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And now for something completely different June 6, 2018

June 6, 2018

This summer, I’m doing research at La Selva, which is a wet forest* on the other side of Costa Rica from Palo Verde. It’s a lot more like what people think of when they hear ‘tropical forest’:

La Selva is not just different from Palo Verde, but also different from when I came down briefly in March. A few weeks ago, there was a microburst storm that did a lot of damage. A microburst is apparently the opposite of a tornado: fast winds blow down to the ground, then move outward. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but tons of trees were knocked down, along with the station’s canopy towers and various bits of infrastructure.

That last photo is of a blocked trail that I scouted out in March and decided would be perfect for my project. They say it’ll be clear by Monday, so here’s hoping.

*Technically, La Selva isn’t a ‘rain forest’ because it isn’t humid enough, although it’s difficult for me to imagine being someplace even more humid…I left a dry shirt on the foot of my bed last night and it was damp when I woke up.