Showing posts with label Golfito. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Golfito. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Look what we Caught! April 2018 Update

 Hello and Welcome Back!


A Jaguarundi(Herpailurus yagouaroundi) peers over a fallen tree

Super Rare....Super Important---The Rufous Tree Rat

I had this blog written and ready to publish last week, then we got some really exciting news.  We identified one of the rarest mammals in Costa Rica on one of our cameras!  How rare?  We are likely one of about five sightings.
This may be the lowest recorded sighting of the arboreal Rufous Tree Rat at less than 2 meters above ground.
Short ears and black tail are just a few of the distinguishing characteristics of Diplomys labilis.

When I could not find the above rat in my field guide, I recalled that an arboreal rat had recently been discovered living in Costa Rica…I looked into a Tico Times story about Costa Rica's 250 mammal species . The Rufous Tree Rat was only discovered to be in Costa Rica in June of 2015.  I sent images  via email to the researcher mentioned, José Ramírez, with images of our buddy. Late Friday afternoon he confirmed, with 90% certainty and 100% enthusiasm, that it is indeed the Rufous Tree Rat.  Here is his description of the finding Here is his description of the finding.

I was later contacted by Naturalist Jim Córdoba_Alfara, who actually photographed the Rufous Tree rat for the first time in Costa Rica at La Tarde Lodge on the Osa Peninsula.  He confirmed our sighting and is including our project’s images in an upcoming paper about this understudied and poorly known rodent’s natural history.  While called an arboreal or Tree Rat, the the Rufous Tree Rat and its close cousins are more closely related to guinea pigs and chinchillas of South America.(via Canopy Family Website)

Other New Visitors

While not a true Rainforest carnivore, the Coyote is doing well in Costa Rica
The other new visitor is none other than the wily Coyote.  Despite having 15 camera traps throughout the forest it never appeared on any cameras.  I just happened to see it run past one of the cabins so I set up a camera and it was a nearly a daily visitor.  We also found some droppings and realized that it was probably feeding on iguanas or basilisk lizards.  Jaguars, Pumas, and man are the coyotes only known predators in Costa Rica.
My what a big tail you have!
Mexican Mouse Opossum
One critter that we have suspected of being here is the Mexican Mouse Opossum.  Well we finally got a good enough image to properly identify it.  They are some of the smallest marsupials in the New World.

We were also visited by the Neotropical River Otter again.  This time it was actually in the water and was probably looking for freshwater shrimp.  Pollution and habitat loss are two factors that have led to the Otter's decline in the last few years.  THESE VIDEOS ARE BETTER IF YOU MAXIMIZE YOUR SCREEN

The other rare mammal that we saw was the Greater Grison.  These small mustelids (Weasel Family) run around the forest and are rarely seen by people.  We are catching more of them on camera traps. We were fortunate to have a short video and a nice clear picture of one.


A Good Mother 

It has also been a few years since we have captured good images/video of an Ocelot and her cub.  From October through our last visit in March, we saw them on a regular basis in all parts of the forest.  I compiled a short clip of their wanderings.

The young ocelot caught perhaps her first mouse!

It was just a matter of time...

When we started this project years ago, Aida told us that it was not uncommon to see naked people out in the woods.  Sure enough, we got several video clips of an amorous encounter of this gentleman and his lady friend!                                                                                                                         
Up the creek.



Eleanor and Jimmy cross the river after we set two cameras in a remote location.

We teamed up with Osa Conservation for the largest Camera Trap project in Central America. They created a grid with 120 squares(240 cameras, 1,920 AA batteries) over the Osa Region of the Golfo Dulce.  Each Square has two opposing cameras.  The study will run for 90 days.

Finca Green Eight(Ocho Verde) represented by the purple squares in the red oval.
The data collected will assess the health of the endangered Jaguar population, their prey, and their activity in vital corridors throughout the regions of Costa Rica.  We (OchoVerde) were responsible for 5 squares(10 cameras).   Exciting news will be coming from this research over the coming months. Here is the link about what we’ve done so far .Click here to learn more about this amazing project.

 Wireless Cameras Update

 

Our five wireless cameras continue to send us email images from over 3000 miles away.  Of course, you can follow along on the Zoological Society of London's Instant Wild Page.  Or better yet, sponsor your own wireless camera in Costa Rica and get these remarkable animals send directly to you.  EMAIL ME if you would like to do this!

We have also been working with Osa Conservation for almost two years to get wireless cameras working out in the Osa Peninsula near Corcovado National park.  They finally received a wireless network out there.  I was apparently able to crack the code in order to get their network up and running.  We had some great help from a new wireless camera company called Barn Owl.  It seems as if it is only matter of time before we get images of a Jaguar!


Diquís Spheres

Capuchin Monkey and an ancient sphere.
An ancient indigenous tribe called the Diquís were famous for their carved stone spheres.  Nobody really knows how and why these were carved, but they were rolled up creeks to various places in Southern Costa Rica.  Many have been removed for museums or stolen for private homes, there is even one rumored to be in a yard in Charleston...

We were presented with an opportunity to visit a site literally right down the road from Ocho Verde where several of these spheres are located.  We placed a wireless camera on the property and mysteriously the 12 new lithium batteries died before one photo could be taken.  I eventually moved it to another spot where it seems to be functioning. It is sending about 60% of its pictures.
I put one of our trusty white flash cameras down by the creek and got some outstanding images.
Mysterious Ocelot and a Mossy Sphere

What in the hell is it?

Our cameras take great pictures, but sometimes we just cannot figure out exactly what is going on. We have two cases that we would like to share here.  The first is this strange apparent beam of light shooting across the frame.  It could be an insect, but at 5:36 am it is pretty dark at this place.

Shutter speed is 1/122 of a second. 
Whatever it is seems to be traveling very fast.

The second mystery image involved what I think is a rather large animal.

1:20am in the center right of frame.


Mystery animal for sure.
I would certainly say that it is dog sized, but I cannot figure out how or why it has those parallel lines running across its body and legs.   I would guess camera malfunction, but they appear to be behind the leaves as well.
If you have a guess on that these are, please email me or leave a comment below.  Thanks.

Bonus Time
As if this blog wasn't long enough...
 
Hognose Skunk on the trail of a mate.
Unidentified Bat flies over the Famous Rock
Ocelot on Log via the wireless camera.
In the one that got away category...It would have been a beautiful Jaguarundi shot!


Supporting us.

Those of you that wish to support our efforts can do so in several ways.  You can always send us a contribution via snail mail or though PAYPAL

You can always support us by subscribing, watching, and sharing our videos on YouTube. For evry thousand vies, we get a few pennies and this does add up over the years.
Sooooo…..if you could subscribe to our channel and share our videos it would be great!  Here is a handy button.  It is that easy!




If you like interesting snakes, visit our other blog:
The Costa Rican Snakes Update

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Hello and Happy 2015.


Roi, aka Crooked Tail, with a big belly.


We have big news to report about our project a little later in our update.

We have just returned from Costa Rica where we downloaded nearly 9000 images and videos that had been recorded since late July. This many images is a bit out of whack for our time-frame, but we had 2 cameras that recorded continuously until the batteries died.  One was due to a short due from high humidity, the other was due to a few blades of grass that popped up in front of the sensor and triggered it every time a breeze blew.  We also had one camera that developed a corrupt memory card and sadly I could not download any of the photos.  If you know of an easy way to retrieve them, send me an email and we can take a look at the images.

Is a cub on the way, for Roi?

On the animal front, we are seeing pretty much what we thought that we would.  Crooked Tail(Roi) is still around as is her cub Pizza Slice.  Crooked Tail has a bit of a saggy belly in the later pictures indicating that she may have given birth in the last few months.  This would go along with the fact that we have seen far few male ocelots recently. Pregnant or parental female ocelots do not attract mates until the young are no longer with them. We are hoping to see her with a cub later this month.

This blurry because a) it is from a video and b) Tayras are always on the move.
Our macho male Tayra is still around, but this time he is with a companion...is love in the air?  I had a chance encounter with the female in early January on a trail.  She climbed a tree groaned at me to continue to back away, which I did.  




The Pacas seem to be abundant.  The agoutis are common as they ever were at one point one occupied 350 of nearly 400 videos from a single camera.  There are plenty of ant eaters.  The Jaguarundi seem to be around as well although only singles were seen this past Fall.  The Capuchin monkeys came down to several cameras and the coatis were seen at nearly every location.  The hog-nosed striped skunk was seen more often and this may indicate him being more of a resident than passer by.  The Curassows have been strutting around like they have owned the forest.  One new animal that we had not seen was the 4 Eyed Opossum.  It seems to have a little more bounce to it’s step that the larger Common Opossum.  

Here is video quick recap:



We had 9 cameras that failed and had to be returned to the states. One new Cuddeback camera failed 3 weeks into the new year.  Ants caused a few of the failures and I believe that the rest was due to the humidity of extra rainfall in November.  One camera was full of water from a bad seal, however, the images were just fine. 
The cameras were all brought back to the states for warranty repair(I hope).

 
We have been invited to join the Osa Conservation Camera Trap Network.  Project director Juan Carlos Cruz came over twice to help get us coordinated with the data input and looked at the trails.  We are part of a 14 station network that helps monitor the wildlife in the Osa Region of Costa Rica.  Read more about the project here:
Osa Conservation Camera Trap Network

We are currently on the eastern edge of the network's boundary as it makes it way down towards Panama.


We were also invited to share our data(nearly 30,000 images) with the MAPCOBIO Project which records biodiversity from camera trap projects from all over Costa Rica. 

In August, we received two Spartan wireless cameras, one from a private donor and one from the camera manufacturer HCO Scoutguard.  With a month fiddling with the cameras, we finally had the cameras up and working.  We are able to receive nearly instantaneous email images from our cameras. As we sat on the plane in Miami, this shot of an iguana dead center of the frame, appeared on my phone. 




 Using this technology we have become one of the very first to receive live images from Central America in the United States.  This technology has been incorporated into an app by the  Zoological Society of London.  “Instant Wild” uses wireless camera trap images from select parts of the world to increase awareness of biodiversity.  Now, we can all see what is going on in our forest along with everybody else.  Here is the link to Instant Wild

I'm going to do a special blog on the 2 wireless Instant Wild cameras in the next week or two.  I'll discuss some of the remarkable technology within these cameras.


In the meantime, something weird is happening with Ocho Verde Facebook page, so until I get that figured out, you can
 

Tayra and Banana

 

Sunday, August 31, 2014

First year in Review!

Endangered Squirrel Monkeys on the Camera Trap

Project History and Results

In May of 2013, we began this campaign on crowd-funding site Indiegogo.
The goal was to raise enough funds to purchase camera traps and support materials to do a thorough survey of the biodiversity of the Ocho Verde wildlife reserve in southern Costa Rica.

Well, a year has passed...the results were EXCELLENT!   

When you start out on projects like this, you really never know what you will find.  Nor will you know what obstacles may impede your progress.  While we suspected that the biodiversity would be numerous and varied, we had no idea how intense that it would be.  It seems that the forest is harboring a lot of animals.  Yes, we have been through nearly 20,000 images, and to be honest, 15,000 were probably Agoutis.  That being said here is a list of the 20+ mammals:
  • Ocelots--at least 3 of them, possibly as many as 5 of both sexes. 
  • Neotropical River Otter
  • White Nosed Coati
  • Agouti
  • Paca
  • Squirrel Monkey
  • Jaguarundi-at least 3 of them
  • Common Possum
  • 9 Banded Armadillo*
  • Tayra--at least one male and possibly a female
  • Kinkajou
  • Water Opossum
  • Anteater-Northern Tamandua
  • Capuchin Monkeys
  • Wooly Opossum
  • Dogs
  • Striped Skunk*
  • Human Poachers
  • Spiny Rats
  • Water Rats
  • Bats different species
  • Squirrels
We have seen well over 10 bird species:
A Blue Crowned Motmot...chillin'.
  • Tinamou-2 species
  • Curassow
  • White Hawk
  • Trogans
  • Orange billed Sparrow
  • 2 types of doves
  • Vulture
  • Little Blue heron
  • Cattle Egret
  • MotMot

More and more animals...

Most encouraging, is that the ocelots, agoutis, pacas, coatis, spiny rats, anteaters, tinamous, and squirrel monkeys that we have seen, have offspring.  Reproducing animals certainly make for a healthy forest ecosystem.
Anteater carrying young


Paca mom and young paca.


Ocelot Recognition

So far, we can identify 3.  
"Roi/Crooked Tail"


 her cub, "Pizza-Slice"

... and "Big Male"(note that Big Male seems to care less about the bright camera lights).



We are continuing to look at the ocelot rosette patterns to help identify more individuals.

About the trails...

All of the cameras were placed on established trails,with one one exception.  The coatis, jaguarundis, tayra, common opossums, and ocelots were seen at the most distant camera, nearest camera, highest camera, and lowest camera. For example, Ocelot Pizza Slice, was seen on all of the cameras.  We believe this to mean that animals like and use the trails.   We also have seen animals following 'animal' trails into other parts of the forest.  

The only unestablished trail is the tree that is crossing the creek, which animals, of a all sorts, used as a bridge.

   

About the cameras...


The Bushnells and the Moultries recorded thousands of images of varying degrees of quality. While sharp images don't make good fodder for blogs, you can glean a lot of information from them.  The Bushnells were far better on battery consumption and durability, and not so great on consistent image quality.  The Moultries made ok videos and ok pictures and were ok on battery power. The color HCO Scoutguards do make nice images for videos with good color night and day shots, but seem to run out of battery power faster than the other cameras.  The old Cuddeback worked great until it failed(nearly 4 years of use). The new Cuddeback was pitiful from day 1 in both image quality and battery use.  We now have a Browning to add to the mix.  

The good news about the cameras is that all have been serviced/repaired or replaced under their great warranties (we are still talking to Cuddeback about a solution).  We thank the manufacturers for sticking with us through our adverse situations. 

HCO Scoutguard had offered us a wireless camera to use.  It did not arrive in time to deploy on the July trip, but we have it in house now and it is ready to go.  A second wireless camera has been contributed by an individual.  The route will be animal->camera->cell tower->email address, in early real time information.  We hope to work with an international organization to get the info out to the WWW(more about that when it happens).  Needless to say, we are very excited by this and sincerely thank them for the contributions.

Setbacks and Problems 

No project is without it's share of setbacks and problems.  Camera traps aren't really made for jungle environments.  Many of the infrared cameras had problems finding enough light to make make color pictures during the daylight and 'flipped' to night-time mode.  This is why you see black and white images during the day.  The color cameras had similar problems as well: not enough light for a slow shutter-speed.  We had our share of leaky batteries. Sensors failed, causing the cameras to continuously take pictures until the batteries died.  Leafy plants sprang up in front of lenses. Spiders seemed to enjoy making webs on the lenses. One camera was partially infiltrated by ants.  Good cameras sometimes failed for unknown reasons. Perhaps it was the humidity.  While we did see poachers, they did not see us(we think).  In an entire year there were only 3 days when they were caught on camera, none had any game.


The Best Of Year One


Battery Waster Award--- Agoutis


Least Expected Animal-Tie-Neotropical River Otter and Striped Skunk

This is a screen shot from a video of the skunk.


Coolest Video- 3 Jaguarundi Walking, runner up the White Hawk





Most Adoring Critter-The Tayra

Scariest Monkey-Armless Ghost Monkey(Capuchin) 


Best Bird-Curassow- runner up MotMot



Best Predation- Tayra with Iguana

Most Unexplained--The Mystery Smoke at 4:15am 

Least Favorite Images--Poachers

  Best Overall Image-Jaguarundi



That is all for now.
Remember, that you can subscribe to this blog or follow on YouTube.
We were also named as one of the best camera trappers to follow on Twitter

See you soon!

Leave you comments below.








Sunday, July 6, 2014

The Ojos de Lalla and Mid-Summer Update 2014


A Curassow hen enters the frame.
The Ojos de Lalla camera was one of the older Scoutguard cameras.  It has an incandescent flash for color night time images.  For daylight, it was set to record 10 second color videos.  The batteries lasted from July until early October.  We recorded over 776 activations over that period of time.  

We have sorted through and condensed them into a three minute video with ocelots, tayra, coati, a capuchin monkey, and a feeding white hawk.   
Here is the video.  I suggest that you maximize the screen size.

We replaced the batteries and in January.  The camera continued to function, but began to video and flash capabilities.  Since we were still able to get some daytime images, we left the camera in hopes of having at least a few photos.

One of the last  great images that we got from this camera is this one of an erect cappuchin monkey staring at the camera.
"I'm cool"

We have been patiently tucking small contributions away in hopes that we could get a wireless cellular camera set up.  Those cameras are expensive and the technology is improving.  I reached out to Scoutguard last week after reading on their website that they are involved in conservation projects.   Word came back late Saturday afternoon that they would sponsor camera and help with the wireless set-up.  We are extremely excited to be able to get email images in real time.  Scoutguard has been one our favorite preforming cameras and has delivered us many great videos and beautiful images. 
HCO Scoutguard's newest wireless camera.
UPDATE 7/8/14--The new camera, shown above, did not arrive at Scoutguard in time for them to ship one to us before we left.  We won't be able to deploy it until early 2015. 

We leave for Costa Rica in the middle of the week with new and replaced cameras, batteries and memory cards.  I'll be reporting back with what we hope will be some great images that were captured over the last 4 months.
 ______________________________________________
NartureSpy from the UK  has named us one of the top camera trappers to follow on Twitter:
_____________________________________________________________________
To see all of our camera trap videos, follow this link.
_______________________________________________