Phase 10 - The Harpy’s Nest

Harpy Eagle

The national bird of Panama whose favorite food is young tender monkeys who are foolish enough to pop their heads out of the canopy and become lunch for a soaring bird of prey.

Under the best of circumstances, getting a hundred feet up in a tree is no small accomplishment. One of the things that I love about this country is the Panamanian’s ability to work without the proper equipment. In fact, there is a phrase in Spanish “Trabajando con las uñas” that translates to a man working with no tools only with his finger nails. This was a perfect example for that phrase. Orangutan, started his ascent with a small plastic bag filled with stones and a string around it. His technique was to spin the sack of stones and fling it up over a branch. He reminded me of David vs Goliath. After the sack had cleared the branch and came back to Orangutan, he would attach a small string to a rope. He was now able to pull the rope up over the branch.  After the rope was firmly attached to the tree he would pull himself up to the next branch and begin the process again. After many, many branches he was at the top of the tree approximately a hundred feet above the creek. 

If we were in a different situation we would have access to rock climbing gear. Basically, two pistol grips that allow you to pull yourself up one arm at a time. The bad news is we did not have that apparatus. The good news is Orangutan knew how to fabricate a similar device with knots in rope. 

 When Orangutan finally reached the top of the tree he called out to tie his chainsaw to the rope and he pulled it up. There were five branches of the tree that were “topped” to create a hand to support the platform/nest.

The platform / nest was built from hand hewn beams of Amarillo. This is a hardwood found here in the tropics that is so dense that it is difficult to drive a nail into.

With the greatest of luck we were able to obtain special screws that are used in the wooden boat industry. This screws so exceeded my wildest expectations that it is difficult to describe. They were able to penetrate through two four inch blocks of Amarillo and have an inch out of the other side. We used an impact gun with a torxen head and lubricated the screws with motor oil. This is even more impressive in light of our attempts to use larger  ⅜ inch lag screws whose heads simply snapped off.

Looking down through the subframe to the creek a 100 ft. below.

The platform / nest structure rises up from the subframe and the cement board floor is installed.

                                                 

     Even an "old" man wants to be in the nest... 

One week after my 73rd birthday

The nest is small but will easily accomodate 3 grown man. 

                                                     

The custom here "Central America" is to protect wood with a coat of used motor oil. A bit messy and slow to dry but cost effective and time proven. 

Now with the handrail  in place and coated, we are able to protect the cement board with two coats of oil based enamel paint.

In two days, the protective motor oil coat and the enamel are dried to a wonderful long lasting finish 

The supporting structure for the array is in place but must be coated for protection.

Once the supporting structure was dried, the solar panels were put into place. At this moment we are using two Sharp 165watts panels. This is the wet season i.e.,cloudy and the perfect time to measure energy collection. Readings will be taken 3/day, morning, mid day, afternoon. This will give us average daily wattage production in the “worst” time of the year. Our thoughts are this will be more than sufficient.