I went back up to the highest elevations of La Hesperia again Thursday…this time to collect data on Tangaré trees, an endangered species endemic to the Choco bioregion. Of course there were lots of new birds to be seen, though probably the most remarkable sighting captured on film was “the world’s smallest frog.”

We’ll set up a tent with red-and-white candy stripes and charge people a dollar each to take a peak.

It turned out while I was off climbing mountains looking for birds, a couple birds came looking for me.

This cute little Red-headed Barbet (a female hence the lack of a red head) bashed herself into one of the volunteer house windows. After a lengthy nap she pulled herself together and flew away.

And then there was a pair of Tropical Parulas determined to break into one of the rooms. One kept pecking at the window perhaps trying to pick a fight with his own reflection?

We had Friday off, so I took off for Quito Thursday evening. I somehow found myself at a club watching a Nirvana cover band. It was rather surreal. The front man really had the Curt Cobain image (longish blonde hair, plaid shirt) and even his voice down. I was quite impressed. And then between songs he would drop some banter in Spanish to the crowd and the spell would be broken.

The next night I somehow stumbled upon 5 volunteers from La Hesperia in the streets of Quito.Then we all got dragged into a bar/dance club by some promoters on the street promising us free entry and a free drink. None of us were complaining though we later found out that Ecuadorians are charged a $3 cover which seems a bit unfair to say the least.

Unfortunately I didn’t plan ahead properly and arrange to have Monday/Tuesday off for Carnival. All the other La Hesperia staff are away (it’s a national holiday), so I have to wrangle the volunteers, all of whom were likewise oblivious. Nearly everyone else in Ecuador is off to the coast or a few choice party towns for a couple days of parades, water fights and parties.

I can´t really complain though. Being back in the cloud forest is so awesome. And with everyone else away I am truly el jefe.

Yes, the 7-year-old son of the president of Ecuador was here last week. I can tell you that now because he has left.

Here’s his school group when they arrived. Security was tight all week. See the police and secret service in the background?

Saturday I went into Santo Domingo to Skype home and buy some supplies. It’s not a terribly photogenic city, so just use your imagination.

This morning however was perhaps the most gorgeous I have seen since my arrival, so I set off after breakfast with all my birding paraphernalia up the trail to the highest point of the reserve (some 2000+ meters above sea level).

This is from about halfway up. By the time I reached the summit I was surrounded by clouds.

The best wildlife shot of the hike ended up being this cut little Western Red Squirrel.

Squirrels aren’t as common here as they are back in the US. In fact, every squirrel sighting is supposed to be recorded on a mammal sighting data sheet.

I saw lots of birds of course, including one species of woodcreeper that has not been recorded at La Hesperia before(!). Out in the forest, birds tend to hide themselves pretty well within the dense foliage. But when I got back to the farm for a late lunch, this guy just begged to be photographed.

So I put down my fork and obliged. (It’s a Fawn-breasted Tanager for those of you who may be keeping score).

I hope to get a more serious blogpost up soon about the idea behind La Hesperia. So much of the rhetoric about the place seems like it has never been properly read and edited by a native English speaker. I’ve got quite a lot of writing to do this week, so a little rain would not be so bad.

No puedo hablar

No deaths or injuries so far with the muchachos which is quite good.

I walked with them up the big hill and heard a lot of “Cuanto falta?” So I distracted them from their exhaustion by talking with them in Spanish about America, wild animals and LEGO Star Wars.

On the left is not the president’s son, on the right is not the president’s son and none of the kids in the back struggling to keep up are the president’s son either. Is the president’s son here? Well, I can’t say.

What I can say is that I milked a cow and rode a donkey yesterday. I also helped build a new tree nursery because a huge avocado branch fell on the current one.

Here’s one of the volunteers “Chen” working the vaca teets.

Yeah, this is a quick post, mainly just to keep me in the habit. But it wouldn’t be a post without a bird pic.

This cute, noisy thing is a Pacific Hornero. They are everywhere here.

Hasta Pronto

Lindo Mindo

So, we almost finished the school, just came up short a few pencils and teachers.

The Canadians took off for the rainforest and I left for the weekend for a little town called Mindo with the rest of the volunteers. It’s a tourist town for sure, but in an authentic and charming way. It wasn’t very crowded either, at least with other gringos, which I’d guess is partially a result of the season (wet) and economy (bad), though it may very well be typical.

Anyway, we all quickly agreed that we wanted to move to Mindo permanently. The scenery is gorgeous, the locals are friendly and the delicious breakfasts cost just two bucks and come with coffee and thick freshly squeezed juice.

I’ll have to go back soon anyway. The town has led the world in annual bird species recorded for four years running. But of course my traveling companions were not bird watchers so instead of wandering around in the forest all day gazing up at tanagers, toucans and mot mots, we ended up doing boring touristy stuff like this.

We did drop by an orchid garden with a butterfly house one morning and got to see some stunning mariposas.

They also had a row of hummingbird feeders around which hundreds of kolibris swarmed like bees.

It was another good opportunity to play with my new camera. I could never get these guys to sit still so close to me in the forest.

The Ninos have made it up the hill in one piece, so that’s a good start to the week. It looks like I’m not going to have to be as hands on with them as I previously thought, which will give me time to draft my proposal to the San Diego Orchid Society.

Hombres (y chicas) trabjando

The manual labor has pretty fun and fulfilling so far. I just jumped in to help the volunteers do their stuff the first few days to get to know what the role is like since part of my job is keep volunteers happy and make sure they have work to do.

I helped put in the posts for this sweet chicken coop. The pits are for compost.

Some of the yucca we planted last week has already started to sprout.

None of the Canadian construction workers speak a lick of Spanish, so I’ve been acting as master-translator so they can communicate with the Ecuadorian maestros. They keep saying “man, it’s a good thing you’re here!”

I don’t think we’ll get it all done by Friday, but we’ve made a great start. Hopefully it will be ready for the school year to start in April. I’ve been taking pictures, videos and interviewing some of the participants. When it’s all said in done I should be able to put together a pretty suave utube video.

This wednesday, as always, we knocked off early for some futbol. My team won a thrilling 5-4 come-from-behing golden-goal victory.

Next week there will be a group of 7-year-olds here. Apparently it’s my responsibility to make sure none of them die. I’m sure a good belting of “There was a great big moose” should keep them out of trouble.

Then after that I should begin sinking my teeth into a bit of biodiversity research. I’ll be visiting other Ecuadorian reserves, learning some methods, and bringing them back to La Hesperia. Also they want me to summarize every (!) research study that has ever been conducted here, which should be quite a tall task.

Don’t worry I’ll keep the blogposts coming.

Hasta luego

La vida silvestre

I’ve just completed day 5 at La Hesperia. It’s really a rather phenomenal place operated by some pretty admirable people. The philosophy behind it all is already up on the website, which I will be redesigning and rewriting at some point, so I won’t get into it here.

Instead I’m just going to show you some photos of some of the cool wildlife I’ve managed to capture with my new camera. I’m really digging this Panasonic Lumix.

Compared to Australia everything here in the cloud forest is rather benign. But I’m sure it wouldn’t be much fun to get stung by this scorpion we found on the bathroom floor last night.

A group of exchange students from Boston University came up with their ecology professor for the weekend and we managed to find a brain living in this sea shell.

And this mariposa crystal.

Of course I have to talk about some of the birds. They are spectacular and come in a kaleidoscope of different colors.

Not a great picture, but these aracari were right outside my room having some sort of jousting competition.

I expected to see all sorts of exotic colorful birds, but not this little plain thing. It’s a Swainson’ Thrush, which I see in my backyard in Durham every spring and fall migration. Small world.

So this post is a bit misleading as I’ve been doing quite a bit more than just hunt exotic wildlife. In a post coming soon to a computer screen near you there will be some pictures of the chicken pen I’ve been helping build and the yukka I’ve planted. I should also be getting around to introducing some of the cool people I’ve met. The BU students left today, but were replaced by a group of 15 from Toronto with whom I’ll be helping build a school this week. There are 7 longer-term volunteers here at the moment who collectively represent 5 countries. I’ll likely be spending a good whack of time trying to source more volunteer talent.

That’s all for now.

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En vivo

So I’m just going to get straight to it. No point in trying to segue between Australia and Ecuador or cover the 7-month interim split between Durham, New York, Vermont, Scotland and the Outer Banks.

So I Made it. I did had to spend an extra day in Quito waiting for my bag to show up (it got left in Miami). I stayed at a pretty nice ‘hostal’ in the touristy section of town, ‘mariscal sucre.’ It cost a whopping $7 per night. The restaurant underneath was always packed at dinnertime with locals having romantic candle-lit dinners.

Mariscal Sucre (or ‘New Town’) is not really that special it just has all the flashiest bars, restaurants and hotels y entonces it is the best place to get robbed.

I spent my free day wandering through the city toward ‘Old Town’ which is the unique spectacular section, a relic of the colonial Spanish era.

On the way though while passing through one of the large city parks, I encountered a crowd of 100 or so spectators surrounding a cement court on which I assumed would be played some sort of soccer. To my surprise an intense game of 3-on-3 volleyball commenced. The players looked as if they had just finished a day at the office with their khaki pants and button-down shirts.

On my way back through some three hours later I found that the crowd had tripled in size and vendors were selling ice cream and chicken on a stick. Even la policia were among the audience gasping and groaning with the ebb and flow of the game play.

Here are some cool pictures of Old Town.

I’ll have plenty more chance to explore the city more properly, so I’m not going to bother really explaining what these buildings are for now.

Oh and I made it up to La Hesperia. The place is awesome and the trip here was quite the adventure. Next time I ride the bus I’ll try to get some pics of the hombres trabajando cutting steel rebar without gloves on the edge of a sheer 2,000 foot cliff face.

A pretty weak first entry, but I hate to post walls of text without at least a few pictures, and I have not been very good about taking them on my first day at the farm.

More to come soon…