East Coast Snowpocalypse Day is for the Birds!

Spoonbill

On a day when the East Coast is plastered with Blizzard Jonas, we are enjoying perpetual summer!  Ecuador is a top destination for bird lovers the world over.  For good reason.  The variety and beauty of these creatures is astounding.  We were recently at one of the top birding destinations, Mindo, about 2 hours outside the capital, Quito.  We stayed at the Casa Divina Lodge, which we highly recommend, partly because the owner, Efrain, is such a knowledgeable bird expert!  Here are some examples of birds we saw.

Accompanied by our friends Steve and Jane

Can you Toucan?

Chestnut mandible toucan

Rufous Motmot

Crimson rumped toucanet

Pacific Parrotlets

Hummingbird

Parrot

Lemon Tanager

Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest: Proof in Ecuador

Among the joys of living in Ecuador, discovering our love affair with the mango is high on the list. We've had the privilege of devouring this nectar of the gods for some 6 weeks in December and January each year. 

A half-mile of heaven!

Imagine our delight that first year to discover that our housing development has a long promenade park lined with tall mango trees (cue chorus of angels singing hallelujah)!

Feather blossoms to the right?

This past fall I decided to carefully note their development (channeling my dad, Ike, the plant-loving nurseryman).

At first I thought I was seeing a feathery blossom extending beyond the leaves.










Upon closer inspection of the new stem and stem branches, I noted thousands of peppercorn size balls. I am thinking, “Bumper crop!”  

As small as black peppercorns.

But week by week they dropped by the dozens onto the brick path until only 6-8 remained per branch. We greedily eyed the few low-hanging fruit.

One of the shorter cords and within easy reach!

Alas, most quickly joined their premature siblings on the pavement--until a single mango remained suspended by its long umbilical cord.



We celebrated the day that David and Bailey’s pre-sunrise walks became fraught with avoiding stepping on squishy fruit that had fallen overnight!  However, it was a race against the iguanas that sleep high up in the trees; they too adore the golden flesh. Lucky for us iguanas are late risers.

The boys could come home with 3 or 4 perfect mangoes each morning and our refrigerator was overflowing with bags of sliced heaven.  Yep, Darwin knew--only the most delicious survive.

Do you know how many ways you can use a mango? Hot mango salsa is fabulous!

Seems the higher up, the longer the cord.

We were grateful that the neighborhood trees developed at different rates so we enjoyed perfectly ripe mangoes for weeks!

Sadly, now only a few green baseballs remain, and they are waaay too high to reach—which means they will make a dreadful “splat” when they hit the ground.

They’re all yours… you lazy iguanas.

Baños on Parade

While in the mountainside community of
Banos (pronounced BAN-yos) in November, we were fortunate enough to spectate the parade celebrating the founding of the town . . . and what a parade it was!  The best we'd seen in Ecuador, and for a small town, a great outpouring of songs, dances, costumes, bands, beauty queens and floats.  Here are some views.