Text by María Paula Rubiano
The chase starts when the rice field still looks like a kaleidoscope of molten-silver puddles under a pitch-dark sky. Here in Jamundí, sugarcane fields and rice crops stretch to the horizon, occasionally broken by stands of bamboo, palm, and kapok trees. Santiago Muñoz Bolaños and Juan David García Uribe, biologists at Icesi University in nearby Cali, pull on their gumboots, cover their faces with neck gaiters to defend from bugs, and march toward the silver splashes with four colleagues.
They stride through the mushy dikes, guided by headlamps blazing red light that attracts fewer mosquitoes, and stop at the capture site. They unfurl the mist nests as darkness gives way to daylight. So as not to spook their targets, they quickly retreat to their workstation: two plastic chairs and a plastic table under a tiny canopy tent, which barely keeps out the light drizzle that dampens the calls of ibises, Black-necked Stilts, and roosters. Then, they wait. Every 20 minutes, they take turns crossing the slippery dikes towards their nets, hoping to see one bird tangled in the mesh: the Lesser Yellowlegs.
Continue reading: https://www.audubon.org/magazine/biologists-are-racing-protect-these-elusive-shorebirds-first-they-have-catch-them
