Long Wattles and Goodbyes
Long-wattled Umbrellabird found at Reserva las Tangaras on March 3rd, 2016. Photo by Zak Pohlen.
We have seen some amazing birds during our time as reserve managers, with the Yellow-throated Vireo being the cherry on top. However, if you ask either of us what our second favorite bird found was, we’ll both unanimously say: “Long-wattled Umbrellabird”. On March 3rd we found a lone Long-wattled Umbrellabird moving with a group of Collared Aracaris (Pale-mandibled). This is the first record of this species for the reserve and an exciting record for the area, as they are a rare species often difficult to see outside of known lek locations. Two well-known leks can be seen at Recinto 23 de Junio, located west of Mindo near San Miguel de los Bancos.
Like the reserve’s poster child, the Andean Cock-of-the-rock, the Long-wattled Umbrellabird is a part of the continga family—a diverse group of passerines found throughout Central and South America. The Long-wattled Umbrellabird is only found in the ‘Choco’ region, a 100,000 square kilometer area of humid forest in western Columbia and northwestern Ecuador home to many endemic birds and other endemic species. Within Ecuador the Long-wattled Umbrellabird is listed as endangered, due to both habitat destruction and hunting pressure. Like the Andean Cock-of-the-rock, male Umbrellabirds form leks where they display with the help of their long, pendulum-like, feathered wattle, and fog-horn-like call. Listen to the song and wing noises below.
http://www.xeno-canto.org/275500
Though not an adult male, it was still an unforgettable moment seeing this bird pop up out in the open, and we were especially lucky that it stayed long enough to get a few photos. Another amazing experience at Reserva las Tangaras! To learn more about research and conservation of the Long-wattled Umbrellabird and the unique Choco region, visit the Center for Tropical Research’s Website, a part of UCLA’s Institute of the environment and sustainability.
Unfortunately, it is time for us to say goodbye to the reserve. Most of all we will miss the incredible avian diversity and all the amazing guests we were so lucky to have met. We feel honored to join the long list of “past managers”, and we are happy to welcome Heather and Costin to their new home for the next three months. Thanks to everyone who made our time at the reserve so special, and thank you Reserva las Tangaras!
Happy to snag 3 new species for our reserve list, including the Long-wattled Umbrellabird.
Cheers!
Callie Gesmundo & Zak Pohlen
A Lost North American Traveler
On February 2nd, 2016 on a quick trip to Mindo, Zak and I spotted a bird silently foraging overhead just down the road from the entrance trail to the reserve. Fortunately for us, the bird was being quite conspicuous and we were able to quickly identify it, and knowing its rarity, snap some quick documentation photographs before watching it move out onto an exposed branch and fly over our heads. Low and behold, a fellow traveler from the North, a Yellow-throated Vireo! We spent some time trying to relocate the bird to no avail.
Ecuador’s 4th Yellow-throated Vireo, and the 1st for Pichincha Province. Photo by Zak Pohlen
According to the Ecuadorian Ornithological Records Committee (CERO), this bird represents the 4th ever recorded in Ecuador, and the 3rd with photo documentation. This is also the 1st record of Yellow-throated Vireo for the province of Pichincha. The first record in Ecuador came in 2008 in Napo province, with subsequent records in 2011, and 2012 in Esmeraldas and Imbabura provinces respectively. For more information on these sightings, feel free to visit Aves Ecuador.
A Yellow-throated Vireo banded in Michigan during its migration south. Photo by Zak Pohlen
Yellow-throated Vireos are uncommon breeders in the eastern United States and migrate south in the fall to spend their winters from southern Mexico and the Caribbean to northern Columbia, with few records south of Bogota.
Cheers,
Callie Gesmundo & Zak Pohlen
New Year and New Managers
Hola from your new lodge managers, Callie and Zak!
We have had a busy first month at Reserva las Tangaras, with many overnight guests and day visitors. We hosted a group of photographers from California looking to experience our amazing display of hummingbirds at our feeders, and have had multiple fellow biologists and bird watchers come to enjoy our impressive and intimate Andean Cock-of-the-rock lek.
Reserva las Tangaras lodge under the stars. Photo by Zak Pohlen
Many travelers and campers have come looking to get away and to enjoy a relaxing few days in Ecuador’s cloud forest. Nobody has been disappointed!
Purple-bibbed Whitetips eager for their morning sugar water
While the lodge has been bustling with guests, the biodiversity experienced at the reserve has been superb. From orchids to glass frogs, snakes and monkeys, and some of Ecuador’s more memorable birds, travelers have it all at Reserva las Tangaras.
Reserva las Tangaras upper level sleeping quarters
In-between hosting guests and general maintenance around the lodge, we have been getting acquainted with the lovely town of Mindo and searching for some of the areas beautiful bird-life.
Reserva las Tangaras’ cozy lounge lit by candlelight
We are very excited about our next 2 months at Reserva las Tangaras. We look forward to enjoying more time with the many different travelers that come to experience this special property and we hope to discover more of the impressive biodiversity this reserve has to offer!
Cheers!
Zak and Callie
Mindo Christmas Bird Count, 2015
Hola from Reserva Las Tangaras!
This year’s Mindo Christmas Bird Count was an incredible experience, and we even saw a few new species at the Reserve! Not only is it great fun, the Count is an excellent opportunity to collect valuable data about avian diversity at the Reserve.
We counted a total of 116 species at the reserve, three of which were only documented on our route! These three were the Russet Antshrike, Rufous-rumped Antwren, and the Streaked Saltator.
Here are a few photo highlights from the day. From left to right: Beryl-spangled Tanager, White-capped Dipper, Violet-tailed Sylph (female), Golden Tanager, Broad-billed Motmot, Clubwinged Manakin (male), Flame-faced Tanager, Ornate Flycatcher, Booted Racket-tail (male), and Chestnut Mandibled Toucan.
We really enjoyed birding with our friends from Un Poco del Choco, another nearby biological station, as well as our two friends from Mindo who hiked into the reserve at 5 AM to help count all day!
It was a tremendous effort, and a job well done!
The day after the count, we went to Mindo to participate in the “desconteo,” the post-count meeting. Mindo recorded over 467 species, which is at least 2 more than last year! Such a high number is impressive given that the area experienced inclement weather in the afternoon.
We are very glad to have had the incredible opportunity to participate in the Christmas Bird Count before ending our term as Managers at Reserva Las Tanagaras! In all, managing the reserve has been a life-changing experience that we are extremely grateful for. Las Tanagaras is one of those special places that are becoming even more few and far between. We hope that everyone can visit at some point and experience it. We are excited for the next managers, Callie and Zak, who are already doing a fantastic job!
Cheers,
Amanda and Daniel
Visitors at Reserva Las Tangaras
¡Hola! Daniel and Amanda, the reserve managers, here!
One of our greatest joys working at Reserva Las Tangaras is spending time with the visitors who journey here from all over the world, near and far, and for many different reasons. Everyone who visits the reserve is someone who loves exploring the natural world and has a sense of adventure! They love spending time outside surrounded by the sight, sounds, and smells of the cloud forest and enjoying the tranquility and excitement of the wilderness.
People all over the world share a great love of beautiful and intact wilderness areas inhabited by a plethora of plants, animals, fungi, and other species. Nature has the great power to unify us, and the reserve reveals this to us in many ways!
The reserve is an exciting and fantastic gathering place to meet travelers and local people who share a similar love of nature. Many find themselves engaged in lively conversation about a variety of different topics, providing a great opportunity to learn from the diversity of knowledge and experiences of others.
When we’re not involved in these exciting exchanges, the hummingbirds enchant us all, no matter where we are from! You can find yourself on the porch with others from around the world and find similar looks of wonder on their faces while gazing at these amazing birds.
Here you can meet other environmentalists, scientists, photographers, writers, artists, chefs, farmers, yoga instructors, guides, non-profit organizers, doctors, nurses, and teachers, just to name a few of the kinds of people who join us here. We even met one family traveling around the world in their RV. Check out their blog! http://glob3trotters.canalblog.com
One of our most exciting and favorite activities for visitors is visiting the Andean Cock-of-The-Rock (ACOR) lek. We rise at five am for a pre-dawn hike up steep slopes to the lek, where the ACOR males gather for courtship displays. Hot coffee, fresh bread, and a banana snack definitely help get you going! All around us, frogs chirp and sing while the forest prepares for sunrise. As we sit up in the hide, the first light of morning peeks in through the canopy and the magic unfolds as the first ACOR male arrives in a flurry of bright red feathers and with a high rattling “heeeoooowoop.” It’s now time for their most exciting part of the day, too! I won’t tell you anymore, you will just have to come see for yourself how amazing these fellows, and occasional gal, really are. Though not normally as active as the morning lek, the afternoon lek offers visitors another opportunity to see the ACOR in action!
Visitors also love learning about the research at the reserve. Those who visit the lek with us understand why we study the fascinating social dynamics between the males. Some even spend time learning the hummingbird species so they can help with our daily hummingbird observations. If you are a scientist interested in conducting research at the reserve, let us know! We have also been enjoying going on some great hikes with visitors and learning about the many plant and animal species here!
The reserve is also a great place for volunteers to contribute to a meaningful project while learning new skills, knowledge, and the ins-and-outs of running a nature reserve. It is an incredibly rewarding and enriching experience!
Most visitors wish they could live and work here like us. We wish you would stay longer as well! We feel very lucky indeed to be here in our cloud forest home! Come visit us!
¡Hasta luego!
Amanda and Daniel
Administradores Nuevos!
Greetings!
We are Amanda and Daniel, los administradores nuevos, or new managers, as we are known by at least a few folks in Mindo. We are thrilled to be here at Reserva Las Tangaras until early January 2016! The diversity and beauty of this area is stunning! We have only been here three days, but we already feel immersed in life at the reserve (we have a running list of fun jobs to start and birds to see)! Sometimes is takes weeks to feel settled in a place, but here we felt quite at home within hours after arriving! Everyone we have met so far, in Mindo and at the reserve, has been very friendly and welcoming.
The reserve offers incredible opportunities to see amazing plant and animal life. In addition to our maintenance tasks, we have been studying the hummingbird species seen here and becoming familiar with the trails on the reserve. There is so much to see, and so much to do, both at the lodge and around the reserve!
Here we are doing some birding right outside the lodge.
It is very exciting when a mixed-flock descends upon the trees, giving us a chance to see multiple species at once!
We are very excited to learn all we can while we are here, and to welcome visitors from around the world to this remarkable place, Reserva Las Tangaras!
‘Til next time,
Amanda and Daniel
It´s a plant grow on plant world…
Epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants. Usually they are smaller plants taking advantage of trees to get closer to the sun or escape ground dwelling herbivores. Some common examples are vines such as lianas, mosses and the famous bromeliads (the pineapple plant although not an epiphyte is the best known example of a bromeliad). A tropical forest wouldn’t be complete without a host of epiphytes. Really everywhere you look in the cloud forest, there are epiphytes, bedecking almost every branching, hanging in mid-air and even epiphytes covering the surface of other epiphytes.
The Neotropical Companion quoting (Perry 1984) claims an estimated 15,500 epiphyte species in the whole of South America. According to a field guide to plant families of Ecuador by Sylvia M. Seger we have at the lodge, there are over 2000 species of bromeliad, 16 genera in Ecuador alone.
Orchids are another familiar example, most but not all of them being epiphytic, with about 3200 species in Ecuador (Sylvia M. Seger).
Ephiphytes can range from mosses, liverworts, lichens to cacti and the afore mentioned bromeliads and orchids. Usually epiphytes cause only small problems for the host tree, other times they become a fatal threat. Strangler figs are one of the most interesting epiphytes. Initially a fig seed is dropped, perhaps by a passing bird or a troop of monkeys. The seed may land in the crotch of a tree and take root, sprouting perhaps in the moist bed of already established living mosses. As the fig grows, it initially resembles a vine, slowly wrapping the host tree. Eventually as the fig wraps its host it becomes like a net, each time it crosses itself fusing together. The slowly forming net reaches the ground and establishes its own root system. Over time the fig expands and chokes off all access to light from its host tree, which dies and is replaced by a newly formed fig tree.
One of the smaller problems that most epiphytes cause their host is quickly absorbing any nutrients from rain or animal (bird, monkey, etc.) droppings higher in the tree before they reach the ground. Some trees deal with having nutrients preemptively stolen by developing aerial roots that stick into the mats of epiphytes and pull nutrients from them. Because of the high amounts of rain in most tropical forests, nutrients are either quickly leached out of soils or pulled up by plants, (little nutrients remain in the soil) nutrients are very important resources for neotropical plants.
There are plenty of epiphytes found at Las Tangaras, the high humidity in the air and high precipitation rates allow a diversity of plants to grow on trees where they only have access to small amounts of soil trapped in roots clinging to branches. These plants in turn become their own microcosms, leaves catching small pools of water become tiny ponds for frogs, breeding grounds for insects. A lizard can live in the canopy of trees it’s whole life, gathering water trapped by epiphytes and eating insects also supplied by epiphytes. Canopies of trees are actually their own microhabitat, still being explored not just in the tropics but through out the forests of the world. Below are some pics of epiphytes I’ve taken at Las Tangaras.
-
- A view from our lodge window, you can see the nearest tree absolutely dripping in epiphytes.
-
- A tree covered in epiphytes
-
- Vines
-
- A view of a tree looking straight up from the forest floor. You can see the many epiphytes.
-
- A bromeliad on a tree
-
- A gorgeous bromeliad
Arachnids of Las Tangaras
I thought I’d use this blog to talk about the different arachnids we have at Las Tangaras and the area around Mindo. I hope I will also impart a bit of the wonder and natural curiosity I feel when I see them. Arachnids seem to have somehow burrowed into the human subconscious during our evolution, often startling us with pains of fright. Still, spiders, let alone arachnids have been around for about 140 million years before our ancestors’ evolutionary scurry from scaly reptile to furry mammal. So arachnids have stood the test of time almost as well as plants and are nearly as omnipresent as insects. To me, this alone should justify looking closer at our eight legged friends, not as enemies but fellow citizens of the planet.
Everyone knows that spiders are arachnids and most people know that scorpions are arachnids. Less people know that ticks and mites are not insects or some uniquely hellish order all of their own but in fact arachnids.
Even less people know about the other stranger orders of arachnids:
There are the strange pseudoscorpions, tiny creatures resembling scorpions but without the stinger. Some pseudoscorpions can be found riding under the outer wings of harlequin beetles in the neotropics. Pseudoscorpions are incredibly small, and it’s lucky finding one at all. I’ve spent days in caves, a habitat they often frequent on my knees, peeping into cracks, turning over rocks without ever seeing a single one.
There are a few other orders in the class arachnidae but I really only want to talk about a few more that I have seen since arriving at Las Tangaras. Namely, Amblypygi and Opiliones . The scorpion-spiders (neither spider or scorpion, confusing common name) and the Harvestmen.
Most people have seen harvestmen and if you’re like me, you even have warm, fuzzy childhood memories of watching them trundle along and even across your open hand, knowing their harmless. Most people have seen these arachnids quite often in fact, without realizing their not spiders. You’ve most likely heard of them referred to by their common name, “daddy long-legs” and learned perhaps among other bits of mis-information and urban legends that they’re the most venomous spiders in the world but that their mouths are too small too bite a human. Not only is this not true but most daddy long-legs aren’t even spiders. I say most because there are some look-alikes that are actually spiders. Confused? Let me explain. Harvest men or Opilionids often have long, spindly legs, which is where the common name, “daddy long-legs” comes from as every child can tell you. However, this is not the diagnostic feature to separate them spiders (as few people outside of arachnology labs and spider clubs can tell you). The true way to tell a harvestmen from a long, spindly-legged spider is to look closely at the body segments the spider has two clear body segments but the Opilionid has only one. Harvestmen also don’t make webs like spiders and roam about the forest usually at night, using their extremely long appendages like antennae to find and quickly subdue any unwary prey. We’ve seen several Opillionids since arriving at Las Tangaras, always at night, ranging from the tiny and plain to the large and ornate. A few days ago I was even lucky to get a photo of one eating a caterpillar as I accompanied a Chilean tourist on a night hike.
There’s also the Amblypygians, the “Scorpion-spiders” an entirely tropical order. I’ve heard stories of caves in Mexico filled with millions of these climbing on the walls, ceilings, floor, everywhere. Although that’s probably a little bit of an exaggeration, they are mainly nocturnal, living in forest or hiding in caves. They also seem to have the rudiments of social structures and I know of a research project in Puerto Rico looking at the evolution of social behavior in them. For most people one of these creatures, much less an entire cave full of Scorpion-spiders is a terrifying thought. It’s useful then to remember, much like the Opilionids, Amblypygians are completely harmless to people (in less you have a weak heart). To the untrained eye, Scorpion-spiders look like giant spiders straight from the scariest parts of The Hobbit, now in flesh. They’re not spiders though and unless the Shire is more tropical than I always imagined, they couldn’t set mandible there. They have long appendages, as with the harvestmen an adaptation for living in dark caves or hunting forest floors at night. Unlike the harvestmen or spiders with their round, plump abdomens, they have flattened “pancake-like” bodies. Also Amblypygians appear to have ten legs (Maybe encouraging you too love this one will be harder than I thought), in reality scorpion-spiders like all arachnids have only eight legs. What appear to be a fifth set of “legs” are actually modified mouth parts, made to shoot out, grab and subdue prey for eating. Like the Opilionids, Amblypygians don’t use webs to capture their prey and instead roam about, using legs like antennae and attacking prey items with their raptorial appendages (those large modified mouth parts).
There are other arachnids I could talk about, such as the camel spiders who had their hey-dey as deceptive pictures and overblown stories spread from soldiers in Iraq across the internet. Or vinagaroons that look similar to scorpions but shoot vinegar out of their posterior as a defense. I haven’t seen any of these since I’ve been at Las Tangaras though. I have seen spiders almost every night though, large furry, completely harmless wolf-spiders (possibly tarantulas but I’m pretty sure their wolf spiders). We see these come out at night to hunt as well. It seems a little creepy to many people to be completely surrounded by arachnids all the time but in reality unless you’re living in Antarctica, we all live with these creatures. If you’re adventurous and want to see different arachnids, come to Las Tangaras and see what bizarre treasures are living in the tropical night. Otherwise, if you’re lucky enough to live near an empty field full of plants (in could be “weeds” or crops or wild flowers, it doesn’t matter) wait until there’s an early morning and everything is covered in sparkling dew. Walk through the field and see the hundreds of spider webs glowing in the morning light like strings of jewels and think. Imagine how different our wonderful planet would be if their weren’t spiders secretly spinning millions of webs, or scorpions, or opilionids or any of the rest of them. Like it or not, they are part of the land like all creatures and so in a very real way, a part of us as well.
Meet Erin and Zach
Erin and I have been settling into Las Tangaras as new reserve managers quite nicely the only problem is that three months seems like far to short a time to spend somewhere so beautiful and peaceful.
Let me begin by introducing us to those of you out there reading our blog. My name’s Zach, I went to school at Colorado Mesa University for biological sciences and took a field biology course in Ecuador, which made me fall completely in love with the country, the tropics and field biology. Since then I’ve participated in field biology work all over the world. I spent a summer on Middleton Island, Alaska working with sea birds, a summer on Abaco in the Bahamas working with parrots, five months working with leatherback sea turtles in Equatorial Guinea. I’ve also participated in a few expeditions for cave biology in Northern Arizona and Colorado, surveying bat colonies and collecting cave arthropods. Then there’s the five months I spent in Madagascar working on a reforestation project and met Erin. Erin had the much more exciting job of tracking radio collaredVareciaVarigata, (the black and white ruffed lemur) through the forest and collecting data on behavior. I spent most of my time working with locals in the hot sun far from the fragmented forest, collecting compost, planning and planting trees (and sweating a lOT). Erin went to SUNY ESF where she studied conservation biology and did research on Martens, she’d also worked with wolves in Indiana and had experience working with Canada geese back in New York and lots of time spent working with animals in a vet clinic. She’s also spent a year in Korea teaching English. We hit it off and Erin eventually moved to Colorado to be with me after we came home to the US. Since then I’ve been working at a place casting fossil replicas for museums while Erin worked at a veterinary clinic. Our true passion is conservation and living closer to the land, spending plenty of time out doors. So when we saw the Las Tangaras position, we jumped at the chance to work with birds in Ecuador’s cloud forest and contributing to the protection of one of the world’s great biodiversity hot spots.
So far we’ve seen white fronted capuchins early in the morning hooting angrily at us from the tree tops, swam in gorgeous swimming holes that look as if they’re from a movie set and spent a lot of time collecting data on hummingbirds.
We’ve been out at night on a few hikes and seen plenty of frogs, katydids and a Nightjar near a stream watching us blurry eyed from our headlamps. There’s been a large blue morpho butterfly that keeps flitting around the house and toucanettes that we saw early one morning in the forest. In fact there’s been so much wildlife easily spotted that it’s almost unbelievable. As dense as this forest is, it’s hard to imagine how much animal life is actually out there that we don’t even see hiding among the plants.
We also discovered a burrow on one of the trails and I set up a camera trap to see what’s living in it. You’ll have to wait until next post to see the pics, if they come out. I’m hoping it’s an armadillo, an amazing animal I have never seen in the wild.
-
- A swimming hole at Las Tangaras!
Reptiles and Amphibians at Reserva Las Tangaras
At Reserva Las Tangaras, there is a great diversity of reptiles and amphibians. Frogs are more likely to be heard at night and can be spotted with a flashlight at night as many are nocturnal, while reptiles are most likely going to be basking or seen as a quick movement as you walk along the trails. For us the greatest species diversity observed has been in snakes, with 10 species observed on or near the reserve. Almost every snake observed has been a different species.
Pasture’s Frog Pristimantis achatinus
Rainfrogs are the most diverse family of frogs in the area with 23 species. Most are nocturnal and arboreal. However with the Pasture’s Frog, the tiny juveniles are diurnal and terrestrial and can be spooked as you walk through the yard and along trails here at the reserve. They are likely the most common frogs at the reserve. They are small, brown, and have distinctive V markings on their backs. We see them in mostly disturbed sites, like grassy areas, trails, and even in the cabin. Only the juveniles are diurnal, but at night the larger adults can be seen on their arboreal perches.
Cane Toad Rhinella marina
This large toad is the most common toad and likely only toad here at the reserve, as the 3 others that occur in Mindo are very rare. Found in areas such as under the cabin and edges of forest. This pugnacious species can grow up to 2.5 kilograms and 24 centimeters in length. As an ambush predator, the cane toad hides and waits to swallow its unsuspecting prey which is anything that it can fit its mouth around. Native here, this toxic toad has become highly invasive in places such as Australia, as few organisms can eat it.
Andean Snail Eater Dispsas andiana
There are a variety of snakes that occur here at Las Tangaras ranging from pencil sized to up to six feet. They range from terrestrial to arboreal, and nocturnal to diurnal. Most snakes that are seen are terrestrial and are seen slithering away as you approach on the trail. However, on a warm sunny day or a cold morning, you may find one basking in the warm or sluggish from the cold.
The Andean Snail-Eater, a nocturnal snake is an example of one of these snakes. Pictured is a juvenile who found itself too sluggish to move from its nighttime hunting grounds during a cool morning. This small juvenile can grow up to 84cm and actively forages exclusively on mollusks. The Andean Snail-Eater is one of three Snail-Eaters and one of 23 colubrids or harmless snakes that occur in Mindo.
Ecuadorian Toadhead Bothrops campbelli
Luckily there are few dangerous poisonous snakes at the reserve. There are one coral snake and four vipers. These snakes are rarely sighted, but one should be aware of their existence. One of these snakes which we have observed is the endangered Ecuadorian Toadhead. Unfortunately, this individual was dead on the the road near the entry trail, however it more than likely could be found at the reserve. Vipers are highly venomous and can be recognized by their triangular heads. According to “The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindo”, the Ecuadorian Toadhead is somewhat docile and tries to escape rather than bite. However the more common Terpiocelo Bothrops Asper is similar in appearance and is extremely venomous and aggressive.
Ocellated Riama Riama oculata
There is great potential for the diversity of lizards at the reserve with 16 species occuring in Mindo, but for us these creatures have been the most elusive. Most encounters have been brief, and they are gone before we can register any field markings. The Ocellated Riama is a relatively large brownish terrestrial to arboreal lizard often found in moist shaded areas as it is susceptible to overheating. It can be identified by its spear shaped head, short limbs, and shiny scales. The one pictured is a small juvenile that found its way into the lodge.
Source:
The Reptiles and Amphibians of Mindo
Arteaga A., Bustamante L., Guayasamin J.
2013 Universidad Tecnologica Indoamerica
Reserva Las Tangaras 