Alright, so here at La Selva, there is a large colony of Montezuma Oropendola, Psarocolius montezuma. These birds are our alarm clocks in the morning. (One interesting thing about Costa Rica is it gets dark around 5:30 pm and light at 5:30 am.) They have a really interesting call(Check out this website for the call). These birds are polygynous and the males are very protective of their females. They weave these sweet nests out of banana fibers in 9 - 11 days. Each colony has about 15 - 20 nests. The males are larger than the females, which is the best way to tell them apart because they are dimorphic. Montezuma Oropendola have a mutualistic relationship with hornets, which protect their nests from cowbird parasitism. In return, the Oropendola will keep bees away from the hornet nests. These birds eat fruit, but have been known to eat grasses and other herbs also.
Today, we also got to go on the ZIP LINE! It was a blast and a half. We flew through the jungle with the greatest of ease and enjoyed awsome views of the canopy layer of the forest. Our guides were hilarious and very few of them spoke English, which made things interesting. They laughed at our attempts to communicate.
We also did the second set of bee work. We saw a lot more diversity here than at Las Cruces. It was fun finding all of the different colors of bees! I cannot wait to see what we attract at Monte Verde.
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