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
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Tayra and Banana

 

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.
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NartureSpy from the UK  has named us one of the top camera trappers to follow on Twitter: Follow @OchoVerde
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To see all of our camera trap videos, follow this link.
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Camera Trap Project Update- "Camera Gaea"

The Gaea Camera March 2014 Update

The Gaea camera was arguably in the most beautiful setting of all the cameras.  It was situated atop of a waterfall and looked across the creek at a fallen tree.  I hoped that this fallen tree would be a natural passage for animals.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of humidity and it caused this camera to fail prematurely.  The same model cameras clicked off 300-500 shots during the same period of time in other locations while the Gaea Camera only took only 30 shots.  At first I was immensely disapointed, but when I looked through the images I discovered the Gaea cam's failure to be a blessing in disguise as you will discover in the images near the end of this post.

First the cool stuff:

The Crab Eating Raccoon(Procyon cancrivorus)

 The beautiful image of the Crab Eating Raccoon was taken at 2 am.  The black tube is actually our waterline that connects the house and pool to springs up in the mountains.  It provides all of our delicious drinking water and feeds our pristine creek.

The Ocelot(Leopardus pardalis)

 This ocelot image was taken around 6am.  In Costa Rica, it is usually light by then.  We have only seen one other ocelot image in daylight at that was at noon in May of last year.

The Jaguarundi(Puma yagouarondi)

By now you have probably seen our video of the 3 Jaguarundis (if not, here is the link:Jaguarundis).  It is hard to tell if this is one of them, but I'd say that it is very likely as they all appeared on different cameras during the month of September.  Notice it's striking red head.  This is a very interesting wild cat and we look forward to seeing them again on the cameras. 

Poacher with rifle on right shoulder

Same Poacher with rifle on left shoulder

 Hmmmm....Yes, that is a poacher...twice.  Thanks to the Gaea camera for alerting us to his presence.  Of course, what he is doing is illegal.  He is trespassing.  He is hunting on protected land by law.  His rifle is likely to be without a permit.  He is also believed to be trapping Pacas and crayfish.  

Slashes in one of our vaca trees(cow tree)

 He is also responsible for the deep slashes in the above tree.  The Vaca tree's latex sap is used to soothe stomach ailments.

The good news is that the camera stopped working before he was alerted to it.  He was not seen on any other cameras, so his poaching is not wide ranging on the property.  We know exactly who he is and where he lives.  He is also in a precarious position in that he is not even a Costa Rican.

We opted to keep a wary eye out for him as being the 'devil you know'.  If his trespassing has not ended in the next few months he will be reported.

The Gaea camera was replaced in that location with a non flash camera.  It has been sent away for repairs and we have a surrogate camera snapping away as you read this. 

Thanks for reading.  See you soon. 

Did you see what the "Bella Rex" Camera got?

Bella Rex Camera Trap Video 

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Visit the Ocho Verde YouTube Page for other scintillating videos.