Sunday morning at Sirena

I wrote the following blog after a wonderful first day at Sirena 12 days ago.

Day 1 at this Corcovado biological station began at 4am. Yep, 4am. We didn’t dream of such an early wake up but the forest had different plans. The howls began slowly and seemingly in the distance. They grew to a crescendo right above our buildings and most of us were shaken out of a tropical slumber. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXiFgANry30). Two and a half hours later we really started our day with a breakfast of rice, beans, eggs, and toast.

Station rules were the first order of business. Breakfast will be from 6:30 to 7 and the dining room closes at 7:30. The groups will split up with half painting the station building and the other half conducting their project research. Lunch is roughly 11:30 to 12:30 followed by more service and research. 2pm marks the end of our work day and the beginning of time for exploration. Shoes are the topic of rule number two. No field shoes on the stations deck. Our living area is a series of elevated sleeping wings, a dining hall, and a two story building with a beautiful veranda and upstairs for research work. Closed toed shoes are the rule for off the deck and trail-hiking. Boots are required for the research work off the trail. Rule number three covers swimming. Visitors can only swim in one spot along the Rio Claro. No one can swim on the beach or at the mouth of either the Rio Claro or Rio Sirena.

Well, you could swim at the mouth of either river but you might encounter a crocodile! They like brackish or salt water and both rivers funnel nutrients into the ocean that attracts a lot of other fish that the crocs feed on. This rule really came into focus when we nearly stepped on a baby crocodile tanning on the beach TWO DIFFERENT TIMES ON THE SAME DAY! Sharks also patrol these waters! Bull sharks a common sight between the two rivers while also feeding at the mouth of the rivers at high tide.

Finally, trail rules. No one hikes alone and one must always be vigilant. No running on the trails and no casual strolls off-trail. Its crucial to maintain respect for the forest. Then, your safe and you’re more likely to benefit from all this ecosystem can offer.

For instance, this is a quick re-cap of yesterday’s first full day at Sirena. Again, it started at 4am with the howler monkeys. As we began our morning hike, we were greeted by a blue-morpho and its puppet like flight. This butterfly flaps its large blue wings at a pace that gives one an impression that there is some hidden puppeteer in the sky. We then cruised down the beach and startled what we first thought was a lizard. But it scurried into the ocean and it became obvious that we just saw a baby croc. We then formed a human chain into the beach surf (this is allowed) to unload our paint (pintura) donation, new roofing tiles, and some of our food. A pelican floated next to us in the surf attracting quite the affection from Devon. He’s one of Devon’s friends now. She also reminded me about the “crap-ton” of hermit crabs also on the beach.

We then began our “interpretive hike” with Alberto and walked north on the beach. I asked Alberto to stop half way down towards the next river to talk about the tapirs at Corcovado. They’re the largest mammal in Central America, in the horse family, nocturnal, and herbivores. Typically, they are gentle creatures that you can be close too but mothers with their babies can be dangerous. They have a very hard skull to hit you with but incredibly poor eyesight. We finished our first chat and proceeded around the beach point to the Rio Sirena mouth and as I asked Alberto to stop and prepare for his next interpretation and right on cue, a tapir lumbered awake just twenty yards away. We enjoyed its antics for a bit and then wandered back to the station for lunch. We saw more in one morning than most visitors see in their day jaunts on a boat from Drake Bay.

But our epic day continued. After lunch, an anteater appeared in a banana tree on the Westside of our front porch and ambled to the ground, underneath our platform, into our courtyard and then disappeared under the kitchen building. We then took a siesta and started hiking to the swimming hole. 2 km later, we found the spot and two other visitors who promptly informed us they spotted a small crocodile. Now I’m a policy guy, but I remembered that Alberto said crocs are only in salt or brackish water, not clear river water. So I thought this must be a small caiman and not much of a threat to us. So we waded in, threw rocks in the swimming hole and then splash, the caimen moved against the other bank of the river. It was about 1 meter long and keeping its distance from us. So I dove in, crossed through a short, but deeper channel until I could again stand on the river bottom up to my knees on the same bank as the caimen. Then it hit me. I’m swimming in the same waters with a caimen! We approached, and it darted downstream. We approached again, and it darted downstream. I then gave the ok for the rest of the group to swim.

At 4pm, we decided to hike to Rio Sirena for high tide and along the way, we saw squirrel monkeys, spider monkeys, and then walked right into a large herd of collared peccaries. We got back to the beach and continued hiking north when we again ran across a baby croc. It ran into the incoming surf and we tried to get a second glimpse but it was gone in a flash. As the sun began to set, we saw one bull shark in the mouth of the Sirena river and it was time to call it a day.