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

A Taste of Massachusetts

Self-promotion is a fact of life for authors. Unless you're Stephen King, nobody's going to plan and underwrite a book tour for you. If you want a book tour, you plan it, you book the speaking engagements, negotiate the terms; you purchase and haul the books, pay for the hotels. I happen to enjoy traveling to speak, but it's not just a merry jaunt. A lot more goes into it than just showing up signing books, and accruing fame.

Because I believe that life should, if at all possible, include beauty and fun at every turn, I've learned to budget in time to visit friends and family, see some beautiful places, and that has been richly rewarding. It makes me want to do these speaking tours. It's the carrot I reach for. 

My longtime friend Alan Poole, for whom I did over 200 drawings when he was Editor of The Birds of North America: Life Histories for the 21st Century, has been inviting me to come see him in So. Dartmouth, Massachusetts for years. I finally took him up on it when I was in Massachusetts in December. I wanted to see where he lives, what it was about that place that clearly has a hold on him for good. It didn't take long to figure it out.

Here's his new house. It's small but mighty beautiful, lit clear through with windows, furnished simply and tastefully--a house to die for. Walking into it, I felt as I sometimes do when looking at a Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware catalogue. I know I, with my endless crap and clutter and art gear, could never live this tastefully or simply, but oh I'd love to. 

 And he's got these amazing garden beds. This is early December in Massachusetts, and Alan's still harvesting all kinds of delicious salad greens and the most exquisitely sweet, brittle carrots I have ever tasted. Who knew that South Dartmouth has a microclimate like North Carolina? The Gulf Stream comes up and warms this magical corner of Massachusetts' coast. And there are truck gardens all over the place, taking advantage of this secret boon. Amazing.

The giant pinnate leaf is cardoon, eaten like fennel. There was spinach and mache and mesclun, sprinkled with fresh herbs...garden salads in December!

Heaven can wait if I can have these carrots, right out of the Massachusetts soil. 

Alan, cooking local bay scallops for us in his kitchen. 

His neighbor and culinary muse, Eva Sommaripa, well known among Boston area restrauteurs for her business, Eva's Garden, supplying them with incredible microgreens and herbs. Eva's a dear friend of Alan's and purveyor of such amazing and intensely delicious local food. I was humbled and star-struck to meet her. And I loved her outfit, perfectly suited to the New England climate. Layers!

Alan took my friend Erin and me to the beach just down the road from his home. 

He said, "This is my loon lookout." We climbed the dune and as we popped over the top, a common loon yodeled mournfully. If you click, you'll see him!

I couldn't even believe the sky.

Crab tracks.

Alan bent to pick up a handful of slipper shells. 

"Crepidula fornicata! "

I thought fast. Hmm. Crepidula would imply a crackling sound, crepitation, and -ula means small. Fornicata, well, hmm. I chuckled and gave up. Tell me!

"So a bunch of these guys pile on each other, and the one on the bottom changes its sex in response!" 

Well alrighty then! I was sasified.

That beach kept revealing its treasures, like the micro-leopard prints on a lady crab's shell. The closer we looked, the more wonderful it got.

And then standing up, the expanse and the junipers, the water on either side of the spit we were on...it was all too beautiful, even under a heavy December sky.

I love those winter days when you can't even tell what time it is. It could be morning, late afternoon...it's as if the sun itself forgets where it is.

This glimpse of a person living fully and well, in perfect harmony with the local climate, foodstuffs, people and landscape, was deeply moving and inspiring to me. In the end, it's love of place that speaks to me most of all. People who truly love where they live are the people I want to hang  with. That passion runs deep, and it's passion, after all, that I respond to. Well, that and beauty. For what else is there?

Late-Day Logee's Orgy

I haven't stopped at Logee's Greenhouses in Danielson, Connecticut, for many years. Some things had changed, like the size of the place--the number of greenhouses has been reduced. 

Some things hadn't changed, though--the incredible beauty and quality of the plants. I have to say the display greenhouses are even more beautiful than I remember their being. With less to care for, the staff can doubtless spend more time grooming the plants. I was bowled over by their health and beauty. 

For a phytophile like me, it doesn't get any better than this...descending from the civilized entryway into the humid green heaven of Logee's first display greenhouse.  The chalked sign over the vine-draped entry reads, 

"Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul."   Luther Burbank

No kidding. Some people medicate with booze and pills. I prefer sunshine and flowers. Humidity and the smell of wet soil helps, too. And then there are miles...checking my Fitbit, it shows 7 plus today. No wonder I feel better.

It was afternoon by the time I left White Memorial Conservation Center, though I'd meant to leave in the morning. I just couldn't tear myself away from Gerri and the snow buntings. By the time I made Danielson, the sun was sinking fast. I knew I'd have to race through the greenhouses.

I was stunned by the walls of greenery and flowers.  I couldn't even see how they got in there to water everything. It was a seamless mass of beauty. Their Dichorisandra (Weeping Blue Ginger) looks a whole lot happier than mine. 

Begonia "Looking Glass." I used to grow that one. Loved it.

Saw their new trademarked begonia "Autumn Ember" and plan to get it. Woweee!!

I recognized some things I'd seen in Costa Rica (orange) and South Africa (blue) but I couldn't stop to read tags, if there were any. I was passing through at high speed, racing the dying light.

Turns out this is Blue Skyflower Thunbergia grandiflora. Why, I grow a Thunbergia called Black-eyed Susan Vine every summer! 

I do want to grow this Abutilon "Red Tiger" someday. What a gorgeous little blossom, on a big lanky plant.

Pycnostachys urticifolia Woweee!!! What a blue! It's called "Blue Witches Hat."

Looks like a mint to me. Fabooo!!

Lookit all them baby cacti! I wondered--these must be grown from seed. Amazing.

I was just in time for the big bloom of their Christmas cacti, in early December. I swooned. Look at those colors, those glorious plants. I think I need to start mine over; they used to be nice and shiny green like this but now they're sort of limp and reddish.
They bloom, but they don't look happy at all. I think I'll root some pieces and start over. I want mine to look like these beauties!

As you might imagine, by now the plant collector in me was twitching. I saw so many beautiful plants I wanted. But I was a gypsy, just at the beginning of a ten-day swing through New England, with temperatures predicted in the teens at night. There was absolutely no way I could travel with plants, even if I had had an inch of room in my car. I was going to pick up all my Baby Birds paintings in Canton, MA, and the car would be crammed past capacity. 

So I looked, but didn't touch.

I took equal joy in the things that had been planted 

and the adventitious seedlings that were making their way up the frosted plastic windows of the greenhouses. How cool! This little tropical waif was making a beautiful pattern as its leaves hugged the  bright wall.

I'd seen Showy Medinilla Medinilla magnifica from the Philippines in the Logee's catalogue and wondered if it were as elegant in person as it was in photos. Answer: Oh yes. Show-stopper. Someday...gack. Someday.

Someday, too, on this cheery cherry-red trumpet of a Streptocarpus. I think it's "Full Moon," though it looks a lot bluer in the catalogue. How cuuuute!!! I'd grown the blue ones but oh! and that solid red, I'll take that too, someday. It was truly wonderful to have a chance to ground-truth the catalogues I drool over. To find the plants even more beautiful in real life (IRL for you slang-slingers out there).

Some kind of ginger? Maybe. Weird, cool, think I've seen it in Costa Rica...

Monkey cups! I'd seen a photo of an orang sipping from one in National Geographic when I was a kid. Now I know it was probably a set-up with a zoo animal, but at the time I thought it marvelous. 

It's a carnivorous plant, from the looks of it a wetland species. And look at those lovely anthuriums pointing fingers at the sky behind it. Arrgh. This was almost painful, not to be able to take anything home. But that's OK. I have no business increasing the amount of stuff I need to care for right now.

Nepenthes hybrid "Lady Luck," a Tropical Pitcher Plant, a cross between N. ventricosa and N. ampullaria.

I had two pilgrimages to make. First, I wanted to see the famous Meyer lemon tree I'd admired when I last visited maybe 25 years ago. I figured it'd be even more amazing. The tree grows right up out of Connecticut soil in the floor of the greenhouse. From Logee's website: 

"Logee’s Greenhouses was started by William D. Logee in 1892 in Danielson, Connecticut. He started as a cut flower business and soon became interested in tropical and unusual plants. In 1900, he bought a small Ponderosa Lemon tree from a grower in Philadelphia. It was known as the “American Wonder Lemon” due to the size of the fruit, which could get as large as 5 pounds. The tree was a must for the Logee collection. It was shipped via train, then picked up by horse and buggy and directly planted into the ground in the original greenhouse. The same tree in the same greenhouse (appropriately called the Lemon Tree House) still stands today, and is reliably producing 5-pound lemons every year. Hundreds of thousands of propagations have been harvested from this original tree.”

And there it was. Bigger by far than I remembered it being. It's impossible to get a good photo of this tree because in the cramped confines of the greenhouse, you can't get far enough away from it even to appreciate it properly. But oh. So wonderful. It grows down to the ground, up to the ceiling, and down to the ground umpteen times, and it makes a carefully-pruned Wall o' Lemons along both walkways on either side. They are still propagating from it. So you can buy a clone of this tree. See why I love plant propagation so much? You can grow a piece of history!

Logee's is still owned by the same family who started it. That in itself is a small miracle. Maybe the same highly intelligent magic that has kept Logee's thriving keeps its plants immaculate and pest-free. I believe in magic, especially when driven by the indomitable human spirit.  

My hand and a huge Meyer lemon from this amazing tree. Signs ask that visitors not pick them; they are selling the fruit in the front of the store. So cool.

As one who has tried to grow citrus over the years, and who has harvested exactly two delicious Ruby Red grapefruit from a 1' tall "tree" in my Ohio "greenhouse" before it succumbed to scale and chlorosis and God knows what else, I am most hopelessly, grovellingly impressed that this tree was apparently scale free. I. Do. Not. Understand. How. You. Do. This. For. 116. Years. (much less two or three.)

I had one more pilgrimage to make, and that was to find the hibiscus section, so I could see where my darling hib "The Path" came from.

Healthy cuttings for sale, around a sign touting the many virtues of this great hibiscus. Mine, two days ago:

This is the Understudy I mentioned in my post, "That Which No Longer Serves." I spray her and Creole Lady every day. Every. Day. Now given, I'm using a pretty innocuous homemade soap spray, but still. HOW DO YOU DO IT, LOGEE'S???

I stopped a young woman who works there and asked her just that. I just cannot understand it, and her answer put me no closer. "We find that when the plants are healthy, they're resistant to pests."

Oh. Does my plant look unhealthy?

I mean, there HAS to be a secret here. Seeing the look on my face, she added, "We release beneficial insects..."

Hmmm. But how do you keep scale off a Meyer lemon that's 116 years old and the size of a master bedroom? HOW? HOW.  How. How???

  

I guess that will have to be a mystery. A nice, happy mystery. Logee's has beautiful, no, exquisite plants, and that is something to celebrate. I can't remember walking through a greenhouse with more beautiful plants. Huzzah!!

I just ran down to the greenhouse and sure enough, the bud Creole Lady was unfurling at dusk had burst open. Is there any better way to answer a 26 degree snowy day? Well, going for a walk in it works, too. Planning that.

Creole Lady is never more beautiful than when she first opens. Like a cinnamon roll, best when hot out of the oven. Another Logee's specialty. What beauty you bring to my world, Logee's!!

As the last light of a winter day faded, I raced through the camellia house, found a pale pink one that was fragrant (swoon!) and photographed a fruiting kumquat in Connecticut. 

This one's for Floridacracker.

And it was over. It was dark. It was time for me to go. I found my way back out the door and stopped for a last look at this little piece of Paradise, plopped in a sweet little otherwise sort of ordinary town in wintry Connecticut. I hadn't bought a thing. And that was OK. 

I'd made a pilgrimage to Logee's, and that was enough.