Birding in Southern Ecuador
Jorupe Forest Reserve
late February and Early March, 2015
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Our trip to Jorupe Forest Reserve was a day trip from Casa Simpson.
It was the highest elevation site we visited on this trip,
and it was up there.
Patricio drove us up and up on dirt / mud roads through the mist and drizzle,
past landslide after landslide.
When we left he said we might not be able to get there because of the landslides.
We saw landslides on much of this trip through southern Ecuador,
at least one on every leg of the journey.
In each case there seemed to be a more-or-less permanent road crew
dedicated to clearing them.
At first I attributed this condition to the less-than-first-world status of Ecuador.
But then I asked myself,
ok, if we were building this road in the U.S., how would we do it differently?
There weren't a lot of good answers.
We might put the road through a "carport" type protective cover.
That might keep the debris from blocking the road,
but it wouldn't solve the problem of the landslides choking the rivers and streams
and filling them with silt.
We might try sloping the hillside back,
removing enough material so it no longer slid.
But these are tall, steep mountains,
and doing so was impractical -- you'd have to remove a large chunk of the mountain
and fill the whole valley with the removed material.
About the only viable option was to not build the road.
Something we're no better at doing than the Ecuadorians.
As we got higher up the mountain,
we came around a corner and could see the stationary form of a bus up ahead.
"Uh-oh."
A stopped bus in the middle of nowhere on this road meant only one thing,
and sure enough, we rounded the corner to find a landslide.
But it was only a small one, and only partially blocked the road.
The bus couldn't get past, but we could with 4WD.
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| Bus Stopped |
Landslide |
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| Typical Ecuador Andean Road Landslide Area |
The weather seemed to be improving slightly,
and as we neared our destination we started seeing some blue sky.
We were edging out of the clouds, above them, into the clear high-altitude equatorial air.
The world was laid out below us, still covered in morning clouds.
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| A Good Day for Laundry |
Above the Clouds on the Way to Jorupe |
We hiked a ways into the bush to an opening where there were a few hummingbird feeders.
We were hoping to see some birds only present at this high altitude;
we weren't disappointed.
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Photo by Dona |
| Rainbow Starfrontlet |
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| Green Crowned Brilliant |
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| Photos by Dona |
| Purple Throated Sunangel |
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Photo by Dona |
Photo by Dona |
| Xxx Purple Bibbed Whitetip F |
Xxx Hummingbird |
Xxx |
One of my favorite birds that always seems to be hanging around
where we encounter hummingbirds is the
Masked Flowerpiercer,
and there were some here as well.
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| Masked Flowerpiercer |
We hiked down the mountain looking for more birds;
we didn't find a whole lot, But the walk was pleasant.
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| Jorupe |
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| Trees, Fog and Sun |
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Jorupe Group -- Ram, Gary, Dawn, and Jovanni
Photo by Dona |
There were some pretty cool flowers on this excursion,
especially the orange curly-que things.
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Flower Xxx Purple
Photo by Dona |
Flower Xxx
Photo by Dona |
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Flower Xxx Purple
Photo by Dona |
Flower Xxx Red
Photo by Dona |
Flower Xxx
Photo by Dona |
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Flower Xxx Pink
Photo by Dona |
Flower Xxx Lavender |
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Epiphytes
Photo by Dona |
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| Flower Xxx Yellow Orange Curly |
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| Flower Xxx Yellow Orange Curly |
It seems like lots of things in the tropics are gigantic,
especially in the bug arena.
We found some pretty big beetles.
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| Beetle |
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Gary Taking Beetle Photos
Photo by Dona |
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| Jorupe |
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| Lunch |
We stopped in a village high up near Jorupe before heading down,
and I noticed what looked like a cattle gathering pen on a flat spot.
I'm not sure that's what it was; maybe it was the local rodeo grounds.
But it was a great example of how in this mountainous country,
if there's a flat spot, people will find it and use it.
The view goes on and on, mountains beyond mountains.
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| Livestock Pen |
We returned to Urraca for the night,
then headed over to the other side of the Andes to
Casa Simpson.
