HASTA LUEGO

Today was our last day at Snake Cay.  In a nutshell, Team Chipojo had a great time and a productive field season.  A preliminary glance at the data set demonstrates, that in a relatively short period of time, the behavior of A. sagrei has changed dramatically in response to the presence of curly tails.  Some of the most striking changes include; shift in habitat use, foraging behavior and perch selection.  On a lighter note, Barbarita left today, she is looking forward to her next stop, a few weeks doing more behavioral research with anoles in Puerto Rico.  I will venture to say, that she has finally seen the light, and I am looking forward to follow her development as a Behavioral Ecologist.  Last but not least, El Chivo is beginning graduate school on August 2009, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!  I can say without hesitation, that I would not like to be the field assistant trying to fill his shoes next year.  Those are some VERY BIG shoes. 

FOUR-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY

Day 36: Today we broke the 450 mark, that is, we have collected more than 450 focal observations of A. sagrei.  Not bad if we take into consideration that today Chivo took some time to play during the high tide (please see picture).  Also, it looks like we have punched the ticket to Pico Turquino, and we are looking forward for the trip.  Particularly Chivo who learned right before his trip to Abaco that he is 88% Cuban.  He has spent endless hours reading about the culture and history of  “la tierra que vio nacer a José Marti” and sharing the information with us.  A lot of fun, most of the time!!!!!

ABANDONING SHIP

Day 35: No need to say that the weather was lousy, for a change.  Nevertheless, we are only one video away from 425 observations.  As we like to say back home “Pico Turquino preparate que el Chivo esta haciendo las maletas.”  In other news, Barbarita took the afternoon off, to go play at Hopetown.  I do have to admit it was not the same to run away from the storms without her in the boat. 

FOUR-HUNDRED

Day 34: Finally we broke the elusive 400 mark ---GO CHIVO--- and all of the sudden the 450 goal is within reach.  In other news Barbarita took some time to search for the elusive Bahamian- Marine-Anole.  The last report of the marine anole is from the turn of the century, at that time it was observed in the vicinity of Snake Cay. 

MALTA RULES

Day 33:  Barbarita had a taste of Malta, one if not the most popular drink of the Caribbean Islands.  Surprisingly, according to her, “malta smell likes dog’s can food” needless to say she only took two sips and gave-up on her original plan of drinking local beverage.  In other news Chivo broke the record for most videos taken during a 2.5 hours period, he loves to work at Barge.

CAN YOU BELEIVE IT!!!!!

Day 32: We had a great day. Finally none of the islands is on the RED column for any of the time periods. Tomorrow we should break the 400 barrier; a great achievement considering the not-so-helpful weather pattern.  

MINUTO DE SILENCIO!!!!

Day 31: The CLAM-PANTS are history .... However their legacy lives on.  Our clip of the day was courtesy of a curly, who was foraging up in the vegetation for bees, even venturing to catch them in mid-air as anoles do. Go curlies!!!! 

Time to Celebrate

Day 30; Feliz Cumpleaños Chivo. Also, Alejandro is leaving us tomorrow.  He needs a break from the sunny and NOT-so-sunny weather and is looking forward to catch-up with his sequencing work.

New Captain

Day 29, we took a break from collecting focal observations to collect temperature data.  Team “Barbarita”, collected data on 126 lizards, whereas team “Chivo” collected data on 123 lizards.  For those of you wondering how “hot” A. sagrei can be on small cay, with relatively little vegetation and perching on the ground, how about 48.3°C, (that is 118 °F) and the average temperature at 2:00 pm was 34.5 °C.  Also, Barbarita did a VERY VERY GOOD job at driving the boat, she is our new captain.   

TORMENTAS!!!!!

Day 27 & 28, It is great to be back, although the lousy weather continues. According to Chivo, over the last 10 days at least one storm had chased them out of the water. Nevertheless no storm is powerful enough to keep Nicole, Alejandro and Chivo from collecting behavioral data.  As of today, we have collected over 300 observations of A. sagrei and close to 50 of L. carinatus.  As a side note, Nicole has mastered the the video-microphone technique surpassing Chivo's ability.   

Three-hundred

Day 26: Barometer Bob for weeks has been telling us "clear & sunny on Thursday." It was clear and sunny for only about 6 hours. But those 6 hours have pushed us over the 300 video mark! It's slightly depressing, but we will take it considering the weather. I guess I should also say my good-bye's as El Jefe returns to take over the blog tomorrow . . .

300, not bad, only 200 short from "Pico Turquino"

Snappers

Day 25: Got some videos in today before the daily storm. Also took some temperatures of lizards around the apartment to test the accuracy of the lizard models. Not bad. The highlight of the day though was our acquisition of 3 snappers from a kind fellow at Snake Cay. Alex adeptly filleted them and cooked them to perfection. Wonderful.

Alex's Dude

Above is a video of a male anole that Alex captured a few days ago. It's worth the watch. Trust me.

Today was pretty good --- a little vomiting, a little sunshine, plenty of videos. The rain is here now, but no worries. The forecast is for clear skies through the weekend. Time to watch some more videos!!!

Miserable Weather

Day 22 & 23: I would put up a picture, but I don't think anyone wants to see us crying. We've had a string of absolutely horrendous days again and have managed to capture ... 7 videos in two days! Awful. Nothing else I can write will make it any better. Hopefully tomorrow ...

Sea-Stars, II

Day 21: We watched many videos today & Nicole found two sea-stars.

Buddy & Barge

Day 20: We made it to Buddy and Barge today!!! These are two cays that we've been having trouble getting to. It seemed like every time the tides were high enough to get there, storms would roll in. In our exuberance, we swam in a nice little cove after our day of work. And Nicole also claims she saw two camels ... but she says they didn't have humps or long necks & they were small (maybe dog-sized?). Too much sun if you ask me. 

Hecho de Papel

Day 19: We are made of paper. We don't like the rain because it makes us wet paper -- and then we can tear easily and anything written on us will smear. Today was, as far as I'm concerned, spectacular. Got some morning and evening boating in, ate a pizza, shopped. Tomorrow is Labor Day. To celebrate we will work ...

Alex's Tuna

Day 18: Not an awful day. After a morning of lizarding, we went back to our place during storms/low tide. Since Shirley was cleaning the apartment, I thought it'd be a nice change of pace to eat lunch at a local restaurant. Alex had a tuna burger and almost immediately turned bright red. He is better now (transcribing videos while I type) after a litre of Pedia-lite (an electrolyte-packed beverage for toddlers, for those of you in the dark) and some delicious soup.

And a Nicole update: She noosed a male anole in 4.667 seconds today ... I would say that makes her an expert lizard catcher! Wouldn't you?!?

Puffer-fishing

Day 17: Mediocre day. Nothing much to report. Some good weather, some bad. Lots of Radio Abaco. The only real incident of note was Nicole's attempt(s) to catch a puffer-fish. She first tried by hand (no luck), then with a milk jug (shockingly, still no luck). Pretty hilarious. I guess I also made a toddler fall and cry, but it's not something I'm particularly proud of. Time for dinner, more tomorrow.

Finally...

Days 15 & 16: The last two days have been much better than expected. We managed to get out on the water for ~1.5 hours yesterday and ~4.5 hours today. That equals ~50 videos, which equals excitement for the Chipojo Lab. Supposedly this storm system is moving out of here, so things are beginning to look up. Alex's hands still look gross, and Nicole filmed anoles copulating this evening. Can't get any better than that.