A Falling Limb

I'm happy to catch up on a few incidents that have happened  lately.  Yesterday I experienced what is generally considered the most dangerous thing to have happen in the forest happen to me. I was hit by a falling branch. I always understood that yes, a branch could be dangerous because of how far they fall, but I thought people exaggerated a bit. I was hit on the shoulder/ bicep area and the same branch that hit me also hit Z. who was standing next to me.  He was where his neck meets shoulder. The branch broke in half once it hit us and I got most of the force, and most of the branch. Luckily the branch was only about 1.5 inches in diameter and almost 2 feet long. We were standing in a gap in the trees so we didn't even hear it falling and had no warning.  All of a sudden I felt a sudden pain of something slamming into me. I thought at first some bird had flown into me, but  I saw the branch crack with my peripheral vision. I am happy to say I do not have a bruise and I now understand why people are the most scared of falling branches when in the forest.

Yesterday I also saw nocturnal monkeys, or night monkeys, or owl monkeys. They are all the same animal. There is a family that sleeps in a tree next to the kitchen. Around 6:45 we were able to use our head lamps to seem them. They are small and have huge eyes. Their color looked to me to be light brown fading to dark brown, but the lighting was not good so I could be completely wrong. Since I  have now seen the night monkeys I just need to see the Pocket monkeys to have seen all ten possible species of monkeys. I will try to see the pocket monkeys soon.

Now on to today. On the way to breakfast I saw two more of the white lacy rocket fungi that I saw weeks ago.  The next cool thing I saw was a blue-black flat worm with yellow stripes. I found it really pretty. It was amazing to watch it be all stretched out and then become really squished. I did decide that I would not like to be touched by the flat worm. We went on the Lago trail again. About half way we could hear the rain coming. Yes, you really can hear the rain moving towards you. It sounds like when a group of people clap their hands together, starting slow and gradually increasing into applause. At first you just hear distant wind, then the a few random rain drops on the leaves, and then it is coming down and you have to talk really loud to be heard over the rain. As a result of the rain we saw two cool creatures. The first one was a giant earth worm. By giant I mean giant. It was almost 1.5 meters or almost five feet, and about as round as a quarter. At first we thought it was a snake because of how big it was, but no, it was a giant earth worm. The other cool creature was a giant frog. I caught it! It had very soft skin that was slimy. I needed both hands to hold it or the legs would hang stretched out. It was easy to catch because I am amazing, the frog was cold, and my hands were warm. I had M. taking pictures of me holding the frog but unfortunately the perfect frog princess picture is blurry. Oh, well. It rained for about an hour and a half, then dripped (which still seems like rain to me) for about 15 minutes. We ate lunch in the rain under our umbrellas, it was great. After the rain I saw my first purple anything here in the forest. Purple is not a rainforest color, but I saw some lavender flowers. It made me very happy to see them. After that we went back to the station. Before showering I took care of the Las Tortugas babies, the baby turtles. I am becoming very good at filming them swimming . Later in the evening a group of squirrel monkeys decided to eat the fruit in a tree five feet from our lab balcony. It was great. Everyone was able to get pictures of the monkeys. I was able to get a great video of them. I wish I had enough band width to load video.

 My trusty umbrella and I.

 The frog!

 Lavender Flowers

A squirrel monkey