army ants AGAIN and raging hormones

How is it April already? I've been here for a little over two and a half months now! It feels like I just got here and also like I've been here for years.

Thursday night the army ants were out and about again. The security guard ran and got me from La Sala (my office / where the internet is) yelling "hormigas! hormigas!". We went running over to the clinic and apparently they had only made it as far as the laundry room. The first troop of secal that I had seen were the ones involved in the dove incident and they were quite large. These guys, however, were tiny and covering almost the entire laundry room. We eventually got them out only for them to migrate towards the BRB (bird rehabilitation building - where the flighted patients are kept). Seriously, we sprayed them for at least an hour with water and citrus oil (apparently applied straight it destroys) but they wouldn't leave! Ricky eventually sent me to bed and said he'd keep an eye on them. Thankfully my Spanglish language partner (aka Mr. Chata, the security guard) was on his toes and caught them as they were swarming the Aracari's enclosure. Ricky rushed in and scooped up the Aracari just as the ants had gotten to her. She had maybe a dozen ants on her and so far there aren't any injuries. Little Aracari got to spend the night in Ricky's house while the ants continued on their way to wherever they go to hide out until their next attack. It's quite hard to explain how overwhelming these ants are. Their numbers and their persistence.. what a nightmare, yet I find myself in awe of these things. They stop at absolutely nothing to claim their victims, take over houses, and cause miniature insect stampedes (the ants are coming! runnnnnn!).

In other CASA news, breeding season as arrived! There are pairs all over the property... there's even a pair of White-fronted parrots nesting in a dead palm near Ricky's house. There's a Yucatan squirrel nesting outside of my room so I can get my mammal fix, too. The majority of the parrots at CASA are too young to be affected by the breeding season. However, Jack, the Red-lored parrot, and one of the Yellow-loreds are at that age. So far Jack hasn't been shown any aggression, but he has been spending a lot of time in his roost box. Now, I say "he" because it is assumed that he is a he and not a she. There is no sexual dimorphism in Red-lored parrots and the only way we could tell would be through DNA testing and that's not really an option. It's entirely possible that Jack is really a Jacqueline and maybe female parrots aren't as aggressive as male parrots during the breeding season. The oldest Yellow-lored, on the other hand, decided that my head looked like a good target for dive-bombing on Sunday. Luckily he has little feet that can't do a lot of damage... I hope. He was pretty insistent on getting me out of the aviary though - he even flew at the door as I was leaving and landed where my face would have been. Ahh... good times with the birds.

Due to the army ant attack and other circumstances, I didn't have a day off on Friday. Tuesday made up for it just a little... I was asked to tag along for Howler monkey health checks. Dr. Isabelle, the CASA vet, and I met Robin who is with the Wildlife Care Center of Belize.

Robin rehabilitates primates, mainly Howler monkeys, the majority who have been confiscated because they make popular pets. Funding is in short supply down here (for everything) but you can help Robin out by donating on her page. Four monkeys in all had to get checked out. One had some blood drawn while the other three had check-ups and got dewormed; none of them were ecstatic about being handled. I didn't actually handle any of the monkeys... I just recorded data and took pictures. It was an interesting experience nonetheless. Since primates can carry several zoonotic disease, masks and gloves are a necessity when working with them (that would be me masked and ready to go on the right). Really, I don't even want to know every single thing I can contract. Sometimes, ignorance is best or else you'll be too scared to do anything. I'm actually surprised that I don't have some crazy diseases. I always take precautions though, because nobody wants Rabies or TB or Chlamydia psittaci or Apsergillosis or parasites or Leprosy or or or... I'll stop there.

This weekend is Easter weekend. It's another four day weekend here so it'll be quiet and a bit lonely. There's the Easter Fair in town on Saturday and Sunday. It sounds like it's going to be a pretty big deal with local musicians (Bullet Tree Boys?) and "mechanical rides" (whatever that means). I'll be in attendance and I'm sure there will be plenty of people from all over Cayo there.

So far I've been relatively unaffected by the Chloroquine, with the exception of some stomach upset. I've noticed the past two weeks that I've been ridiculously tired the day after I've taken it... tired to the point of not being able to do anything except lay in my hammock. It's not an excuse, I swear! It should be interesting to see what the approximately 46 more doses hold. Hopefully I won't have to stop taking it. That might be a little scary.

And now the countdown is on.. 11 days until my sister gets here!

the zoo and guests... so many guests

The parrots have begun their molt (or moult if you're located anywhere else except America). They've been losing quite a bit of their downy feathers and a few days ago I started finding various body and flight feathers in their cages. One of the Yellow-loreds has a few damaged primary feathers and I opted not to pluck them as it can cause some serious issues. I was really hoping that they would start molting soon so that he could replace those damaged feathers... I got way too excited on Sunday when I found one of those damaged primaries on the ground. I'm such a nerd, but I'm okay with it. Baby season is coming SO soon. I do believe I'm a bit nervous about it.. hopefully I won't go crazy being the only person that can feed them!

Last Friday, I left a bit later than I had anticipated (as usual) and walked to the "bus station" in San Ignacio. I arrived just in time to catch the bus headed to Belmopan / Belize City. After a quick stop in Belmopan, the bus headed on towards Belize City. The zoo is located more or less in the middle of nowhere on the Western Highway in between Belmopan and Belize City. So I got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, paid $20 BZD (ouch, but it's for a good cause?), and ran into a colleague who gave me a personal tour of the zoo. I am not really pro-zoo, but the Belize Zoo is quite different from any other zoo that I have visited. All of the enclosures are natural and there is no cement save the water sources. All of the species are native and rescued; the signage is cleverly written and geared to educate the Belize people. If you ever come to Belize, I would definitely recommend a visit.

From Saturday evening until Wednesday there were some guests staying at the lodge. 16 guests, to be exact. A group of friends and their kids from America / India stayed for a few days. They were all extremely nice and it ended up being a lot of fun having them here. I got to do a little bit of educating and the kids performed a dance on Tuesday evening while the sun was setting. Most of you who know me know that I'm a relatively quiet person; it was a little surprising to me how talkative I became. Relative solitude will do that to a person, I guess. I've been able to meet so many different people since I've been here... I think it's help restore my faith in humanity in a little. Aaand now on to less depressing things!

I was invited to partake in a training session in Belmopan today. It was geared towards the upcoming field study that involves trapping small felids and jaguar prey items for radio-collaring and sampling. I learned how to load syringes for the dart gun AND shoot the dart gun! I found out at my internship in Texas that I am really bad at aiming firearms and sadly, the same applies to dart guns. Although, we were using a pizza box as target practice so I'll just blame that...? We covered zoonotic diseases as well and I learned about a fun one that can be contracted from birds. Hooray! I love diseases and parasites.

If anybody wants to send me a package (I know you want to!), just be aware that one: they go through the package in front of me so no embarrassing items! And two: they charge me to pick up the package, so lighter is better.

I'm determined to improve my Spanish while I'm here and tonight began the Spanglish sessions with the security guard. We somehow understood each other enough for me to be reminded that I was taught Spanish Spanish and not Latin American Spanish. This is going to be interesting since my brain actually started to shut down after about half an hour of "conversing".

This was kind of a geek post but really... aren't they all? I have no idea of what is to come next week, except that it's one less week until my sister gets here. I'M SO EXCITED!

the clinic and falcons

Tuesday CASA had some visitors! Two wildlife rehabbers on vacation from the states came by and dropped off a lot of donations and some literature. They got some free lunch and got a quick tour. It was nice to see some Americans, oddly enough. Now they're enjoying themselves on Caye Caulker... lucky.

I realized that I haven't posted any pictures of the clinic! Above is CASA. On the right is the clinic, the thatched roof building is the rehabilitation building with the cages, and Jack's enclosure is on the far left. My attempt at uploading more photos failed so you'll have to check out Facebook. I've posted a picture of the entrance to the clinic, the examination room, the office / surgery, and the ICU. If you've been viewing my pictures on Facebook, I've taken too many pictures and had to start a new album. You can view the old one here and the new one here.

Sunday I tagged along again with the Peregrine Fund and headed out to Santa Familia and in to the jungle. The first site was a massive sinkhole (and I mean massive) but there were no Orange-Breasted Falcons to be found. We hiked a bit further to a second sinkhole that was a bit smaller than the first. A falcon was spotted relatively quickly perched on one of the trees that seemed to be growing out of the cliffside. After bit of preening and a quick nap, a second falcon appeared, flew around the sinkhole, and headed off to hunt. The PF needed to get to Mountain Pine Ridge to do some more monitoring before it got late so we set off back to San Ignacio. On this excursion, I learned about the exciting Poison Wood. It's a species of tree, similar to poison oak, that causes a rash if you come in contact with it. Fortunately, I haven't had any experience with it yet. Although, I seem to have some sort of weird resistance to poison ivy (I've practically waded through it before with no reaction) so maybe it's the same with poison wood? At least if I develop a rash after hiking I might have some idea of what it's from.

FYI: I am now two hours behind all of you East Coast Americans... which essentially makes me on Mountain Time. I think. I will miss the longer days... the hours of daylight are pretty consistent year-round here.

Tomorrow I head to the zoo for my weekly adventure. It was also suggested that I go to "Old Belize" which is a large museum dedicated to the history of Belize. Apparently there's a lot of other stuff there too (a pool?). It's only about half an hour to 45 minutes from the zoo so I might as well. It's going to be a long day, but it'll be good to get off site since I've mostly been twiddling my thumbs all week. No complaints though since I know two months from now I will have my hands completely full with bird babies.

Until next week...

cahal pech and produce

Welll... it's been a slow week here at CASA. No new patients, nothing catastrophic has happened (knock on wood). I've been trying to think of ways to make the day to day routine of the birds less boring. I'm not as inventive as I once was. I'll just blame age. I mean, I will be 27 in less than two months after all. Ha?

I'm a little worried about the summer here... today it topped out at 96 degrees with a bazillion percent humidity. Even the breeze is sweltering. I was told the other day that it's gotten up to 105 in April before... that's only April! What about the summer? Ack! Alison, I hope you're ready to sweat buckets!

Last Friday I went to Cahal Pech, which are the Mayan ruins above San Ignacio. It was more extensive that I had originally thought and it's only about 2-3 miles away... uphill, but that's okay. Who doesn't like a good workout? They had a few relics and even some bones in the museum on site. There were a lot of children on a field trip so it was a bit noisy. I got a lot of "hi miss!" and some waves. I drew a lot of attention in general on Friday for some reason...

They recognize me now down at the market where I buy produce for the birds. Not that it would be hard; how many other blonde (no longer so) white girls buy $35 worth of produce every week? Speaking of delicious local produce, mango season is right around the corner. There are about 14 different types / flavors of mangoes grown here - from the kind you generally see in the US to dark colored ones which are extremely sweet. Apparently they're fairly expensive at first but later on you can get a giant bag for $1. Cheap! Most produce things are fairly inexpensive as long as they're in season. Bananas are 10 for $1 BZD at the market... not bad compared to the states where it's $0.70 or more for one pound. The apples, since they aren't grown here, are pretty expensive. The coconuts (and plantains!) are free, just get one of the guys to climb up one of the many coconut trees here and cut you down some. Yum.

I mentioned the Chinese stores last week; the majority of the 'supermarkets' are run by Chinese families. There are generally five in a row all right next to each other... nobody really knows how there is possibly enough competition for them to thrive, but they do. The stores all consist of miscellaneous items - groceries, soap, random housewares, and pet food. All of these items change with each shipment, so if you can't find something one week, try again the next week and eventually you'll get what you need. I was trying to figure out what the American equivalent to these stores would be and the best I could come up with are the dollar stores with their random factor.

Tomorrow I think I will be headed to Spanish Lookout again. I have to pick up some items for the clinic (yes, on my day "off") and look into some fabric for a particular pushy person (kidding!). Maybe I'll actually take some pictures this time... maybe.

banding and la ruta de maya

I thought this week would never end. I planned on updating yesterday, but I broke the internet yesterday morning. Oops. I'm currently sitting in a bar downtown that has free internet and listening to somebody's pet parrot... not cool.

Saturday a Pionus (white-crowned) parrot arrived with a broken tibiotarsus (bone below the knee joint) and an ulna/radius fracture on the right wing. He was also missing his tail feathers and feathers off of his lower back. The injuries were fairly consistent with an animal attack of some sort (opossum attacks are fairly common). Surgery didn't go so well on Sunday and he ended up not recovering. Bah.

All of the parrots were banded on Monday and Tuesday. In the near future, the Forest Department plans on licensing and banding all current pet parrots so that no more are brought into captivity. Jack was banded since he is a captive bird. The current patients were banded... hopefully this will deter the poachers from taking them into the pet trade.

Last Friday I went to a concert downtown. There was supposed to be about 1000 people there; it seemed more like a few hundred. It was.. interesting and very loud, but I had fun. I don't like this new thing where it takes me days to recover from staying out really late.

Sunday night there was a "tiger" attack next door (the next lot over which is right next to my room). I'm not sure exactly what species of felid that the locals refer to as a tiger, but I think it may be either the jaguarundi or margay. Either way, he ate some chickens AND a nice sized pig. It must have been pretty hungry whatever it was.

Last night was the cultural festival in downtown San Ignacio to kick off La Ruta de Maya. There was the Succotz Festival marching band and some local Belizean artists. It was interesting to see the difference between the marching bands in the states (thanks to brother and sister for all the band competitions) and the ones here. Early this morning was the start of La Ruta de Maya canoe race which goes from San Ignacio to Belize City. There were about 90 canoes entered in the race from all over the world with three levels of competitors: the super serious with trainers, the not so serious, and the "we'll just take our time" competitors. The most sought after part of the race is from the starting bridge to the low-lying bridge about half a mile away... it was pretty funny to see all the canoes tearing through the water, with the exception of the non-competitors and the one canoe that tipped of course.

My sister is coming to visit in less than six weeks! I'm pretty excited about it. She'll be volunteering, but hopefully we'll get to do touristy things. I found some Engrish in the Chinese stores so she should feel "at home".

That's all for this week, I suppose. I have no idea what next week will bring but hopefully it'll be good whatever it is. This week has been rough and I'm missing the little things...