La brigada de los carpinteros: reflection on a sojourn in the Dominican Republic

An unhappy Hispaniolan Woodpecker

In January I migrated to the Dominican Republic to serve as a research assistant for Josh LaPergola, a doctoral candidate from Cornell University. Josh is researching the behavioral ecology of the Hispaniolan Woodpecker, a charismatic species that nests colonially in palm trees. Unfortunately, the field season came to early end when Josh had a serious climbing accident. He ultimately required medical evacuation to the United States. (He is recovering well.)

Unexpectedly home, I’ve spent a lot of time puttering around the house, processing and reflecting upon my experience in the Dominican Republic. I’d like to share some of my thoughts.

WHAT I LEARNED

Graduate research can be open-ended. I had the idea that a graduate project attempts to answer questions drafted at the project’s conception. Well—that is sometimes the case, but many other projects constantly evolve. The more time spent studying a system, the more questions that arise.

How to bleed a bird! Next time you find a bird in your hand, part the feathers on the underside of the wing. There’s a pipe there—great for stabbing!

A woodpecker chick at two weeks, ready to surrender a drop of blood for the sake of science.

Dominican Spanish is…different. Pronunciation is relaxed—the letter s in particular is often dropped. The convergent pronunciation of estás and está frequently bewildered me, but the locals don’t seem to notice the ambiguity.

If a Dominican kid shows up at your door and brags that he owns a bazooka, he is not lying.

Palms form a unique community. Their lichen-plastered trunks are patrolled by lichen-mimicking mantids. Palmchats obsessively construct massive stick nests, which in turn house myriad other animals from Greater Antillean Grackles to fungi. And Hispaniolan Woodpeckers provide apartments for many other species. Bats often commandeer the old cavities. If the chambers flood, tree frogs and mosquitoes capitalize on the arboreal pools.

Palmchats--monkeys of the bird world

See it?

Knots! In order to climb the palms, we had to learn many aspects of technical tree climbing, including lots of knots. Give me a strand of cord, and I can tie you a Klemheist, a bowline, a clove hitch, a half hitch, a fisherman’s knot…

I am very privileged. Many of the country folk were incredulous that we made a living studying birds. “I wish I could do your work,” Ricardo the foreman said one day as we passed him saddling his mule for the day.

WHAT I WILL MISS

Unparalleled camaraderie. Foremost I will miss my coworkers Amy, Josh, Kiera, and Shelly. Field jobs such as this forge deep friendships—we live together, work together, and depend on each other, becoming a family.

Josh, Shelly, Kiera,and Amy demonstrate the rigors of biological research

Avocados. I’m from California and thought I was an avocado snob. But these Dominican avocados rocked my world. We bought them fifteen at a time. They are huge; they are creamy. Guacamole was a staple in our house.

Tostones (fried plantains) with fresh guacamole

Luis, our trusty and congenial taxi driver. Whenever we needed groceries, we would summon him for a ride down to Jarabacoa. As we lounged in the truck bed, the breeze whistled—as did scores of young men as we passed. Although their amorous displays were directed at my female coworkers, I retaliated by blowing many a kiss.

If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Jarabacoa and need some wheels, here's the number to call

The neighborhood kids. Whenever they were bored (which was often), the troupe of neighborhood children would appear at the back door. Two year-old Reuben was content to roll giggling on the floor. Ten year-old Evenson found every excuse to visit and try to woo Amy, with whom he was hopelessly in love. Thirteen year-old Cris wandered over to boss Evenson and to make half-hearted attempts to learn English.

The birds. It was great to live with new birds for several months! The boisterous Gray Kingbird, the quizzical Smooth-billed Ani, the psychedelic Broad-billed Tody, the minute Vervain Hummingbird…these were all new species for me, and they quickly became familiar neighbors.

Black-faced Grassquit

WHAT I WILL NOT MISS

Cold showers. Our water was piped up from the river and it was frigid. Despite our sweat and grime we dreaded the shower, delaying bathing for as many days as we could stand.

Laundry. We used a bucket and a plunger. It never quite got the stink out of my clothes.

The moldy house. It was humid. Mold thrived on the walls and ceiling. We waged war, but our bleach and sponges and half-assed attitudes toward hygiene could not overthrow the inevitable onward march of mildew.

Amy prepares for a valiant but vain war against the Kingdom of Fungi

Unsafe tap water. Here at home, I press a button on my fridge and cold, delicious water spews forth. In the Dominican Republic, we had to walk up to the neighborhood colmado once a day and shell out forty-five pesos (roughly a dollar) for a five-gallon jug of purified water. 

Familiar in the Foreign

American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla)

I have been in the Dominican Republic for a month and will be here for at least two more. It has been fantastic to live and work in a foreign country. I've learned a lot--about tropical ecology, the history of Hispaniola, and the Spanish language. And the birds! I could tell you all about the exotic lifers, like this Palmchat (a monotypic family!):

Palmchat (Dulus dominicus)

But instead, I'll bore you with photos of a common Neotropical migrant. Redstarts are ubiquitous through much of eastern North America. I've seen thousands. But, I've never seen a redstart in February (unless you want to count a handful of wayward California winterers). 

 Redstarts are hyper

Redstarts, like many other insectivorous species from the North Woods, retire to Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America for the cold months. Different species have different distributions; the Black-throated Green Warbler, for example, is abundant in Mexico and northern Central America but much less common in the Antilles. Redstarts are abundant in Central America (I saw lots in the Yucatan), but here in the Caribbean they seem to be even more numerous.

This particular individual (which I dubbed Chewy for the redstart's sweet chew call note) defends a wintering territory that includes the backyard of our field house. It appears around 3PM every afternoon to forage in the brush pile at the base of our satellite dish.

I must admit that it is strange to feel more enamored with redstart than with the endemics (Narrow-billed Tody! Hispaniolan Oriole!) Perhaps it is because these warblers undertake epic journeys of thousands of miles to winter here, while the Palmchats just sit on top of palm spikes their entire lives.

Or maybe it reflects my background, bias, and sentiments as a temperate birder. I have lots of memories with redstarts. It's almost as if Chewy were my childhood friend--as if a bit of fluff could be a friend.

Whatever the reason, I've enjoyed seeing Chewy and other familiar warblers on their wintering grounds. They have traded spruce for cecropia, snow for sunshine. As have I.

Field Biologist at Cow Urine Creek

Somewhere, down in that valley, Cow Urine Creek joins Rio Yaque del Norte

If I squint with my ears, I can hear Cow Urine Creek whispering downhill. It is a small creek, a foot or two across, inches deep. I don’t know its actual name—or if it even has a name. Probably not. I have dubbed it Cow Urine Creek for the local prevalence of cattle, which likely adulterates the stream’s purity.

It’s my spot, this tree I’m sitting in. A bulge in the horizontal trunk forms the ideal seat, and a brawny vertical limb is a convenient back rest. I felt a strong sense of fittingness when I reclined here for the first time. This is my spot, I thought. And I reached for my knife.

This is not something I normally do. Carving in bark is frowned upon for people who claim to be environmentally literate. Global environmental crises such as climate change and extinction are overwhelming and make me feel powerless; I could, however, refrain from the simple act of mutilating a tree. Nevertheless, I carved NAG 2016 in the trunk. Marking my spot. I felt no guilt.

Then, as I was repositioning myself, my knife fell from my pocket. I heard it bounce in the leaf litter. I cursed softly, then reached for my journal—but my pen also fell. There was nothing to do but to descend from my eyrie and search.

The pen I found within a moment. The knife was another story. My anxiety mounted as one minute stretched to five to ten. The vegetation was thick. And it was a nice knife. The guilt brewed. Sweaty and bur-stuck and ant-stung, I realized that this was perhaps my just deserve; carve the tree, sin against it, and lose your blade privilege. But it was a nice knife. I did not want to lose it. So, I returned to my house to fetch a machete to shave the concealing thatch of grass and vine.

Island birds are notoriously sensitive to human modifications. Some of Hispaniola's endemics have declined precipitously and are now extremely rare; others, like this Hispaniolan Pewee, remain common (and this one is even using a man-made perch!)

I hacked and swore and sweated. Expanding my radius of destruction, I mercilessly cut any petiole or liana that could harbor my lost knife. As the machete sang, I acknowledged the irony of feeling guilt over carving one tree and then mindlessly decapitating hundreds of plants to find the murder weapon. A second guilt-wave rolled in, and I began to regret my actions.

An hour later I found it half-submerged in the lower tier of litter. My destructive radius had inflated to ten feet; my handiwork rivaled the capability of a John Deere riding mower. I regarded the withered leaves and severed stems and shrugged. Then I stuck the machete in my belt and scrambled up to my lofty office.

I gazed at my blocky, weeping initials and contemplated environmental degradation. This microcosm of clear-cutting rewound the successional clock a few years for a bite-size chunk of riparian forest. My small action operates within the context of this hillside, this valley, the entirety of Hispaniola. All of these scales have undergone significant human modification. It is far from a pristine ecosystem—but let’s be honest: do pristine ecosystems exist? (I’m skeptical.) But, despite man’s heavy influence here, this hillside is an ecosystem. Asthmatic Bananaquits cavort amidst an impressive assemblage of epiphytic orchids and bromeliads, crabs lurk in the riffles of Cow Urine Creek despite the dubious water quality, and Zebra Longwings flutter in and out of the dappled shadows.

 Bananaquits, common in the presence of humans. Its Spanish name is Ciguita Común, which means "Common Little Bird."

I pondered my guilt. Why did I balk at cutting a vine but board the plane to arrive here without a second thought? The withered vine is more personal and tangible than the emissions I contributed to with my travels. More confrontational, even—“You cut this. It is dead.”

We must learn to face our modifications to the natural world, both the tangible and nebulous. And it is important to take this responsibility with hope; the depressing and damning messages that are all too common spawn unproductive guilt. Indeed, my supervisor at the Cincinnati Nature Center advised against discussing invasive species, fearing that it would discourage our guests from further engagement with nature.

Pale Cracker, an eccentric butterfly with a great name. They are common at Cow Urine Creek. 

If you had not already deduced from my story, I’m struggling to define my place and responsibility in this human-changed world. I love nature and lament extinction, habitat loss, and people’s disconnection from their surrounding ecosystems. I would like to make conservation a priority in my life—and conservation fundamentally requires educating and inspiring others. But I fear being branded a hypocrite for driving a car, eating industrial corn, and cutting my initials into tree bark.

I would like to learn better ways to live sustainably and promote positive education about human impacts on Earth. Let me know if you have any ideas. You can find me in the tree by Cow Urine Creek.