the view of Volcan Arenal from the field station where we spent Friday night.

(photo creds to Allison, stories to come!)

Thank you Trez for this GORGEOUS pic of the trogon!!

pajareando

So my Tropical Ecology class starts at 7 am, which is kind of rough, but kind of awesome for when we need 3 hours in the field in the early morning… to go birdwatching, for example!

Last week I got up at 4:30 to go birdwatching at 6 and we saw an orange-bellied trogon.  This is the same bird that I saw for a moment as we drove past it on our way to Monteverde, almost three weeks ago!  The trogon is related to the quetzal; it’s this big, majestic bird that is just an incredible sight. 

(image from google images, but Trez got some good pics! I’ll try to post one once she’s put them online.)

Yesterday morning for class we went birdwatching in the same place I went to a week ago.  I was super excited to see the trogon again, and my professor told me not to get my hopes up, it probably wouldn’t happen… and we were walking only a little bit past the spot where I saw it a week ago and I happened to look up into the trees and noticed this big bird with a fat orange belly…! And it was the trogon!! I was so excited.  Our whole class got to see it, and it sat still for us to look at for a good ten minutes! I was already so happy to be up with the sunrise that morning, going birdwatching with all these people that I love, and to top it all off we started the morning at this lookout point where you can see all of the Nicoya valley.  The sun was rising so it was still shadowy where we were but the valley was bathed in this yellow morning sunlight and the moon was still up AND THERE WAS A RAINBOW! And then it was sprinkling and my friend Allison said “you know, Emma, the rain is just cloud dust… we’re in the clouds” and I cried a little bit because it was just so beautiful!!  

Basically this is a day in the life of a student here.  It’s the best ever.

Love, abrazos, y besos,

emma