The Lost Village...

 Let me set the scene...

You are walking through the woods, in search of a bird. A little bush-whacking may be taking place. Going off trail, if you will (heh heh). Up ahead you see a clearing.  After having worked in the National Forest in California and having to keep an eye out for mobile meth labs and pot plantations, coming across an unexpected clearing honestly put me a little on edge. Seriously. Who knows what goes on in the forests of Nicaragua. Just sayin. 

 But then I saw all of these little adobe-esque buildings...

Something awesome?? Some ancient abandoned home site. Well maybe not ancient but historic? Eh? That would be cool. I mean, it's not even on the map which must mean SOMETHING. 

Turns out it is slightly less cool and certainly less historic. 

A village built for solely paintball....

Yeah, that's right. I said it. Paintball in the cloud forest. 

"Unfortunately" it didn't pan out and so the village and paintball-team-building dreams were abandoned. Sigh.... :-P

I'm ok with that. AND since it's not on the trail map, not too many wayward tourists find it, making it a swell hiding place when you need to avoid the crowds, or just people in general.

Wildlife and such

A selection of wildlife and plant matter... 

Project wise things are...well, let's say slow. I don't know if there is some freak weather system going on (again) or if it is always insanely windy here, but it has been, for lack of a better word, insanely windy. I would go with 15-20mph on the regular with stronger gusts. Doesn't mix well with mist-nets, which means not a lot of birds in the nets, and therefore fewer with transmitters. Wah wah. 

We did manage to catch one little fellow on the one day it was calm. Also, turned out to be the one day that the coffee plants were getting a little fertilizer fog. Made for an interesting morning, trying to get a transmitter on a bird and take the nets down before the fog machines descended. Yes, we were the crazy white chics dashing frantically around the coffee field to close nets. At that point we didn't really know what the plants were being fogged with either... It was border line apocalyptic, that's all. 

Other than that, there has been a lot of wandering around in the woods looking for birds and contemplating how we might lure them out of the canopy... As a result, we've seen a lot of other things too. 

Oh hey, bellbird way up in the tree. Not quite as awesome as the pictures I pilfered from the internet but I did actually see this guy.

Glasswing? I vote it should be called that at least. 

The hungry caterpillar strikes again...

The hungry tree strikes?

"Trail signs are delicious, nom nom nom"