New Pictures. New animals. New news!

The Kinkajou, an occasional visitor to out camera testing area.

I'm tired of that Damn Snake! so let's get on with some pictures!

We have just returned from Costa Rica.  The project is active and is continuing to produce positive results.  Animal populations continue to be sustained.  We even got a first real glimpse of a jaguarundi with her kitten.

A Jaguarundi kitten towers over it's mother.

Some of the cameras fared well despite that over 6 feet of rain fell in a 30 day time at the end of November.

For the first time, we did not see any trespassers hunting on the land.  We did see plenty of dogs, which cause chaos in the forest.

Local dog harasses an agouti within the same minute.

We are up to 4 working wireless cameras.  As far as we know, we are still  the only project with wireless cameras in Costa Rica.  Movistar, our cell service provider, has been instrumental in helping us maintain connectivity.  We brought the cameras and they had the technology, but we had to merge the two, a first for this multi-national company.

Back in August HCO, the company who sells the wireless cameras that we use, offered up a contest on Facebook and we won!

We won a Camera!

The cameras email us images in minutes.  The images that we receive are much lower quality(resolution) than what is recorded to the card. Here are side by side examples:

Low resolution email image of Coati.

Better resolution of the same image downloaded from the SD card.

We have inspired at least six other property owners to use camera traps.  So our project is much more far reaching than we ever expected.

In early January, I was asked by a friend to set up some cameras on an old road up on the mountain behind Golfito.  The first time we checked the camera we got a male Puma image. We continued to see more of him regularly for the next three weeks.  We also discovered Puma droppings or scat which were given to mammalogists from the Phoenix Zoo. This will shed light on the cat's dietary information from fur analysis.

Our cameras got a Puma only 3 miles from our property.

As far as we know, this is the first photo evidence of a Puma seen in this vicinity in a long time.  There was also a documented report and video of a Puma crossing the Coto River just South of Golfito. Our place, Ocho Verde is just 5km or 3 miles from each location.

This is important as we try to determine if we have a big cat corridor from the Golfo Dulce Rainforest Reserve into the wilder mountains of Pavones and into northwestern Panama. Cat corridors are important for genetic diversity and healthy populations.  Other than a fortunate sighting, our camera traps will certainly be key in this determination.

This seems like a logical path for big cats

We can always use assistance with our project as there are constant financial burdens such as  batteries, data plans, memory cards, camera repairs, etc.  If you would like to offer further help, please use PAYPAL https://www.paypal.com/us/home with the email address OchoVerde@gmail.com, or contact us directly at the same email address.

No brand was spared from the rain damage.

We have a remarkable support staff in the US that enables us to spend time on our project. Observant neighbors, reliable cat feeders, and an expert parrot watcher to name a few.  We are always grateful for their help!

See you soon --Thanks--Frank

If you have stuck around this long...here is funny video from our cameras!

In the enire six weeks we were there, we saw 2 snakes and no fer-de-lances!

Hello and Happy 2015.

Roi, aka Crooked Tail, with a big belly.

We have big news to report about our project a little later in our update.

We have just returned from Costa Rica where we downloaded nearly 9000 images and videos that had been recorded since late July. This many images is a bit out of whack for our time-frame, but we had 2 cameras that recorded continuously until the batteries died.  One was due to a short due from high humidity, the other was due to a few blades of grass that popped up in front of the sensor and triggered it every time a breeze blew.  We also had one camera that developed a corrupt memory card and sadly I could not download any of the photos.  If you know of an easy way to retrieve them, send me an email and we can take a look at the images.

Is a cub on the way, for Roi?

On the animal front, we are seeing pretty much what we thought that we would.  Crooked Tail(Roi) is still around as is her cub Pizza Slice.  Crooked Tail has a bit of a saggy belly in the later pictures indicating that she may have given birth in the last few months.  This would go along with the fact that we have seen far few male ocelots recently. Pregnant or parental female ocelots do not attract mates until the young are no longer with them. We are hoping to see her with a cub later this month.

This blurry because a) it is from a video and b) Tayras are always on the move.

Our macho male Tayra is still around, but this time he is with a companion...is love in the air?  I had a chance encounter with the female in early January on a trail.  She climbed a tree groaned at me to continue to back away, which I did.  

The Pacas seem to be abundant.  The agoutis are common as they ever were at one point one occupied 350 of nearly 400 videos from a single camera.  There are plenty of ant eaters.  The Jaguarundi seem to be around as well although only singles were seen this past Fall.  The Capuchin monkeys came down to several cameras and the coatis were seen at nearly every location.  The hog-nosed striped skunk was seen more often and this may indicate him being more of a resident than passer by.  The Curassows have been strutting around like they have owned the forest.  One new animal that we had not seen was the 4 Eyed Opossum.  It seems to have a little more bounce to it’s step that the larger Common Opossum.  
Here is video quick recap:

We had 9 cameras that failed and had to be returned to the states. One new Cuddeback camera failed 3 weeks into the new year.  Ants caused a few of the failures and I believe that the rest was due to the humidity of extra rainfall in November.  One camera was full of water from a bad seal, however, the images were just fine. 
The cameras were all brought back to the states for warranty repair(I hope).
 
We have been invited to join the Osa Conservation Camera Trap Network.  Project director Juan Carlos Cruz came over twice to help get us coordinated with the data input and looked at the trails.  We are part of a 14 station network that helps monitor the wildlife in the Osa Region of Costa Rica.  Read more about the project here:
Osa Conservation Camera Trap Network
We are currently on the eastern edge of the network's boundary as it makes it way down towards Panama.

We were also invited to share our data(nearly 30,000 images) with the MAPCOBIO Project which records biodiversity from camera trap projects from all over Costa Rica. 

In August, we received two Spartan wireless cameras, one from a private donor and one from the camera manufacturer HCO Scoutguard.  With a month fiddling with the cameras, we finally had the cameras up and working.  We are able to receive nearly instantaneous email images from our cameras. As we sat on the plane in Miami, this shot of an iguana dead center of the frame, appeared on my phone. 

 Using this technology we have become one of the very first to receive live images from Central America in the United States.  This technology has been incorporated into an app by the  Zoological Society of London.  “Instant Wild” uses wireless camera trap images from select parts of the world to increase awareness of biodiversity.  Now, we can all see what is going on in our forest along with everybody else.  Here is the link to Instant Wild

I'm going to do a special blog on the 2 wireless Instant Wild cameras in the next week or two.  I'll discuss some of the remarkable technology within these cameras.

In the meantime, something weird is happening with Ocho Verde Facebook page, so until I get that figured out, you can
 Follow @OchoVerde

Tayra and Banana

 

The Ojos de Lalla and Mid-Summer Update 2014

A Curassow hen enters the frame.

The Ojos de Lalla camera was one of the older Scoutguard cameras.  It has an incandescent flash for color night time images.  For daylight, it was set to record 10 second color videos.  The batteries lasted from July until early October.  We recorded over 776 activations over that period of time.  

We have sorted through and condensed them into a three minute video with ocelots, tayra, coati, a capuchin monkey, and a feeding white hawk.   
Here is the video.  I suggest that you maximize the screen size.

We replaced the batteries and in January.  The camera continued to function, but began to video and flash capabilities.  Since we were still able to get some daytime images, we left the camera in hopes of having at least a few photos.

One of the last  great images that we got from this camera is this one of an erect cappuchin monkey staring at the camera.

"I'm cool"

We have been patiently tucking small contributions away in hopes that we could get a wireless cellular camera set up.  Those cameras are expensive and the technology is improving.  I reached out to Scoutguard last week after reading on their website that they are involved in conservation projects.   Word came back late Saturday afternoon that they would sponsor camera and help with the wireless set-up.  We are extremely excited to be able to get email images in real time.  Scoutguard has been one our favorite preforming cameras and has delivered us many great videos and beautiful images. 

HCO Scoutguard's newest wireless camera.

UPDATE 7/8/14--The new camera, shown above, did not arrive at Scoutguard in time for them to ship one to us before we left.  We won't be able to deploy it until early 2015. 

We leave for Costa Rica in the middle of the week with new and replaced cameras, batteries and memory cards.  I'll be reporting back with what we hope will be some great images that were captured over the last 4 months.
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NartureSpy from the UK  has named us one of the top camera trappers to follow on Twitter: Follow @OchoVerde
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To see all of our camera trap videos, follow this link.
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'Let's Go' See What's on the Vamos Camera

The VAMOS CAMERA 7/22/13-1/7/13

Vamos has a popular Facebook & Webpage with up to date info on road closures, etc.

We have been going to Costa Rica for years.  I thought that the hassles of renting a car were just part of the less-than-pleasant aspect of travel in Costa Rica.  We were tricked, lied to, reservations 'lost', overcharged, etc by most of the larger franchised rental car companies.  That alone kept us searching for a better rental car service.  We finally found Vamos Rent-a-Car, and it has been an absolute pleasure to deal with them on every trip. 

When I was putting this project together, I wondered if we could get any support from inside Costa Rica.  I immediately thought of Vamos and sent an email off to them describing our project.  Within minutes...literally...I received word back that they "would be honored", to sponsor a camera.  Thus the "Vamos Camera" was born. 

This camera is a Bushnell Trophy Camera.  It was set to take two images when triggered.  The camera was located a a place we call "Three Sisters".  The trail forks near three huge trees(the 3 sisters), the left trail goes up to the ridge up near the Walkabout camera and the right trail meanders through the forest and eventually winds up near the lower pasture where the Pippin Cam and the Mono Precioso Camera(upcoming) cameras are located.

I suspected that this would be a good location for a camera as 3 trails came together.  This spot was where the Vamos Camera was aimed.  We were not disappointed.  The Vamos camera snapped over 3,200 images on one set of batteries.  Here is some of what we got:

The Tayra, always in motion.

The Tayra, always in motion.

The Tayra, always in motion.

The Tayra, always in motion.

The Tayra, always in motion.

The Tayra, always in motion.

The Tayra, always in motion.

 

Male Curassow

Male Curassow

Anteater

Paca

Agouti with young

I originally thought Tayra, but this is the Jaguarundi.

I originally thought Tayra, but this is the Jaguarundi.

Ocelot

Ocelot

Ocelot

Ocelot

Ocelot

Mystery animal #1.  What do you think it is?

Mystery animal #2.  What do you think it is?

Mystery animal #2, a second later. What do you think it is?

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comment section below.

Keep an eye out for reports from the remaining cameras as I'll be posting them over the next few weeks.  You can subscribe to the blog and get notified when I post, or you can check back when it is convenient.

 
Follow @OchoVerde
The technology exists to receive live(+ 3 minutes) text or email images from the new 2014 model cameras.  Contact me at OchoVerde@gmail.com, if you are interested in participating in this type of project.   A few of us could 'split' a camera.  The images can be sent to up to 5 numbers/email addresses.  We could start it in July, 2014.

For you camera trap junkies(like myself), here are all 3207 images in a quick video, 0.2frames/second.  If you see something interesting, let me know and we can investigate it further/zoom in. In addition to what is listed above, there will be: squirrels, lizards, tinamou, dove, common opossum, spiny rat, crab eating raccoon, white nosed coati, etc.

Camera Trap Update: What's on the Pippin Camera?

The Pippin Camera

The Pippin camera was the final sponsored camera. The contribution for Pippin pushed our fundraising project over the top.  It is a white flash day/night color camera.  Although it has daytime video capability, we opted to keep it in photo mode for the duration of its term. 

Pippin cam took 540 photos and lasted from July, 22 to October 27.  This camera was moved near the end of our stay in July to a trail near the Mono Precioso camera. It bordered lowland pasture and was at the base of the mountain. 
Looking out, there is pasture beyond the lens and on the camera's right.  To the left and behind the camera is a gradual to steep incline up 200 meters.

We were very pleased with the clear images.

This agouti is is just one of the many critters that liked to cross the downed tree.

Here is our common opossum.

The tinamou.

The tinamou.

2 Tinamous.

Notice the time here. 4:27pm

In 32 minutes, a spider web is finished.

Great Curassow Hen

Great Curassow Hen

Great Curassow Hen

Great Curassow Hen

Originally, I thought this was a male Great Currasow.

Closer inspection yielded that it was a Black Vulture.

Here is the male Curassow.

Here is the male Curassow.

Another pass of the male Curassow.

Another pass of the male Curassow.

A Capuchin Monkey came for a visit.

A chubby Paca.

A chubby Paca.  Just one of many that wandered by.

This was one of several anteaters that passed by.

Tail markings help identify individuals.

Here's the 'barefooted' Crab Eating Raccoon.

See anything here?

A Green Iguana used this as his hangout for a while.

The Tayra was seen crossing this log many many times.

We even saw him once with a large male iguana in his mouth.

How about some cats:

We think this ocelot is a young one.

We think this is a young ocelot.

This is a different individual.

It has different neck stripes.

This is a big Ocelot. 

A closer look shows what looks like an injured front leg.

Here is another muscular ocelot.

This is a different individual from the one with the injury.

When we changed batteries, the Pippin cam went berserk.  It began to uncontrollably flash and not take any pictures.  It made a trip back to the USA and was sent off for warranty replacement.  Pippin has a surrogate camera snapping away while looking right at that fallen log that these animals enjoy visiting.

As the batteries ran down...we got a crazy rainbow shower. 
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Update: March 14, 2014: The sponsor of this camera passed away yesterday at the age of 90.   Libby was a natural history enthusiast who was active in Audubon societies where ever she lived.  She worked with researcher John C. Lilly at his dolphin communications lab in Miami in the 1960's.  She also wrote several books on natural history. 

We got an email from her in early February saying how much she was enjoying the 'critter cam' updates.
Thanks, Libby, for supporting our project!
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If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comment section below.

Keep an eye out for reports from the remaining cameras as I'll be posting them over the next few weeks.  You can subscribe to the blog and get notified when I post, or you can check back when it is convenient.

Follow @OchoVerde
Visit the Ocho Verde YouTube Page for other scintillating videos.

The technology exists to receive live(+ 3 minutes) text or email images from the new 2014 model cameras.  Contact me at OchoVerde@gmail.com if you are interested in participating in this type of project.