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Storm watching June 20, 2018

June 20, 2018

Yesterday, another researcher and I went up to another research site at 1000 meters above sea level. The site is actually a cozy family-owned ecolodge and preserve, so we were able to stay the night there and save ourselves two rounds of driving up and down.

Which was good, because a little after yesterday’s lunch, the light rain that had been going for most of the morning turned into a thunderstorm. We immediately grabbed our stuff and headed back, but we ran into a delay when the shortcut we tried to take out of the forest turned into a dead end: The driveway for the boarded-up house on an adjoining property had been blocked off with an electrical cattle fence. Neither of us wanted to test whether it was live, especially since we were soaking wet. So we had to backtrack, then exit the way we came, which included crossing a stream which had been a trickle when we went out but had acquired several inches of fast-flowing water by the time we reached it again.

We made it back to our cabin around 1:30, but with the rain, thunder, and lightning still going strong, not to mention that proto-river, it was clear our fieldwork was over for the day. Which left us with unusually little to do, other than try to get dry and watch the rain. We were joined in this by a falcon and a hummingbird. For some reason, the hummingbird was convinced it needed to perch in the same tree as the falcon, even though there were plenty of others available. It tried to dislodge the falcon a couple of times with bouts of outraged and nearly earsplitting chirping (hummingbirds are ­loud), but when that failed, it settled down nearby, apparently ignoring the falcon.

This morning was rain-free and even sunny at times, and the stream had gone back to a trickle. We got a ton of work done, came back to the lodge for lunch, and watched again as an even bigger storm rolled in.