Two non-Ecuador things

The first thing is that two of my friends, Artemis and her brother Harold, have started on on-line field journal with their sketches called Field Notes.  Definitely worth having a look.

The second thing is to alert everyone to a New Yorker article by Jill Lepore titled, The Shorebird:  The right way to remember Rachel Carson starting on page 64 of the Mar 26, 2018 issue.  This New Yorker issue is also notable for its "the emperor has no clothes" cover of you-know-who.

The link above should work.  Many may not subscribe to the New Yorker, but this issue may be able to be found on a good newsstand (e.g. Barnes & Noble carries the New Yorker) for a couple more days.  If not there, then your local public library may be the next best resource.

Jill Lepore is a professor of American History at Harvard and her New Yorker articles are always spectacularly written.  The Shorebird ... is no exception.

Special bird on nest

Seeing this bird was a great surprise.  Two or three days earlier some in the group had seen a male Lyre-tailed Nightjar fly from one tree to another in the deep dusk of evening.  I blinked and missed seeing that bird, but we also got to hear it.  Here, near Mashpi and right at the gated entrance of the Nat Geo lodge, was a female sitting on her nest.  I must have taken 20 photos, basically all the same.  Here are a few of those.   

Female Lyre-tailed Nightjar (Uropsalis lyra)

I admit the noisy diesel truck engine is an unpleasant distraction, but the bird does not seem to mind during this 41 second video, so I try to not to let it bother me either.

This was near Masphi at the gates of the National Geographic lodge that is so expensive and exclusive.  The nest was actually perfectly placed on one of the stone structures supporting the gate into the Nat Geo lodge and was covered from the rain as well.

Finally, some hummingbirds

When you visit Ecuador, you will see a lot of hummingbirds.  It was hard for me to keep track of them all.

Chestnut-breasted Coronet (Boissonneaua matthewsii)

Collared Inca (Coeligena torquata)

Female Collared Inca?

Collared Inca 

Buff-tailed Coronet (Boissonneaua flavescens)

White-bellied Woodstar (Chaetocercus mulsant)

The above photos were taken on the grounds of Guango Lodge.

A few more hummers will be added in a later post including this beautiful guy.

Ecuador bagged lunch

I took so many photos on this trip.  I've always been weak about deleting poor and decent, but duplicate-like, photos.  I'll never be able to repeat the trip experience so end up keeping too many photos.  But when I get home I have to download these photos.  It takes forever and is a boring process.  I've been home over three weeks and am not even half-way through the download.  So, here's a pause post before I can get to the next bird post.

Tamale wrapped in aluminum wrapper, bag of banana chips, pear, peach juice box, plastic container with rice and little pieces of cubed chicken and veggies, already half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich, club social crackers, little square date bar, chocolate bar, napkin and spoon!

The lunch was prepared for us by the Guango Lodge staff and was amazing.  It was so much fun to sit on a rock, look into the cornucopia of food and pull out one thing after another and enjoy lunch.  There was no way any of us could eat it all, so we gave our extras to the Papallacta Pass park guard. Lunch came after my Swarovski bins broke (and now in the repair shop).  Rhoda packed extra bins and loaned them to me for the rest of the trip.

The Guango Lodge was also my favorite place to stay on this trip and we had only one night here.  It was an older lodge as evidenced by our room photo above.  It was small, but beautiful.  I didn't take a photo of the dining/sitting room and regret this.  It was intimate and charming. As I recall, the food here was the best we had on the whole trip.  I recommend Guango Lodge.  Good birds and hummingbird feeders here, too.

The Guango-prepared bag lunch has now spoiled me.  I'll never look at a boxed lunch quite the same again.  Wouldn't it be great if we had such fun bagged lunches at our work and professional meetings?