News Commin´ Fast and Furious

Alright here we go, probably the only substantaial blog entry this break before the next hitch (my 3 weeks in the field). So let´s start from the beginning. The ¨field¨is a wildlife reserve begus by this amazing ex-pat. Stuwart White. It´s an amazing conglomoration of cloud forest (like the rain forest but higher and a bit drier, paramo (even even higher than the cloud forest up on the peaks, and consisting of ankle to knee high bunch grasses, much like thye american plains used to be), and alpacas mixed in. He´s trying really hard to get locals to switch from cows to alpacas for a number of reasons, but basically their lighter on the land (they can graze paramo, cows can´t etc.) and they have an extra benefit: amazing fur! So in the reserve, there is a fairlym modest house (sticks an mud with a tin roof)n where the caretaker lives. His name is don Gabriel and he´s very nice. We live in similar houses about a 10 minute walk away, right on the boarder between cloud forest and paramo. There are 4 buildings, a kitchen/common area, a boys, girls and instructor ¨dorm¨. We have a gas powered shower that is weakly warm and a flush toilet! Plush I know. Anyway we are all living there and going birding, learning about conservation biology, natural history etc. and planning our own projects. But before I get into that let me say who¨we¨is. There are 5 other students. 4 from Carleton college in Minnesota and one from Colby. I´ll do a quick run through of names and hometowns: Elliot: LA, Emily: Berkley, Lindsey: Seattle, Amy: VT and Christine: CT. As for the leaders, Christina works at the avian science center on the university of Montana and loves birds like woah. (Sorry she does though) Katherine graduated recently graduated from Yale forestry school (yes dad she knows Star and has been to his land) and has works in Ecuador with an indeginous community on ways to sustainably create chocolate along with many other more social science work. So the main thig we´re doing is designing our own studies about the area. Christine and I are comparing the differences in bird species densities in cloud forest versus pine plantatuions Stu planted about 18 years ago. Other studies are looking and plant diversity in an area where a proposed dam might be built (but not if we have anyhting to do with it), hummingbird nesting activity, and Andean bear feeding habits.
Which reminds me on to the pictures! The first one was taken on the first evening we got there. We had just driving up about 1000 meters to 3500, (which is roughly 11,500 feet) and Stu decided to take us on a hike. We went up to the highest point on hisland and watched this amazing sunset. It´s a pretty typical paramo landscape (except the road). But it´s dominated by bunchgrass and puya. Which is a yucca-like plant with crazy sharp spines and a 3-4 meter stalk it sends up once, then flowers and dies. The humming birds pollenate the tiny flowers on this huge stalk it´s amazing! So, the second one is taken from a lower area where Stu has some more alpacs. It is a field that once used to be cloud forest but was deforested (Stu didn´t do it, it was already like that) But it´s a typical look for much of Ecuador:forest fragments with feilds of crops or cows. Only here stu is raising and breeding alpacas. They are very cool, but if they spit on you it smells so so bad (it´s basically puke). The next one is a more complete look at a cloud forest. It looks somewhat similar to a cloud forest, but there are some amazing plants that grow on the trees, called bromeliads (the family, not genus or species). They don´t hurt the trees and they get all their nutrients from material that falls from the tree and mainly clouds and rain. Pretty amazing stuff. The orchid on the next one was growing on the side of the trail. Orchids are very common though they are all protected. Any orchind you have in a houseplant was raised ina greenhouse, but theese are the real deal. Notice the small white hairs on it too. Those are alpaca. We had helped herd about 40 of them on an all day trek down to the lower area (see pic 2) and there was still hair on the trail when we came back up. The next one is of Christine and Elliot looking at a puya. It had been recently eaten by an andean bear. They pull put the leaves and eat the bottom part that has lots of sugars. Ther are pretty rare: Kristina Timmerman, the researcher in the picture has been down to study them for at least 6 months totaly over the past 3 years and only recently saw her first live wild bear. We´ll have more bears in a sec, but first sunrise.That´s the view form aboue the kitchen at about 6:30 (we get up early and sleep early, bedtime is usually 9 or 9:30) The mountains are a typical Andean mountain range: very spiny and generally pretty rugged. Now, more bears! This bear is named Huval (or is it Juval?) Either way he was rescued from a hotel/tourist trap place and is owned my tropical ecology professor. Her husband is a nature film maker and has a cage where he films many of his films. It´s a bit wierd seeing him faking a wild bear´s habitat and even using dog treats to get him to eat a puya. But I guess the benefits to people seeing this rare animal on film outweigh the odd filming circumstances. The next one is of us doing a transect in the paramo to study vegitation present. The preson with the hat looking up is named sylvia. She works with a Quito based conservation non-profit. She was helping us with the many many difficult plant id´s. Notice the hotses on the ridge. Along with alpacas Stu has a few horses that just roam around when they´re not being ridden or worked. Finally the last landscape is close the the sunride view just a bit the the west. In the forground is one of our huts. Accross the way you can see the boarder of cloud forest and paramo. It´s a pretty interesting interplay of habitat that has been affcted by years of paramo burning by locals as well as the unique topography of the area. Also just beyond the hut you can see some of the pines from the pine plantation. So that´s the pictures and I´m running out of time. I have some Aldo Leopold reading to do as well as journaling on some field days to catch up on. I might be able to do one more quickie, but if not see you again in 3 weeks! Oh and post cards are oddly hard to send and might be a while in comming. We shall see. So untill later, keep in touch with any news (no matter how trivial it may seem) and I will try to email, but it really does help if you prod me by emailing first and asking questions. Hasta luego!