The bird group was joined this morning by Keiona, Zach, & Alex – who were all up in time to enjoy the beautiful sunrise over Cuerici. After breakfast, most of the group embarked on another hike to the mirador. They took a different route this time and returned to playing a game that Sophie created called “Things we should have brought on this trip” – with the goal of listing the most unrealistic things to have brought on this trip. Meanwhile, Adam and Mary Thomas stayed back in the lab to identify plant samples from yesterday’s transects with Jeremey. The hikers collected the camera traps during their hike but unfortunately did not capture any great photos.
After lunch, everyone worked on independent projects; the bloggers headed behind the cabin to work at the picnic table under the magnolia tree. They sipped on coffee and enjoyed the view of the trout farm while blogging. Meanwhile, the others lined the dining room table and filled the front porch, performing statistical analyses and typing away.
Due to some difficulties with R, we postponed our final group presentations until 8:00 PM. Everyone presented their last group project – it was rewarding to be able to compare plant, insect, and bird diversity across the 4 sites we visited – and to hear figures on the total number of plants, insects, and birds that we identified or saw.
The bloggers wrapped up presentation night with their presentation entitled “Cuerici Shenanigans.” The presentation featured class photos, photos of the sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and many photos of Pancho! Matt asked each person to submit their favorite photo from one of our field sites that were featured in the presentation. Everyone got to explain why the photo they chose was their favorite. The group had a good laugh over the photo Mary Thomas sent in that featured Clay & Adam’s passion for walkie-talkies and Professor Cardelùs’s insistence on saying “over” at the end of every conversation when using walkie-talkies!
After the presentations, we huddled around the fireplace and did Rose, Bud, Thorn for the last time as a group. We had another good laugh when Maya shared that her thorn was not seeing the Quetzal because Jeremy was borrowing her binoculars and Jeremy shared that his rose was seeing the Quetzal with Maya’s binoculars!
The end of the night consisted of hot showers, packing bags, finishing group papers, and packing up the lab. Most of the group made it up to bed before midnight for the last night of sleep at Cuerici.
