Our morning began with a downpour! And yet, we all got to the water taxi stand before Kathleen and Justin! Luckily, the rain subsided as we began our first session of space use data collection. Today was our visit to Maya Key. The group has their comment(s) about today.
Emily – I was able to identify some of the individual dolphins this morning – Callie and Sandy and Bailey!
Annie – I saw some trumpet fish and some cool sea urchins.
Izzy – today when I was snorkeling I saw my favorite fish in the entire world – a puffer fish! I was thrilled and screamed through my snorkel in delight!
Kate – I got to watch a parrot fish eating some coral.
Coral – This reef was the second coolest reef I’ve snorkeled on because I got to follow a reef squid.
Kenna – I played fetch with a dolphin and a leaf this morning and it was marvelous!
Hannah T – Today I was able to see my favorite fish, the trumpet fish, and I also got 17 no-see-um bites on my left leg.
Mia – I got scent-marked by an ocelot, which was a great, I guess, encounter. But my favorite part of the day was getting to watch the dolphins do their thing this morning.
Anya – I had a really fun time collaborating with my group of four with the space use data collection and then playing fetch with the dolphins after we were done with data collection. But, one of my best things today was seeing an eel, which is the second one I’ve seen.
Katrina – As Coral and I were walking around Maya Key exhibits, we noticed a jaguar so we got closer. It turned around and crouched down, and looked at both of us directly and then he pounced at us. It was an interesting behavior observation!
Hannah R – Today, we walked around Maya Key and I got to watch the capuchin monkeys and their behavior was interesting as I’d never seen them before.
Kara – Today, 13 Jan, I did not receive as much of a sunburn as I expected. But, while in this beautiful Roatan sunlight, I was able to feed a capelin to a South American Sea Lion, which was a fantastic experience to see this animal close up in comparison to other sea lions.
Sam – It was sunny today so I was all good!
Justin – I enjoyed watching everyone become increasingly comfortable collecting data on animals that are not on video.
The day wrapped with a discussion of pectoral fin contact and some papers from DCP, then dinner and after finishing this blog, we will watch the video collected this morning.
We hope tomorrow will dawn bright and sunny, and not liquid sunshine.
Cheers
Kathleen & the URI team!