Greetings from ITEC! And hello from Austin and Schuyler!
Today the group set off early in the morning to visit the old Panama Canal built by the Snyder Brothers who owned and operated the United Fruit Company. After a 10 minute boat ride from the field station, we saw the old canal. We discussed the implications of the United Fruit Company on the Panamanian people, the country, and the economy. Pete noted that this was the 1st Panama Canal, and it was used to bring bananas to a deep-water port for export. The canal was an excellent place to go birding! There were plenty of birds to see and we saw a couple of caiman. For birds, we saw a roadside hawk, a great egret, a purple gallinule, a couple Passerini tanagers, brown boobies, a brown pelican, Montezuma oropendulas, a little blue heron, a green heron, an Amazon kingfisher, a ring kingfisher, a magnificent frigate bird, and turkey vultures. A traveled a couple miles down the canal, and then we docked near a path to the ocean. We hung around the ocean for twenty or thirty minutes and after that we came back to the field station
After a very yummy lunch, we started our main projects! We split off into three groups. One group is working on the population of poison dart frogs (Marisa, Rory, Mu’izza, and Austin). And two groups are working with banana spiders, one working on the angle of their webs (Lizzie, Schuyler and Sam), and one working on their mating beh
aviors (Sophie, Max and Malik). After we split up, we spent two hours this afternoon working on our group projects. We then had dinner and have been hanging out since! On our introduction hike, our guide Dr. Pete gave us a fruit with a juice on the inside that makes temporary tattoos. We did some group tattooing tonight! That’s really all for today! We’re excited to work on projects! Hasta Mañana
Click on ITEC–2-(Feb-10-11), or go Photos 2017 tab to see more photos of our day.