Birdwatching and Mud Stains

This is myself and park warden Henrry (with two R's) on the binoculars. I am following his lead, trying to spot what he sees. He is one of the most experienced rangers at the SNLMT.

On Tuesday, I got the chance to join him on the bird survey, along with Jose (park warden), two MEDA colleagues and some university students (pictured above). Early morning and low tide is the best time for spotting birds since they are out looking for crabs and fish to eat along the newly exposed banks of the rivers so we were on the river by 7 AM.


To the right is a Google Earth satellite image of the mangrove reserve, the SNLMT. The mangrove reserve is outlined in red and the international border is yellow. The right side of the picture is Ecuador, separated from Peru by the International Canal. At the top, the river flows into the Pacific.

On all sides, you can see that former mangrove habitat has been taken over by farms, rice and shrimp. A lot of products of human activity (plastics, mercury, petroleum, pesticides) find their way into the mangroves.

Despite the encroachment of human activity, the mangroves carry the heavy load, providing food and habitat for a diverse bird population. Monthly bird surveying is a way to keep tabs on bird populations.

The way bird surveying works is simple. The boat follows a set path every time. You identify and record the number of each bird species you see. If they are flying, you only count the ones flying in the opposite direction as you, to prevent double counting. Henrry does most of the identifying while another ranger, Jose does the recording. The rest of us point out anything in case he has missed it.


This apparently was the sighting of the day.
Not the white guy, that is a baby Snowy Egret, Garza Blanca chica, the most populous of the birds in the sanctuary. No, it's the grey blob I circled to the left, sitting on the branch and barely visible, the Bare-throated Tiger-heron. Despite the superhero name, this bird is not bloodthirsty, courageous and carnivorous. Rather, it is very shy and rarely sighted. So much so that I couldn't get a better shot of it. Though I admit I didn't know what was going on. I thought people were getting excited about the Snowy Egret.

Having an expert around opens your eyes. The first time I visited the mangroves, I saw a Blue Heron and a bunch of Snowy Egrets. This time I had a page full of bird names I scribbled down while trying to keep up with Henrry. Hundreds of sightings of herons, egrets, frigatebirds, cormorants, martin kingfishers, pelicans, blackbirds etc.

Most are waders, a loose categorization for birds adapted to shore areas and wading in pools. They have long legs for walking in pools and eat small crabs and other invertebrates. To the right is an example. He is the largest heron in these parts of Peru, Ardea cocoi or Garza Cuca.


Some were fast little guys zipping and darting around like the Ringed Kingfishers. Think hummingbird with hunting skills.


Some were big air floaters, like these Fregata magnificens to the left, just floating in the air taking it easy until doing precise dives for prey. They are also known as Man O'War for their rakish lines, speed and aerial piracy says Wikipedia. Air pirates. Gangsters.





After an hour, we had motored to Point A on the map, whose proximity to the ocean meant that a laguna was drying out from the last high tide. This dynamic makes it a favorite spot for some birds.

This is a Roseate spoonbill. When standing, he looks like a flamingo cause of the pink coloration but he can be differentiated by his long beak, the spoonbill.

I could pretend I took this picture if I had one of those cameras with the serious looking zoom. It's stolen from wikipedia.



It was still spectacular though. Here's my photo of a bunch of them taking flight.








To compare, here's a Chilean flamingo displaying a remarkable lack of spoonbill.
Both flamingos and roseate spoonbills derive their pink color from the betacarotene from the shrimp and crab in their diet. They are not related.








These are Black Necked Stilts, Himantopus mexicanus, local name: ciguenuela. The english name is pretty self explanatory. They look like they're walking around on pink stilts.

The day ended with a chance to get filthy and trek through the mangroves to Point B on the map.


Best mud stains I've had in a long time. Point B is another laguna that floods during high tide but by the time we got there it was dried out and the birds were gone.


I'm out of postcards. First one to point me out in the picture gets a pair of pants to wash.

So, that's it for my month in Tumbes, though I'll be back when the heat gets serious in January. Back to Lima and the big city life.

Farming and Reforestation in Dry Forest - A MEDA Peru Workshop

6:45 AM - Early Sunday morning. Tired. Stumble around. Too tired to eat. Grouchy, slouching.

7: 20 AM - Meet others at Plaza at. 12 of us pile into truck, 7 in the truck, 5 in the flatbed. Uncomfortable drive to the Mangrove Sanctuary. Tired and squished in backseat. Left leg asleep. I wish I was.

8: 15 AM - Arrive at Algarrobo guardpost. Mill around. Tired still but waking up. Left leg too.

8:45 AM - Erik, Peruvian colleague in charge of Tourism, tells me about cultural poverty. He says the poverty here on the coast is not the same as the poverty in the Andes and in the jungle. Here near the mangroves and coast, these people have it easy. They live on 15 soles (less than 3 dollars) a day. In the Andes and the jungle, the people live on 1 or 2 soles (50 cents) a day. Here, the luxury of living near such a productive environment like the mangroves means that people can go fishing for a few hours and haul 60 soles worth of fish, allowing them to spend 45 soles on booze and waste the rest of their day drinking it.

We did see some 15 year olds boozing on our way here. And it's before 9 AM.

According to Erik, this is one of the obstacles holding Peru and Latin America back. This is a country and continent whose abundance in resources has led to stalled development. Hmmmm...logical. Unsure if I agree.

He says the people need education, so they can stop mindlessly following stagnant cultural examples.

I tell him I agree. I tell him as best as I can that I've seen people whose parents pay for their university, party every day and drop out because the worse that can happen isn't that bad and so they don't see the incentive in working hard and getting a degree. Meanwhile, some people work part-time to support their tuition and come out with flying colors. And then there's everyone in between. He tells me a joke about Henry Ford's son. I think of Paris Hilton as a representative example of the child of a millionaire.

9:30 AM - I am finally wide awake. People from the different associations start to file in.


In total, 30 people come to take part in the workshop. 4 women. I follow the guy in the cowboy hat around for a while. He's got a great toothless smile that I didn't get a shot of.

10:10 AM - Everyone stands up and introduces themselves. Dante, colleague in charge of Environment, explains the importance of the mangroves and why we are here today. Surrounding the mangrove reserve is dry forest, an important ecosystem. Many of these people are land owners, farmers whose land around the mangroves provides a buffer against the contamination from human activity.


These are not the people who waste their money on booze. Their dollars come from the hard labour of farming within uncooperative crops in a harsh environment.

People listen intently, man in cowboy hat included. They seem really interested.


11 AM - Refreshments are served. Spilled pop means a party for ants, lined up like gazelles and giraffes at an African watering hole.


I mercilessly kill one ant to see what other ants will make of it. There is temporary chaos and I lose track of the body. Drinking of 'Real Kola' continues, humans and ants together. No 'Real Kola Lite' here. Orange, sugary, carbonated deliciousness. Not short on sugar.

11:15 AM - The meeting continues. The people are broken up into their respective associations. First task of the day is to make a map of all the land of which they have ownership of. In other words, arts and crafts. They break out the color markers, scissors, pencils, rulers. Fun is cowboy hats, drawing things and group work.



12:20 PM - Under the great Algarrobo tree for which this guard post was named, people present their maps and biggest problems with farming in this dry area without water.

The main problem for most of them is irrigation. There are only a few months per year where they can grow anything and the crops are fruits with roots deep enough to survive throughout the dry season. Most of the year between March and September is unproductive and people want a complimentary source of income. Digging a well and irrigation would cost a lot. MEDA wants to incorporate these ideas to help with reverting area to dry forest.

1:15 PM - Lunch is served. It is food.

Afterwards, people resume the arts and craft session with maps of their ideal farms in 5 years time. Before and after depicted below.


3 PM - Last task of the day is more drawing. People draw a map of actors, people or organisations they are involved in.

The day winds down. Closing ceremony, group picture and lots of applause and laughs. It's a happy time. Click on the picture and try to find me, I blend right in.


I'll send a postcard to the first person who can point me out, regardless of whether I know you or not. Seriously, anyone, answer in the comments.

4 PM - The heat of the day is dissipating. Participants collect their travel stipend and then pile into their trucks to leave. Dogs bark and chase as the wheels kick up dust.


4:10 PM - I check on the ants at Lake Real Kola. All gone. I assume even they left happy.

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

This week is the last week of my one month stay in Tumbes. The work has been great and I´ll put up a few posts on the stuff I've been doing at work soon, cause it has been an interesting month and because that was the initial point of this blog, not all this ruminating on beautiful mountains and fiddlee dee dee. But as I get ready mentally to move back to Lima, I've started to feel at home here in Tumbes, a rewarding feeling that I want to write about.

When I first came, I thought adjusting would be a breeze since Lima had been so fun and easy but it wasn't and again, I had to learn to call a new place home. When you're a tourist, you're constantly on the move and there's no need to settle down and feel at home and you also don't have to learn to like places that don't immediately appeal to you. When you're a tourist, you spend the money and look the part and people treat you like it and it's comforting. You say your thank yous and pleases and do as you would in your home country, have a blast and people cater their actions for you and your tourist dollars. And in Lima..well I guess big cities are universally very similar. Busy streets, lots of different people, grocery stores, McDonald's and Starbucks if you're so inclined, roommates who watch Gossip Girl. It's all familiar before you get there with reminders everywhere that home is not that far away. But some places don't get along with you so quickly. For me it has taken an anxious month of second guessing to come to terms with Tumbes.

You walk around at first and you are looking everywhere, screening nothing. You pay attention to everything and it's overwhelming. And you better pay attention to the way people do things around here because not everyone is going to change just so you can keep doing things comfortably the way you do at home. Every sound and face is foreign. When the policeman whistles, you freeze and look at him and look at the street and wonder what the hell he is whistling about. It makes no sense. When you walk down the street, you look every single person in the face because you're kind of scared of getting robbed and you look over your shoulder a lot as if someone is following you. You make snap judgements, you have to. "Do I trust this person, do they have a trustworthy face, can I stop noticing them now?" and the passing of judgement affects how tightly you clutch your backpack.















(Stacey and Jorie guarding while Wendelien visits the ATM)

And you're back to the miscommunication and it sucks. And that old habit of saying things like questions because of uncertainty creeps back. And you can't handle the number of unknowns and because there are a lot of unknowns.

And sometimes you want more vegetables in your food and you think to ask but first you wonder "Is that allowed? Or will they think I'm rude and picky?" Or you want to yell out "taxi driver, slow the %!$# down," and you get kind of mad but you don't say it because before you do anything you always ask yourself if it's customary to do this or will they think I'm rude. You always think twice.

And everyday, you walk to work and cross the street when it's safe but your idea of safe starts to change because you walk the roads twice a day you get familiar with the few streets that you walk down all the time. Slowly parts of it are committed to memory and you start to learn little things, like how to make weak jokes. You learn to watch out crossing the street outside work because motos come flying down the hill but from home to work you can sneak across the street before motos start moving if the light is freshly green because they have no acceleration, especially going up a hill and plus, they'll swerve ever so slightly to avoid hitting you. You learn to take the shaded route to work back from lunch to avoid the midday heat.

So you can sneak across the street and hop onto the curb and go down the hill and cut through the market and get to work all sneaky and lithe. You get to know the traffic lights, like at Boundary Street and Nathan Street...or University and Westmount. Lithe. And you begin to relax a little more in your town, at ease.

And now when the policeman whistles, you hardly take notice and it still doesn't make sense but it's not an urgent matter. It's a conceptual police whistle and you filter it out as background noise because you have acquired the Tumbes filter. You have learned to separate background noise from what requires attention. Stray dogs will bark, won't bite - do not require full attention. People yelling are not yelling at you - ignore. That cute girl who works at the store on the corner - don't ignore. Conservation of mangroves - requires attention. You talk to a couple waiters that start to recognize you, and store owners and guards and you relax a little more and you sleep better because you know to point the industrial fan away from you to keep the mosquitos away without making you too cold and you start to feel like "yeah, no matter what is thrown at me right now, I can probably handle it." Though most of the time that is true from the beginning, it just takes realising. You know where to eat and where to buy water, what to do for breakfast, the routine provides comfort. And you realise that not everyone is trying to rob you or con you. And you go from biding your time and counting the days, to actually living them.



And at one point, that feeling of having settled in hits you and you smile to yourself, like when Steph said "God willing" to that guy. For me it was when I played my second game of chess with the 10 year-old kid local champion near the Plaza de Armas after he narrowly beat me last week with his defensive tactics and I told him I knew his strengths this time and that I would win, and I smiled inwardly and thought to myself that I didn't have to think twice about saying that and I don't have to think twice about as much anymore and it's nice to not have to think twice about everything though I should think twice about opening with my knights again.

So I go on and play with this hyperactive, chubby genius kid who drinks too much soda and uses his pawns so well and always controls the centre of the board. And he beats me twice, once just barely and then once easily and arrogantly, and I vow that I will beat him next week though I really doubt it.

On Beauty

When Mother Earth made Peru, she was not messing around. She told Papa Earth to turn the volume of the game down because she needed to concentrate and he did it immediately because she had that serious look on her face.

Along the coast of Peru, desert meets the Pacific Ocean, laying down sandy beach after beach, uninterrupted except for a precious little mangrove reserve near the Ecuador border. Year round, the sun ignites the ocean at sundown, like a match to oil.


Moving inland, the Andes mountains tower above, high enough to harbour glaciers despite being three degrees latitude off the equator. Clouds pour in and around the steep vertices, playing peekaboo with snow capped summits. Mountain and water cooperate, roaring off cliffs with reckless abandon or bubbling down rocky streams, dancing jigs around sharp bends, occasionally pooling in lakes and lagunas, cold and clean enough to drink and live to tell the story.





Within 30 minutes at llama pace, you can go from being blanketed by humidity, squidging around in mud to squinting from the reflection of the sun on an expanse of snow crunching beneath your feet.



I often find myself at the back of our hiking group, trying to take in all the beauty. The change in altitude makes my head pound and I hang back, letting the group move further away. I close my eyes, breathe deep and open my eyes again. I'm hoping it will become clear why these mountains are so good. Nothing ever happens. I see deep blue, blinding white, fresh green. I think about how billions of years ago and thousands of miles below, massive tectonic plates coming together push these mountains towards the sky. I wonder how many million newtons of force are involved. But these words are too small, even factorialed by infinity and the universe a trillion times. I don't know why these mountains are so good, so beautiful.



But they are, and photography sure is easy with cooperative subjects.

East of the Andes lies the Amazon Jungle. I haven't been there yet but I'm sure Mother Earth won't disappoint.

PS. On a different scale, I am moving to Tumbes to get more involved with our mangrove project. Work here in Lima has picked up as of late and it has been a valuable experience, writing expansive funding proposals or concise Letters of Inquiry, maneuvering between Spanish and English words and concepts. It's a good feeling to go home every day knowing you accomplished something. Of course, I am excited to be spending more time in the mangroves and less in the office.

PPS. Obama becomes President today?! I'm guessing yes and so is everyone else.