June 11- Forest

I've been getting to explore a lot more of the island over the past few days as more of our projects start kicking off.  It's amazing how much the composition of the forest can vary over such a small island.  I do most of the work with the Azteca nests along Thomas Barbour trail.  That trail is all secondary growth forest (much of it was farmland or rangeland until the canal was built, so the trees are less than a hundred years old).  The undergrowth is noticeably thicker, and there are lots of palms.  It's also in a lower area, so it tends to be wetter.  We've recently started doing more work in and around BCI's famous 50 hectare plot, where every tree is identified and measured every few years (hundreds of thousands of trees).  This area is mostly old-growth forest, and is also higher and a bit dryer.  There are lots of huge, beautiful old trees tere!
We set up 80 marked plots right outside of the 50 hectare plot the other day to receive various nutrients or metals as part of an experiment to study their impact on invertebrates.  Unfortunately for us, we discovered right before we went to treat the plots that we were too close to the 50 hectare plot to be allowed to use one key metal treatment.  Knowing that it would take a long time to set up the plots the next day, Annika (the other intern on the project) and I decided to try to run and grab the marker flags as the afternoon thunderstorm was starting (and by run, I mean we actually did make an exhausting jog up almost kilometer of steps to get to the highest part of the island.  I was quite happy to reach the flat plateau near the plot).  We got soaked when the skies opened up just as we were reaching the plot, but it was definitely a great adventure!  The howler monkeys were as loud as I've ever heard them, and almost directly over us- really incredible.