A long day of Mangrove Planting.
The day started off early with the spotting of some owls, a female Green-Breasted Mango, and a Mangrove Hummingbird. It then also included an extremely long day of planting mangroves. I was selected as the official photographer, to document the whole day. I took over 1700 photos, all of which I’m proud of.
It started off with a small presentation of what we would be doing, before going out and collecting some baby plants from the trees, sorting through them, and then cutting up water bottles that would act as an early pot for them to grow in near the planting site. We then headed down towards the planting site, where we cleaned up the area, collected sand, and began to fill the bottles up that had been previously cut. Then we took a lunch break, before returning, planting the new saplings, picking up the older ones, and then hacking our way through the brush on the side of the river to get to the planting site. Once here we planted the older mangroves, before heading back to the hotel where we played a few of my pictures from the day for people to see. It was an exhausting day, with high humidity, hot temperatures, and exhausting work that tired us out. Thankfully we were able to relax for a bit after the events of the day before dinner, enjoying time together, and spending part of the evening on the beach, enjoying our final night in the “real Costa Rica” as our professor put it. Tomorrow is the final full day, a day that came much faster than expected.
Happy Birding!