Where did the rain go???

For some weird reason it has not rained in more than 2 weeks!!! Some people say this is because the hurricanes are sucking all the humidity but who knows... This just makes days and nights a lot dryer and warmer which is not very comfortable. But most importantly this weather is definitively not good for the butterflies. The drought probably hit the local populations and growth rates of the host plants, so few butterflies can make it. In other words no water, no food, no life... Several of my roosting aggregations have been severely hit and the numbers have decreased drastically. So now I'm in a sort of exploratory mission to see if I can find good numerous aggregations...although I don't thing will improve until we get more rain... well that's the field!

Again I introduce you to a really neat spot for research around here! It's called Barro Colorado Island (red mud island), or as I have decided to call it "Buena Compañía Island"... I heard from some professors that there were butterfly aggregations there. In fact it would not surprise me because in my previous exploratory trips I've seen my butterflies flying around. So my mission this time was to find roosting aggregations at BCI.

In order to find the aggregations you need a good blend of luck, patience, and good sight, -and other secret ingredients, hahaha-. There is a small window of time when the aggregations can be found, it's about an hour and a half before sunset. At this time the butterflies start gathering in pre-roosting spots, where they meet with each other before going to their actual roosting spot. After walking for about an hour through the suggested areas I was sort of disappointed, nothing, not even a single butterfly...
However, I remembered that when I left my room I saw a butterfly flying around just a few meters from the building but I said to myself "I'll come back later to check it out". Well, after my search I came back to this spot and yes there were two butterflies fluttering around! so one of them left and I followed her for about 15 minutes, and then she went into some sort of dense bushy vegetation patch and I lost it..damn! So I came back to the original spot and the other one was still there, I said "well let's follow this one". I followed it to the same patch were I lost the first one and guess what? I lost it too!!!

But I was determined and knew that the aggregation had to be really close. So I started to explore around this patch and a few minutes later I found it! There were just two butterflies and they were roosting gregariously! So this finding is definitively good since I can always come back to check if the numbers have increased and eventually perform some experiments!

Well, I will post new pics soon in the Gallery, so check it out!!