Seafood watch

This is a great tool to have on hand when you eat fish:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jun/24/information-beautiful-fish-eat#zoomed-picture

A lot of fish in our world are overexploited, and their populations are declining quickly so we might not have them to eat in the future. Other seafood, like shrimp, is harvested in a way that is completely destructive to all the other marine life...imagine hunting by uprooting all the trees in a forest and shaking them upside down and throwing away everything except one animal. That is basically how shrimp are caught.

What's interesting is that sometimes restaurants call a fish by a popular name but serve something else, based on what they can get. Get a Seafood Watch card from the Monterey Bay aquarium and take it with you when you buy seafood.

Hummingbirds

That is a hummingbird nest. It is pretty small, only a few inches tall and a few inches wide. It is sitting on a branch of a small Pelliciera tree. And inside were two baby hummingbirds! I saw this nest just after our boat pulled up to the Pelliciera forest, but I didn't see the mom the whole time we were there. I wonder if she's coming back?

Also...

Also I lost my voice. Came down with a cold the night before I left for this trip to Panama. I made it through one day of fieldwork before my voice was just completely gone. I'm hoping I don't have to yell, "look out, crocodile!" or anything like that anytime soon!

Things stay the same

Today I visited a site that I first visited two years ago. It is at least an hour and a half boat ride from the field station (which is a lot of traveling to get to by itself), so I don't go to that site very often. I was comparing pictures from two years ago to what I saw today, and it basically looks the same. It's not often that you get to say that about something...people change, trees get cut down, houses get painted, things change. But sometimes they stay the same!

Can you say propagules?

PROPAGULES! YAY! In mangrove speak, propagules = seeds. Sort of. The point of this trip was to come get propagules to set up a new experiment, and I had to come now because now is when the trees were supposedly fruiting. But I never know what I'm going to find when I come down here, expecting rare plants in remote places to do my bidding. Today was a pleasant surprise though. The trees have TONS of propagules, and there were so many on the ground I didn't even have to pick any questionably-ripe ones off the trees. I planted some for a new experiment and am off to do more tomorrow. And on the boat ride back to the lab, I had two separate dolphin sightings!

Back in Panama

Whew, it's been a long day of traveling. But here I am in Panama City again. On to Bocas del Toro tomorrow for a full day of fieldwork. Let's hope there are propagules...!

Back to the field and back to blogging!

Sorry for the lack of posts...I haven't been doing any interesting fieldwork because I've been applying for grants, teaching, applying for more grants, and planning fieldwork. I'll be in Panama next week! And I will be sure to update this lovely blog.