Research:
Ellie and Andrea wrapped up their time at Cloudbridge with a presentation on their bird point counts and camera trap surveys.
Research is still on-going for Kendell, Clarice, and Jasper.
Arriving from France, Noemie Soton will be studying sustainable farming in Costa Rica, and Emilie Kauffmann is researching frogs in various forest types.
Volunteers:
Our volunteers this month are:
Malin Große-Heilmann – Germany
Jan Rosciszewski – Germany
Helene Loy – GermanyHelene
Maxime Philibert – France
Milena Roxo – Brazil
Sian Clarke – England
ARO International – Quebec group of students
Their work:
Installed over 100 steps throughout the trail system
The Sentinel trail got improved access with more stone work
Maintenance around trees including weeding and mulching
Expansion of the parking lot
Completion of the hikers shelter at Rancho Don Victor
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In the welcome centre two students from Costa Rica are helping on the weekends by providing information to visitors.
Maricela Billita is finishing her high school studies in San Gerardo.
Gabriel Arias is studying tourism at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica – UNA
Gabriel and Maricela
Community work:
Jenny Moss the director of Project San Gerardo organized an international conference on sustainable communities through the organization ‘Rose Charities’. Tom Gode represented Cloudbridge on a panel discussing environmental stewardship.
Visitors:
This month we had many friends and family members visiting.
Jenny (Founder of the Reserve) and her partner Charles arrived along with friends from New York. Sue and Donn Critchell, Pat Bini and Louise Lebrun, intrepid hikers all. Pat declared that Cloudbridge was the highlight of their Costa Rican trip.
Sue, Donn, Pat, and Louise
Jenny’s comment “Seeing this horse tied up outside the Roca Dura reminded me of our early days in San Gerardo – only thirteen years ago! But then there were more steeds than SUVs in town.”
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Linda’s family came for a surprise visit and spent the first week hiking the trails and just relaxing – happy to be out of the Canadian winter.
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Tom also had a family visit. His brother and sister in law from Florida came for their first visit to Costa Rica.
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Matt Smokoska’s sisters came to Costa Rica to visit him again, but this trip they spent all of their time at the coast, close to the beaches. While the girls were catching some rays, this is what Matt was catching:
This was Matt’s last month at the reserve before he heads back to hopefully be employed again by the DNR in Michigan – looking after the wildlife a little further north.
Here are some more of Matt’s beautiful photos taken on the reserve:
Tom and Linda went along on a last night hike with Matt. This net-casting spider was one of the favourite finds that night. He is holding his unusual net or web waiting for the prey. When prey approaches, the spider will stretch the net to two or three times its relaxed size and propel itself onto the prey, entangling it in the web.
