Toucans and Toiling

Hola! We’ve been in the Amazon rainforest for a few days now, and I’m starting to get comfortable and I’m… well, sort of getting used to the heat and all the insects.

Over the last few days, we’ve started really getting down to business on our research. The work focuses on Manakins (Pipridae), a group of small birds that live in South America. The reason these birds are interesting is that many of them produce sonations, or non-vocal sounds, sounds that are produced by means other than their vocal chords. For example, manakins might clap their wings together above their backs, rub their wings against their tails, smack their wings against their sides, or use all sorts of methods to produce sound. All of these birds also produce vocal sounds; the non-vocal sounds are typically used as part of their courtship displays. We’re using conventional speed and high-speed video (many of these displays are crazy fast!) to determine how the birds produce these sounds.

Our main four study species are (drumroll please!):

• The haughty and friendly Golden-Capped Manakin (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/177/388365459_c1712dc03a.jpg)
• The cute and humble White-Crowned Manakin (http://www.birdfinders.co.uk/images/white-crowned-manakin-costa-2007.jpg)
• The careful and crazed Wire-Tailed Manakin (http://i.pbase.com/g6/07/776307/2/82782376.bGn5sXMK.jpg)
• The frightened and fascinating Striped Manakin (http://antpitta.com/images/photos/manakins/WesternStripedManakin.jpg)

You may note, correctly, that manakins look like they have gone insane. Their big black pupils and white irises give them that crazed look… and when they get energetic, their pupils dialate and they breathe heavily, making them appear even more insane. However, we forgive them for it… after all, they do some pretty fascinating displays!

The last few days I have been doing reconnaissance on a Wire-Tailed Manakin near the 150-foot observation tower some 10 or 15 minutes away from camp. Recon basically means that you sit in the lek, listen to the bird, figure out where it spends most of its time, gage how active it is, and try to determine on what specific perches it does its displays. This particular Wire-Tailed spends moves around a lot, but he displays on two specific perches, and you can get incredibly close to them without the bird becoming very bothered. Today was the first day that Kim said I should take a conventional speed camera into the field to try and get some video of his displays. He does all sorts of crazy things…  he makes sideways jumps along the perch, makes a “klok” sound as he flies up to a branch, and even twists his body back and forth to smack the tail feathers into the faces of females! Crazy.

Unfortunately, activity of the Wire-Tailed Manakins, and activities of birds almost everywhere in the rainforest, has been unbearably low. It hasn’t rained a decent amount in almost 2 weeks, so it’s ridiculously dry, and the sun often burns off the clouds, leaving all of us with hot, dry days that simply feel unnatural for what it is called a rainforest. Therefore, today, as for the last few days, the Wire-Tailed Manakins have done virtually nothing.

This lack of activity is unbearable enough, but unfortunately, with hot and sunny days also comes swarms of insects. Probably the most common insect down here is what’s called a “sweat bee”. They’re called sweat bees because, well, they like you’re sweat, probably because they like the salt. The plus side of these insects is that the almost never bite or sting you. The negative side is that the places that the bees seem to most enjoy are your eyes and  your ears. So you’ll be trying to look at a bird, and you’ll hear one try to crawl into your ear, then hear its buzzing stop and hear struggling as it tries to escape your ear canal. Or, you’ll be trying to watch a bird, and they’ll hover obnoxiously right in front of your eyes, or sometimes they’ll crawl on your face and attempt to crawl into your eyes. So much fun.

In other words, we really need rain down here. Not only would it increase the bird activity, but it would also decrease the unbearable number of insects we cope with each day.

On the plus side, the lack of manakin activity has allowed me to see a vast number of wooley monkeys, who chose to crawl directly over the place that I sit and watch mankins, dropping leaves and sometimes rather heavy nuts precariously close to my head as they go. Some of the lazy ones rock back and forth in vines high in the canopy and stare at me, wondering what on earth I’m doing sitting under all that undergrowth like that. It’s rather comical. I’ve also seen a White-Fronted Toucan almost every day I’ve been here! I think they’re seeking me out; the other day, one actually flew oddly low into the understory and picked fruit about 20 feet from where I was sitting. It saw me, stared at me for about 10 seconds, and then flew off in a huff. SO COOL!

While the hot weather has made work and bird watching a bit less than exciting, it hasn’t hindered social activity down here in Tiputini. A group of about 15 students from Kalamazoo College has been here since January 4^th, and they’ve been fun to have conversations and crazy adventures with. Yesterday, I went on a 2-hour hike with one of the students, Beth, and afterwards, I went swimming in the Tiputini River with two other students, Christina and Annie. The K-College students are all finishing up a study abroad program; they spent last semester at the University of San Franciso at Quito, were in Ecuador for Christmas break, now they’re spending 2 weeks in the Amazon at Tiputini, and then they’ll spend 2 weeks in the Galapagos before they return home for the spring semester. Sounds like a pretty awesome program to me! Being together for so long has also made them pretty comfortable with each other but also comfortable with finding new friends, so they were all very easy and interesting to talk to. Since coming down here has been something of a social shock, I really appreciated the chance to meet and talk with some cool new people

Tomorrow, Kim decided that she wants to stake out the Wire-Tailed Manakin I’ve been scouting, so I’m gonna wake up early (~5:30am) to do some recon on one of the Striped Manakins, and around noon I’m going to head out to the hide down the trail, where I’ll try to get some video of the Striped Manakin doing his crazy display. Wish me luck!

Miss all of you, and  hope everyone is well! Enjoy the cold and the snow for me!

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