ABC Group Arrives Today

After so much planning, the group of seven from the American Birds Conservancy arrives this afternoon.  I'm still waiting at the OBC for Elder to arrive with the rest of the food, other outstanding purchases, and the booze of course.  Nothing like taking it down to the wire.

I'll meet him here, drop what needs to stay at the OBC and transfer the rest to the Cerro Osa vehicle and head up.  Liz from Bosque Rio Tigre will arrive around 3:30 this afternoon to help prepare the dinner for tonight.  Fortunately she was able to get her hands on 12 tuna steaks - I didn't realize what a task it would be to get fish around here.  Apparently there is stiff competition with all of the lodges in the area vying for the catch of the day.  Personally, I think that once Saima and I are buying and preparing food on our own, we'll likely stick with our 99% vegetarian routine - kinder on the environment and a lot easier to grow vegetables where we'll be living.  Besides, fishing, hunting and raising livestock on the land is not permitted under the terms of the conservation easement:)

I'm excited to meet this group and get to spend some time showing them around the parts that I know and seeing other areas that I don't know so well.  I'll be incomunicado for a couple of days while on Cerro Osa; return to the Osa Biodiversity Center Saturday.

I forgot to mention that yesterday's wildlife spotting highlights were the oriole snake that Manuel found in one of the cabinas while he was cleaning and the blue-crowned mot-mot that I saw just along the edge of the clearing at about 5pm yesterday.   There had also been a couple of large grasshoppers mating in the dining area.  They were there for a couple of days, the smaller male clasping to the larger female.  They were clinging to one of the wooden beams, making it difficult to place something next to them for perspective, but the female was at least as long as my hand.