Breakfast, office stuff, laundry, dinner, change into field clothes and pack for the night.
Thats right, night field work; Headlamp... check... water...check...watch... check... calipers...check...tags, superglue, compass, tweezers, Snail Extractor (a.k.a. measuring tape)...check... check...check... check... check...
El Verde Field Station lies within the Caribbean National Forest/Luquillo Experimental Forest, and in a past life it was the location of a plantation. The plantation workers laid paths that twists and turns throughout a bit of the forest, this makes the hiking a bit easier; Until you go off the trail. The rest of the hiking consists of mud (esp in the rainy season like now), grabbing on to any tree or root (but first looking to make sure you are not grabbing a scorpion or tarantula), and trying not to step on the peeling of trees which can easily act as surf boards if on the right slope.
Work night 1 was depressing so I won't go into much detail about it other than to tell you that 1) I injured my right ankle, 2) the CTE sites were not found.
CTE= Canopy Trimming Experiment. This is an LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) project to study the effects of hurricane destruction on the forest. Snails, decomposition rates, plant growth, are observed at these sites.
Work night 2 (last night) was oh so long! Snail sampling cannot begin earlier than 8 pm or later than 2 am so we start hiking at about 7:40pm to give ourselves 20-30 minutes to hike to the first plot. The average is 10 plots/night. A plot can be completed in as little as 15 minutes if no snails are found. Travel time between plots is short (3 min) if you know where you're going. The first 5 plots this night took us 3 hours, and we got back at about 2 am with all 10 plots completed.
The good news about last night is that my ankle didn't kill me, I didn't grab the tarantula afterall, and I only got 1 bruise.
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