Windy Birthday Week

On the pop last week in Cuajiniquil (Kwa-heeni-kill)

Then there was a gusanero reunion in Santa Rosa, you can probably see my pasty mug there at the back.

Ecological wizard, Dan Janzen, gave a lecture (in Spanish) about funding, work quality, biodiversity, DNA barcoding, parasitoids, new species and house-keeping. It was good. And he managed to fit in a quick Rolf Harris impression - amazing! Oh, and some deer at Santa Rosa

In order to make a better case for funding, which pays the gusaneros wages, we need to increase the number of new species we find, which means searching higher up trees, lower down in herbs and grasses, and on plants not normally investigated, such as epiphytes.

On the 4th of February, I did this at the back of the house. It was pissing down at the time.

The day after, unfortunately, I also had a birthday. The occasion was marked by much wind and some bastard nicking the radio from the rearing barn. No more 80s soft rock boohoo! On the plus side, Gloria brought some sponge cake and we went to a friend of Osvaldo’s and a guitar was there, waiting to be plucked. Osvaldo is just pretending of course

There were very high winds on Thursday night, so much so that I thought the windows were going to burst! Instead, however, the electricity went down and was out all day and night on Friday. So I sat in the dark contemplating the unity of all things, and then ventured outside. I shone my torch into a tree and two beady red eyes glowed back, those of a common opossum, which I present here in photographic form.

Oof! Too many pictures of me. I´ll have to sort that out.