Ecuador 2020: Zicktrip from the Andes to the Amazon

Y'all, I'm in the blender with the new book coming out. But my 2020 schedule don't care. Schedules are schedules and stuff happens when it has to. So while I'm prepping for my book tour to Philadelphia this weekend, building a booktour in Florida, and packing for a Bird Watcher's Digest Reader Rendezvous to South Africa in less than two weeks, I've had to stop today to dig out a bunch of photos and write a blogpost about Ecuador, where Mario Cordoba and I will be leading a trip, February 11-21, 2020!

I know. My head's spinning, too, just thinking about it all, much less showing up for it and making it all happen. First, the Philly dates, for those of you who might want to hear the brand-new Saving Jemima talk:

Two Zick engagements coming up this weekend. Sat. Sept. 21, 2019, 11 AM: "Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Hard-luck Jay" at John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, 1201 Pawlings Rd., Audubon, PA 19403. Conrad the Jay with his person, the fabulous Education Director Carrie Barron, will also appear!

Me, Conrad and Carrie at the last American Birding Expo in Philadelphia, September 2017.

If Saturday morning doesn't work, then come on Sunday afternoon!

Sun. Sept. 22, 2019, 2 PM:  "Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Hard-luck Jay" at Jenkins Arboretum and Gardens, 631 Berwyn Baptist Rd., Devon PA 19333 PA. Conrad the Jay will be here, too! Call (610) 647-8870 for information.

Now. About Ecuador. My beloved friend Mario Cordoba and I have led two trips there in 2017 and 2018, both for Holbrook Travel, with wonderful local guides. As we rolled along in the bus, we daydreamed about streamlining things, about cutting down the bus time on winding mountain roads; about spending more time birding and mothing and botanizing. So Mario, a logistical wizard, came up with an itinerary that will get us in amongst the birds and flowers, with more time at each wonderful lodge (two and three nights at each), and more time to settle in and explore. More time to do what we came to do. We wanted to see what it would be like to roll down from the ultra-high Andean paramo habitat to the Amazonian lowlands, to watch the birds and animals and vegetation go from high-altitude cloud forest to the land of manakins, monkeys and three-toed sloths, with the jaw-dropping Ecuadorean array of hummingbirds prodding us along all the way. 

The first night will be in the charming spa town of Papallacta, where we hope to soak in a thermal pool.  We'll take off the next morning for Guango Reserve in San Isidro, and get in touch with mountain tanagers, turquoise jays and a ridiculous array of hummingbirds, including the sword-billed

and the purple-throated woodstar (this is a female). 

We will spend time at two lodges we've visited  and adored before: Two nights and fabulous days at San Isidro, with fabulous food and roving flocks of supertame Inca jays (!!!) 

There are long-tailed sylphs there (this is a violet-tailed, but you get the miraculous idea).

From there, we go on to Wildsumaco in the eastern foothills of the Andes, which boasts more than 30 species of hummingbirds and some nice lowland species like spadebills and manakins--even military macaws and antpittas. Two nights there, then on to Coca. We get there by canoe!! 

There's a canopy walk with monkeys, huge kapok trees and sloths. We're in the lowlands now.

Here. Look at these moths. This is the kind of stuff you see at lower elevations. (these are from Pinas (Umbrellabird Lodge). 

When I'm literally dropping from exhaustion, you'll still find me slinking around with my flashlight and iPhone, recording the undreamt of under the lodge lights. That's what Ecuador is like. Sensory overload, beauty overload, diversity overload. And overload is where a field naturalist most loves to be.

We'll have three nights at Sacha Lodge--heaven! And then we fly back to Quito. It'll be like painless magic. 

I am STOKED about this trip, because logistics mean a LOT when you're talking about bus rides and winding Andean roads. Let's DO THIS!

I'm looking for people who would like to experience this incredible Ecuadorean journey with me and Mario (far left).  It's going to be a small group, because the lodges are small

and that's how we like 'em. 

Halloween Night 2018 in Cuenca, Ecuador. The MOST fun. Woot!! 

Dates: February 11-21, 2020. For details, including price and itinerary, head on over to this link: 

                                                     https://bit.ly/2kCyblT

Summer Flowers and Shameless Commerce

I can't find a time of day when I want to sit down and write a blogpost. I'd rather be loping along, grabbing images of late July. I've fallen into my delicious stay-at-home routine which keeps me healthy, happy and wise, if not materially wealthy. I wake up with the first cardinal at 5 and am out on the road by 6:30, enjoying the sunrise and the opening chicory and the long beamed raking light and shadows. I'm proud to say I have an addictive personality--but only for beauty and exercise and being outside.

I get a huge dose of all this every morning, and it sets me up for a day of painting blue jays for Saving Jemima. If that isn't a good life, I don't know what is. I'd love to share my new paintings, but Houghton Mifflin Harcourt frowns on that. October 2019...watch for it!

I thought last year was beautiful. This year, though...

Sweet peas and chicory, a rare Three Graces view in the back, plus bonus bumblebee!

 

Across the road, the very first tall ironweed bursts into bloom on July 18! Very early. It's announcing the festival that'll be going on in August, whetting my appetite for great swatches of royal purple, for the round heads of Joe-pye weed and dancing swallowtails of three species.

 Had to get those Graces in the shot. Not a great angle for the tree dancers, but with ironweed, a rising sun, and The Three Graces, how can you lose?



I've been having the kids drop me off a few miles down our county road on their way to work in the morning. We get a wee bit of car time, a bit more time to yak and be together, and I get to be out where it's most beautiful way earlier than I could get there if I ran from the house. It's fabulous. And all the ground I cover is new, because I'm only running one direction. Yes, I run the same road most every day, but it changes overnight. 

Chicory and rust-red dock seeds and hayrolls and a barn. Winning!

 

Yep, that's me, crouching by the side of the road, in case you were wondering as you sped by. I should probably wear a shirt with my Instagram address in big block letters. I amuse myself by thinking what they must be thinking as they smile and wave every morning. Oh, there she is. Doesn't get all that much running done, does she? Usually hunkered down peering at the flars.

On this morning's outing, I discovered that these glorious roadsides had just been mowed down. Goodbye, evening primrose and chicory...

 until mid August. See you then. That's what perennial roots are for.

I ran down our dirt road yesterday, singing our Rain Crows song, "Dirt Road." I'll sing it TONIGHT, July 20, 2018, at The Blennerhassett Hotel with the full band! That's in Parkersburg, WV, and we're playing 7-10 pm, old people's hours. If you're within striking distance, come see us. We'll be in the delightful rose garden if it's not raining, and in the gorgeous leather lounge if it is. Win win. From left: Wendy Clark, keyboard/vocals; Craig Gibbs, bass/guitar; JZ, vocals, woodwinds, percussion; Mike Austin, drums; Bill Thompson III, guitar/vocals.

 

Wasn't that smooth, to talk about our dirt road, then segue into an ad, then go back out on the road again?

Real good chicory skies on a side path.

I found a couple things on our dirt road that got me all excited.

First was a perfect, still shiny-wet pile of bobcat poop. Adult bobcat poop. Big stuff, maybe 3/4" in diameter, but broken into the short, square Tootsie Roll segments that say CAT. I was happy about that! That's the kind of cat I like to have spooking around my house.

 

Second was a little smashed bottle. I knew it would be good, because it looked like something you'd get at the Impulse Buy counter at a gas station, so I picked it up.

Nobody there to hear me crowing, first over bobcat poo, then over

SEXIEST FANTASIES  
tempt me sweetly

Alas, no bouquet remained, as it had been squashed many times over, but I was delighted to learn that one could enter a new world of sensual fantasies with a little alcohol, denatured water, fragrance and propylene glycol. Humans are such suggestible creatures. I'll spray this on and he'll go wild!

Thanks, I'll take the bobcat poop.
( I realized at this moment, with a small sigh, that I lead a very dull life by ordinary human standards. I find it incredibly exciting, but I get excited by things most people don't even notice.)

When I got home, Phoebe had Blackberry Cloud Cake, a Martha Stewart recipe, waiting for me. Sugared wild blackberries and pistachios top an impossibly light concoction of meringue and blackberry whipped cream. She had whomped it up late the night before, rolled it, refrigerated it, and had it waiting for me when I got back from my run. It's the food of angels. The tart blackberries and crunchy salted pistachios make it.

 

We had to do something with all those wild blackberries that have sprung up around our totally neglected oil derrick on the back 40. The company that leases the well is happy to take our oil, but is definitely not keeping up its part of the bargain to maintain the well. The welljack is busted and covered in brambles, and we're heating and cooking only on the natural pressure of the gas as it comes out of the ground, unaided by the jammed welljack. It's been out of commission for more than a year!! Makes me very nervous. Will the pressure hold all winter, keep my greenhouse warm?

 The only good thing about this deplorable situation is blackberries.

 

It is SO GOOD to have my girl and boy home this summer, together.

Things people don't even notice:
The 3/4", impossibly blue blossoms of dayflower. 

The Lamborghini of beetles, the dogbane beetle. With my cellphone reflected in his chrome. Click on this one.

 

 An oddly bent petal, 

 

which turns out to be the silken shelter of the wee looper who's been eating
all the true flowers out of the black-eyed Susan's eye, and leaving lots of
frass, too.

 

And under the silk shelter of the flower in the back?  

A yellow crab spider who has doubtless eaten the wee looper that went with this flower. Gonna have to click on this one to see the spider. Noticing...it's the thing to do.

So. I've found myself far more interested in loping around, playing with my kids, cooking, gardening, looking at bugs, checking bluebird boxes, taking photos, and painting for my book than blogging frequently this summer. Not apologizing, because everything is free here.  However. I have a situation that has smoked me out, that I'm hoping someone out there enjoying this post might remedy.

I'm taking a group of ten travelers to southern Ecuador for a birding/natural history/photography/ridiculously fun and indulgent trip, October 24-Nov. 2, 2018. And I had it all sewn up, had a beautiful group assembled, and life intervened,  as it often does, and three people had to drop out at essentially the last minute. So I have three spaces open on a Holbrook Travel-sponsored private Zicktrip that's coming up fast.  Guiding will be me, the fabulous Mario Cordoba, and Ecuadorean guide Manny Lopez. That's three guides for ten people, and that's deluxe. Here are a few critters we saw in 2017.

 Booted racket-tail.

 Lubber grasshopper nymph.

 Donna, Mario, and our local guide scoping the canopy.

 Violet-tailed sylph. Lord, lord, lord.

Moustached antpitta.

 Plate-billed mountain toucan in the rain.

 Ecuador is SO MUCH FUN. Southern Ecuador will be new territory for me and Mario!  Traveling with a small group of 13 total, 3 of them guides, is wonderful. If you have the means and the time, and would like to join us, click this link! And if it fills right up, I keep a waiting list, so leave your email with Holbook. Thank you for reading, for noticing, and for indulging me on this rare two-ad post. I hope there's enough bobcat poo and floral lore to balance the shameless self-promotion.

 Zicktrip Oct-Nov 2018

Flamingorama!

Strandfontein is a water treatment facility in the Cape region of South Africa. It's a series of manmade impoundments that serve as settling and purifying ponds for, oh, OK, sewage. 

Other than some low brick buildings, fencing and pumps, you'd never know it. The waters are teeming with food.

Flamingos don't care. Neither do the hadedas. 

These funny, stocky ibises wail like babies. They're found all over South Africa, their loud cries just part of the everyday scene from Cape Town to Kruger Park. It's neat to have an ibis be so common, a bit like the white ibises in Florida, grazing in everyone's lawn. 

We were here for the birds, and they did not disappoint. What a delight to have a still, sunny day for flamingo indulgence! I have soo many nice photos of them, and I'm torn. Do I show you all the good ones, or keep it to a dull pink roar?

I was so taken by the axillars--the long, filmy feathers in their wingpits, brilliant carmine, fading to blush--imagine how that would look in a hat! After it's been molted, of course. Part of me understands the millinery feather craze of the late 1800's when I look at these feathers. But they would soon fade to white; the color in flamingo feathers is pigment-based, and fleeting. Let's leave them on the birds.

Strandfontein is a sort of unusual setting for flamingos, because the water is so much deeper than what I imagine them choosing for feeding. They swim around like odd, bent-billed swans. You almost forget they have stilts under them when you watch them swim by.

They paddle like antic sternwheelers, their long pink legs making odd angles behind them. They even tip up like ducks and geese, feeding on the bottom, filtering sludge for tasty crustaceans. They must get some pretty good stuff here, because there are a lot of happy looking flamingos frequenting the settling ponds.

I could watch them swim, take off, and land all day long. And we pretty much did.

Like most larger waterbirds, flamingos must run across the water's surface, flapping like mad, for a distance before becoming airborne. 

It's harder to get started when the water's so deep.

Taking off into the wind gives them lift. They throw little rooster tail tracks out behind them.

When the water's glassy, the reflections are incredible. Glassy conditions are rare on the Cape, which is known for its near-constant winds. We were very, very lucky with the weather on our trip--only one day of occasional drizzle and clouds in twelve! There's a severe drought going on, so it was a mixed blessing--more on that later.

 I particularly like this shot of grace going airborne. Don't forget to take in its reflection!

I found myself holding my breath until that magic moment when the feet lifted off the runway.

These are all greater flamingos, which are larger and paler than lessers, also present in the Cape Region. That jet-black melanin in their flight feathers strengthens the feather for the inevitable wear of flight. Many otherwise white birds have black or black-tipped flight feathers, because these are the hardest-working feathers, and subject to the most wear, scraping against the air.

I was so focused on the birds that I kept forgetting to get a longer shot of the mountain background around Strandfontein. Behind that mountain is a large bay of the Indian Ocean.

With these flying umbrellas against a filmy blue backdrop.

Every once in awhile, the water would be still enough for mirrored reflections. I tried to stay conscious of them while composing.

I couldn't resist putting some words on this shot of one bird taking to the air. Might as well add to the inspirational memevalanche.

You were. Me too. Try not to waste a minute.