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

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?