I will as well I had seen a fair bit of
Asia it’s in a little bit of Africa but
I had never been in the new world had
never been in South or Central America
so I flew to Panama City and went to
Baja Colorado Island which is a
beautiful island in Lake Atun in central
Panama and is the principal field
station of the Smithsonian Tropical
Research Institute they got very
interested in this flower this is the
flower of a tree called the balsa tree
and this very fast-growing pioneer
attracts its pollinators by offering
insane amounts of nectar about two
ounces so what happens if nobody messes
Phyllis this is in the late afternoon
this flower opens it takes about two
hours but often times naughty monkeys
mess with it and because there’s already
some nectar in the afternoon so rather
than waiting for it to open they pry it
open
drink the neck down often in the process
destroy the flower so that’s not a good
thing for the tree but they can’t do
much about it and others take advantage
of that so once the flowers open still
in the daytime in the afternoon there’s
two wasps having a conversation about
who should actually drink that nectar
test birds this is a yellow rump cacique
taking off from one of these flowers
it’s a big flower it’s about the size of
a big beer glass so this is a tiny
hummingbird he can’t really come from
top because he he would get trapped in
there so he pokes its beak between two
petals and sucks it from the side of
course that attracts predators like
there’s a boa hoping for me probably
more for bat because as bats that come
later later
there’s bees coming so everybody comes
because it’s a huge amount of pollen and
it’s a massive amount of nectar and each
flower is only open for one night then
right at nightfall the night shift
starts coming in and this here is a
woolly opossum
it’s a tiny guy like a half pound and
they come very early they come right in
the moment it becomes dark enough so
they’re not seen by Raptors they start
coming out
and the reason why that got so energetic
about being free early is that about 45
minutes later the next bigger guys come
in and they kick them out so they have
about 45 minutes to drink as much as
they can and they do and then and you
get an idea of just how much nectar is
in there it’s like a lake and they’re
very enthusiastic about it this is the
next mini guy so this is a common person
and they are not so friendly and about
four times the size so they no come in
they kick the little guys out bats come
often not very gracefully they kind of
pancake on top of the flower and drink
some and then they fly off again and
then there’s the kinkajou and that
appears to be the main pollinator
in that area some very shy things came
to this is a night monkey an owl monkey
and the reason why that is black and
white is because they were really really
nervous so this is taken like many of
the photos I was not that was they were
taken with a remote camera that I set up
and then pushed the button from quite a
distance those binoculars so this one we
even needed to take the whole visible
light aspect out of it and we used a
modified camera that could see in the
infrared and we use light like flashes
where we blocked all the visible light
so you saw coming out was like like from
your remote and a TV so this is a photo
taken entirely without visible light
you
Asia it’s in a little bit of Africa but
I had never been in the new world had
never been in South or Central America
so I flew to Panama City and went to
Baja Colorado Island which is a
beautiful island in Lake Atun in central
Panama and is the principal field
station of the Smithsonian Tropical
Research Institute they got very
interested in this flower this is the
flower of a tree called the balsa tree
and this very fast-growing pioneer
attracts its pollinators by offering
insane amounts of nectar about two
ounces so what happens if nobody messes
Phyllis this is in the late afternoon
this flower opens it takes about two
hours but often times naughty monkeys
mess with it and because there’s already
some nectar in the afternoon so rather
than waiting for it to open they pry it
open
drink the neck down often in the process
destroy the flower so that’s not a good
thing for the tree but they can’t do
much about it and others take advantage
of that so once the flowers open still
in the daytime in the afternoon there’s
two wasps having a conversation about
who should actually drink that nectar
test birds this is a yellow rump cacique
taking off from one of these flowers
it’s a big flower it’s about the size of
a big beer glass so this is a tiny
hummingbird he can’t really come from
top because he he would get trapped in
there so he pokes its beak between two
petals and sucks it from the side of
course that attracts predators like
there’s a boa hoping for me probably
more for bat because as bats that come
later later
there’s bees coming so everybody comes
because it’s a huge amount of pollen and
it’s a massive amount of nectar and each
flower is only open for one night then
right at nightfall the night shift
starts coming in and this here is a
woolly opossum
it’s a tiny guy like a half pound and
they come very early they come right in
the moment it becomes dark enough so
they’re not seen by Raptors they start
coming out
and the reason why that got so energetic
about being free early is that about 45
minutes later the next bigger guys come
in and they kick them out so they have
about 45 minutes to drink as much as
they can and they do and then and you
get an idea of just how much nectar is
in there it’s like a lake and they’re
very enthusiastic about it this is the
next mini guy so this is a common person
and they are not so friendly and about
four times the size so they no come in
they kick the little guys out bats come
often not very gracefully they kind of
pancake on top of the flower and drink
some and then they fly off again and
then there’s the kinkajou and that
appears to be the main pollinator
in that area some very shy things came
to this is a night monkey an owl monkey
and the reason why that is black and
white is because they were really really
nervous so this is taken like many of
the photos I was not that was they were
taken with a remote camera that I set up
and then pushed the button from quite a
distance those binoculars so this one we
even needed to take the whole visible
light aspect out of it and we used a
modified camera that could see in the
infrared and we use light like flashes
where we blocked all the visible light
so you saw coming out was like like from
your remote and a TV so this is a photo
taken entirely without visible light
you
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