Ecuador 2011
February 7 - Jorupe Reserve
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Supplement
Bird List
It's a short drive from Macara to Jorupe, perhaps 25 kilometers, mostly uphill. But whethever tectonic processes created this part of the Andes put the rock through a meatgrinder, and there were land slips, land slides, mudslides and mass-wasting everywhere. So it took some time, including a few stops waiting on earthmoving equipment to clear a path. We didn't have any detours, but we had delays. Not for the last time.

Urraca Lodge at Jorupe Lodge is excellent. Airy, assembled of native woods, and surrounded by lovely forest, it's simply a delight. Beautiful cabins. Unfortunately, our first night there was some kind of colossal June Bug hatch. Not the delicate June Bugs (Phyllophaga) in the Pacific Northwest; these were huge and the numbers beggared the imagination. Attracted by the cabin lights, a very large swarm blackened the screens and, more troubling for Nancy, crawled in under the crack under the door (although she was convinced they were raining down from the ceiling). Before too long we had several hundred June Bugs an inch long visting with us. Nancy found them . . . disturbing . . . and engaged in a frenzy of slightly hysterical bug-whacking. At the end of it all, there were still a couple of thousand bugs on the screens, a badly shredded and stained magazine and a small dune of squashed bugs in our cabin.

It was a one-time event, but a very impressive display of jungle fecundity.

Click on a photo to see a larger version


Black-cowled Saltator

Ecuadorian Trogon

Gray-cheeked Parrot

Highland Hepatic-Tanager

Long-billed Starthroat

Rufous-browed Peppershrike

Bird the Boonies and Ceiba

Tawny-crowned Pygmy-Tyrant

Highland Motmot

All photos and text © 2011 Jim & Nancy DeWitt / Frozen Feather Images