Mount Totumas Cloud Forest

We are pleased to announce that Mount Totumas Cloud Forest has been certified as a sustainable eco tourist destination with Rainforest Alliance. Check out our listing on their website.

Three Wattled Bellbirds perched on a distant tree. Cloudy weather brings them out on exposed purchases of the canopy. Immature males often join adults at this time of year as their mechanical calls resonate in the forest. Not at all like a bell by the way. Who named this bird anyway?

This orchid was at 2100m on a tree at the edge of a pasture on Mr. Vega’s property. First time seeing this one blooming.

Julio with Violet Sabrewing

The MTCF hummingbird hat has been requested by many guests who saw this on a previous blog entry. So here are a few images of happy humans and hummers.

Ryan and Violet Sabrewing

Niko with Green Crowned Brilliant

Alma with Violet Sabrewing

Mateo with Scinttilant Hummingbird

Julio with Green Violet Ear

Niko with Magnificant Hummingbird

Colleen with Scintillant Hummingbird

Ana with two Violet Sabrewing

Marco with Violet Sabrewing

Mateo with Scintillant and female Green Crowned Brilliant

Marco with Bronze and Silver Beer Can………

Julio Crispin, a recent guest at MTCF, brought his remote controlled model airplane on site and put together this wonderful video. The video camera mounted on the plane provides a fish eye view of the core common area of MTCF.

An Ornate Hawk Eagle’s view of MTCF!!!

We had a trio of entomologists last week at Mount Totumas Cloud Forest. John Heppner from the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, part of the Florida Natural History Museum organized the group. John specializes in Lepidoptera, specifically in micro moths, Nick Donnelly in dragonflies and Ed Fuller is an expert on click beetles. It was a great week of collecting and the group inspired one of our guest volunteers, Bret Carlson, who made some stunning macro photography of some of the insects that were attracted to our traps and lights.

John Heppner at work with specimens where we converted our mudroom into a lab.

Some of the micro moths collected during the week.

Check out the mites infesting this beetle

Clear night with the milky way in stunning brilliance as far away flashes of lightening lit up the horizon

Here are some images from all the infrastructure work we have started in 2011

Topography in order to define the common area where our infrastructure will be built

We got help from Professor Ricardo Sanjur, local topographer from David. Yes it is a Leica theodolite!

Drainage, drainage drainage. Major work was done for drainage. We hired a back hoe for several days and worked on ditches to channel water away from the house and road and future cabin locations.

Tene and Macial discussing drainage strategy

Preparing the grounds for next years construction of the future common area building at the mirador.

Reinaldo up on the back hoe bucket removing branches from a Matahombro tree. Notice the Bajareque clouds on the continental divide

Breaking foundation of our first cabin

Foundation complete and framing going up using the timber we harvested during he summer of 2010

Timber framing with mortise and tenons and pegs instead of nails

A portable saw mill was hauled up the 10km 4×4 road to cut our timber into beams and rafters and planks for future siding and flooring

3×6 rafters in the foreground cut with the portable mill will be the rafters for the future loft

Roof rafters going up

More photos and updates as our infrastructure progress unfolds…….

Check out this bad ass new wasp moth that visited our bug lights recently. Yellow jacket abdomen with blue iridescent spots. This was the first specimen of this species seen at Mount Totumas Cloud Forest.

On June 1st we planted the first of 1500 coffee trees. The site location is at 1800m and is on a wind protected east facing slope that was shaded primarily by trees of the Inga genus. This is a good elevation for growing premium high altitude coffee and the existing shade trees are recognized as a great tree under which to grow shade grown coffee. The area covers about 1 hectar or less than 1% of the land at Mount Totumas Cloud Forest.

We hired Mr. Clemente Vega to get us started off on the right track. Clemente is a coffee consultant with many years experience growing coffee in Chiriqui. In addition he studied sustainable agriculture in Costa Rica. With his guidance we will follow sustainable practices in growing coffee using mainly biological controls and organic techniques.
We decided to plant 5 varieties of coffee in order to gain experience on what grows best at this location; Geisha, Caturra, Katuii, Pacamara and Tipica.
Our plans are to sell the coffee to guests and to process and roast the beans on site. We hope this will make a significant contribution to the operating costs of the site as well as provide an educational and agro tourism attraction for visitors.

We went to Boquete to a nursery to buy the coffee seedlings. Here we are loading them on our pick up truck. We made a two story rack on the truck and were able to fit 1000 seedlings on our first trip. We returned for the other 500 a couple days later.

Coffee tree nursery in Boquete

Transporting the seedlings to the site

This is a view facing south at Mount Totumas Cloud Forest. The site where we are planting the coffee is beyond the horses at the end of the pasture where the slope drops down

Here is the shaded slope where we are planting the coffee. This string represents the very first row at the top of the slope. We will plant Caturra variety here as this is the most compact variety and will handle best the occasional winds that may affect this area at the top of the slope.

Cloud forest immediately above the slope where we are planting the coffee

Mr. Clemente Vega training the staff on the proper planting of the coffee seedlings

Clemente applying Microsplag, a bacteria that is a soil innoculant that controls nematodes and other pests.

Planting the first row

Yours truly