Cock of the Rock

Nicole:

Nancy arrived in Mindo on Friday night and we had an amazing last few days there. On Saturday morning at 3:30am, we woke up and took a taxi a few kilometers uphill into the cloud forest. We hiked uphill along the trail of a nature reserve for about an hour until we reached the top around 5:30am. At nearly 6:00am on the dot, as the sun was rising, we started hearing screeching and chirping and gawking noises all around us. There is a famous bird in the Andes mountains called the Andean Cock of the Rock, or Gallo de Peña in Spanish. They have a huge head crest on their forehead and the males are bright red. The location that we hiked to was a lekking ground of some Cock of the Rock in the nearby cloud forest. A lekking ground is an area that birds congregate for mating purposes. All of the males do their best sexual displays like rocking on the branches, flapping their wings, turning about, swinging their heads, etc, and the females mosy around from one branch to another looking for the best male. Typically, a lek ends with one or two of the male birds receiving 90% of the copulations. The birds were so distracted with their displays that they came so close to our observation bench, so we were able to watch them quite closely, it was like nothing we had ever seen before. After about half an hour, they settled down and we hiked back to town to start a day of relaxing and chocolate consumption.



Cock of the Rock


On Sunday we went to the Mariposaria, the Butterfly farm, where we got to feed some butterflies bananas from our fingers, and we got to watch butterflies emerge from their cacoon! It was neat because when they first come out, their wings are all small and wrinkled, and then they eventually dry them out and spread them out fully. Their bodies are also initially really fat because they have a bunch of stored up embronic fluid which they drain as their wings spread out.



Nancy feeding a Mariposa

 We headed back to Quito Sunday afternoon and I checked into a very classy hostel that charges by the hour, close to where Nancy is staying. On Monday Nancy went to the hospital and I went to check out the Natural Science Museum and Botanical Gardens.

This morning (Tuesday) I caught a bus to Otavalo, a small city 2 hours north of Quito. I checked into a hostel and headed to the Parque de Condor. It is a large park run by a couple who rescue birds of prey (hawks, owls, etc). The birds had fairly large enclosures, and most of them were able to go out on flights around the nearby forests and towns, and they just come back since they associate the park with consistent food, and most of them didnt know how to hunt because they had been there since they were young. The birds that were the most shocking to see were the Harpy Eagle and the Andean Condor, they looked spectacular. The Andean Condor is HUGE, at least two and a half times the size of a bald eagle, and I believe it is Endangered. I watched the flight demonstration where a few of the hawks got to fly around and he talked about them a bit. At the end everyone got to hold a small kestral on their hand wearing the birding glove, so that was really neat. Im pretty sure that I was more excited than all of the visiting school children put together.

On the way back from the Condor Park to town, I passed two women herding their sheep across the road and they started chatting with me. I actually managed to have a sort of conversation with them, although Im not sure they considered it such a success because they laughed at most of my responses.

Adios amigos!