Ramses

After the serious funding issue post it's time to get back to the lighter topics. Like nature and animals! So... I got a cat. The cat (Ramses) was forwarded to me from Andrew who got it with his house from an ex-observatory employee (as is sort of traditional around here). His daughter is a bit allergic to it, and anyway he left the island for a vacation with his family so somebody had to take care of the cat at least while they're away. You already know that I have three dogs so getting a cat is certainly a bit questionable, but it's actually working out better than I expected. The mama dog Bubbles seems to be a bit afraid of Ramses so she doesn't approach him voluntarily. The puppies are curious and occasionally bark at the cat but can be controlled when face to face with it. In any case, the dogs are most of the time outside and the cat inside. So yes, it is actually possible to live with a cat and three dogs without a complete chaos!

Ramses has been taken care of by at least five different observatory employees.

Apart from spending time with the old and new members of my zoo, I've been touring the island with our summer students. One week ago we went to see the Cueva Ventana, the window cave. There's two different caves you can see, one of them with a big population of bats and an iconic "window", which shows a wonderful view of the Río Grande de Arecibo.

This weekend we went to the Bosque estatal de Río Abajo, a nature reserve where a local species of iguaca parrots has been recovered. You can't go all the way to the nesting area but the forest is beautiful as such, with giant bamboos and thousands of other tropical plants. We waited for an hour or so to see the parrots behind the gate to the nesting area but finally only heard them in the distance. We did see some hummingbirds, bright red bugs, and of course lizards, which you can see almost anywhere.

Instead of parrots we saw a flock of hummingbirds enjoying lunch.
Can you find the bird?

After the hike in the forest we went to see Lago Dos Bocas, a beautiful lake area with a dam. In addition to hydroelectric power, the river provides potable water for at least 1.3 million people on the north coast of Puerto Rico, and fish for local fishermen and various birds like pelicans that we saw hunting nearby the dam. The dam collects all the trash that the river brings, such as wood, car tyres, even fridges and TVs, so you can see fish feeding on the trash near the surface and, consequently, pelicans feeding on the fish.

At home, the breadfruit season is apparently peaking soon. The breadfruits are getting so ripe that they don't stay intact when they drop. Consequently the dogs eat them and, although it's not poisonous for them, it's so full of starch that they puke if they eat one whole.

The breadfruit tree getting the bombs ready.

SPLASH! The over-ripe breadfruits only feed the worms, ants, and sometimes my dogs after dropping from the tree.

For the end: selected portraits of the doggies. The puppies still have the mange but it's getting better all the time, weeks after weeks of mange medicating at the vet. I learned that there are different types of mange and that the one that they're having is a hereditary demodectic mange, or puppy mange. It's caused by a mite that all dogs and even people might have but that a normal immune system keeps it under control. That's why it mostly affects puppies with an undeveloped immune system.