposed inner section of the trunk, creating a slick and smelly resource for fruit flies, butterflies and other insects. Smelling a bit like a slightly off brewery (hopsy and alcoholic), I imagine a few drunken creatures nursing tiny headaches this week. On top of the fallen log, a veritable garden of mosses, small seedlings, tiny flowers, pockets filled with moisture and decaying leaves, miniature “swamps” populated by its own special fauna. A medium-sized fly with beautifully patterned wings displayed and danced to a smaller and shy female that watched the show mesmerized from under a fallen leaf. The male turned this way and that, tracing semi-circles in the miniature clearing in front of the female, beating and flexing his wings like a minute bodybuilder or a dancer.
Everywhere I looked there was something to be observed and recorded. A helicopter damselfly of a species I had not seen before fluttered in its special slow way and finally landed on a leaf, the apparent weight of its slender and long body pointing to the ground. Stealthily I got to within a couple of inches of it, taking pictures, admiring its colors and stripes. It flew off and started foraging, hunting little spiders between the thick tangles of vegetation. Again, my mental library on overdrive, I reviewed in high speed all the knowledge I have of these species, and as usual, I’m left wanting, curious, puzzled and hungry to learn more. Another species, a dragonfly this time, landed on a small branch and began to clean herself. Blue eyed, green stripped thorax, brown and black abdomen with a deep yellow spot near its caudal end, the specimen was a veritable color palette among the brown tones of the forest floor. And then another species landed nearby. It went on like this for hours.
These nature walks, armed with a camera, binoculars and a few other accessories, are not just a pleasure and an adventure, but for me they are a necessity. Sweating profusely, holding still while a mosquito buzzes and lands on my ear, resisting the innate survival instinct to swat it off my face while waiting for the right moment to snap the photo is something I forced myself to learn out of the simple love for capturing and telling the stories. It is what drives me and thousands of other scientists, naturalists, and outdoors people. In a world overwrought with ugly human affairs, politics, mayhem and failing economies, global crises and wars, these natural places, these refuges for biodiversity must, should and could play a more important role in our lives. They were our past, our origins and our habitats; they have the potential to be an important part of our future, as our pharmacies, classrooms, and source of intellectual wealth. Today they are threatened to become relicts, only to be studied by a few, enjoyed as an exhibit by others, and valued as not much more than a large pile of lumber, dirt and as places to grow meat, crops and buildings by a vast majority. But within, inside and around these wild places, there is a breadth and depth of natural history that simply blows our small minds, filled with potential and possibilities. As humans, we need these places to survive and to thrive. My job now is to make sure more and more people learn this simple but powerful lesson. And, truly, we could have a lot of fun learning it too!
Carlos
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