Panama Chronicles – Tropical sunrises, bugs and giant rodents

This post is part of a series called the Panama Chronicles - a rewrite/edit of an email log I wrote just before entering grad school. To protect myself and others I have disguised names and adapted various aspects of the narrative.  It is a work of fiction based on a true story.

This place has the most beautiful sunrises!  We leave for the forest just before dawn and it is usually too misty to see the sunrise.  Every now and then though, the sun burns though the mist and paints the whole sky white, gold and pink.  The river looks like liquid gold and the surrounding hills are streaked with mist.  What a way to start the day!

Image: Sunrise over a tropical river. D. M. Buehler

I'm getting used to the jungle. My job is to track small forest birds and to locate their nests, but even if the birds or their nests elude me, the greatest thing about this job is that every day is an adventure.  So far I have been entertained by beautiful birds (the toucans, motmots and trogons are my favorites), capuchin monkeys (often throwing their excrement at me), lizards that can walk on water, and lovely little frogs.  Of course birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians are not the only animals in the jungle.  I meet mosquitoes, ticks and chiggers every day too, but I think I am even adjusting to constant itching.

And the bugs aren’t only in the forest. In our field house we have tiny ants that march around in columns raiding our food. We clean and clean, but there is no stopping them.  We also have cockroaches as long as my thumb and smaller roaches that can FLY (gulp).  And now that the rainy season has started, the downpours precede the emergence of swarms of flying termites on a quest to establish new colonies.  I will quickly be getting over my fear of bugs!

Then there are the giant rodents.  The other night, while driving home from a movie in the city, we saw two capybaras (and adult and a baby) crossing the road leading to our house. These animals are the worlds largest rodents and adults can grow up to 130 cm and can weigh up to 65 kg (that’s 140 lbs)!