Mount Totumas Cloud Forest

Resplendent Quetzals are very common here during the nesting season. Their courtship is vocal and these usually shy birds will congregate in groups of up to 6 during their active courtship which starts in February and extends until nesting pairs will start incubation once the rainy season starts. In 2011 and 2012 this was the beginning of May. This year active nesting was delayed until end of May and into the beginning of June since the rainy season arrived late this year.

These birds are part of the landscape and on any given day you will hear a male call and take off vertically up to 100 feet into the sky to then arch down while calling back into the canopy of the forest. As in the past two years we have a nesting pair that has chosen a nest site within 50 meters of our cabins and homestead. With so much pristine habitat available we can’t help but wonder why they choose to nest so close to our lodgings.

One valley over from Mount Totumas Cloud Forest is the town of Volcan, named by the dominant geological feature in Western Panama, Volcan Baru at 3400m, the highest elevation in Panama.

After almost 5 years here in Panama we finally had the opportunity, thanks to the invitation of local mountaineer and bird guide, Gonzalo Chaiy Aizpurua, to join his family on a climb to the summit.

Starting at 5 AM in the dark with flashlights we started the ascent, passing through 5 different life zones until arriving at the peak 6 hours later.

Maguey agaves accent the grassy lower lava fields

These orange flowers are from a parasitic mistletoe that grows on the trees.

One of the last trees at over 3000m where the elfin forest transitions to Paramo grasslands.

yours truely

All the señoritas at the peak.

Finding members of the heath family (Ericaceae) in the paramo habitat above 3000m reminds you of alpine habitat in the Canadian Rockies. I was thinking, where are the blueberries?

One of the highlights of the day was watching a beautiful Fiery-Throated Hummingbird feeding on this tubular flower. The Volcano Hummingbird was also seen that is mainly only found on Volcan Baru and is common on the restricted habitat of the Paramo mainly above 3000m. Other Paramo specialties seen were the Volcano Junco and Sooty Thrush.

This fern was restricted to the highest elevations at 3400m and was thick and succulent.

Head down, drooping shoulders, short of oxygen, step at a time in mild delirium!

What lilly is this? Is it even a lilly? Any ideas?

Steep upper slopes approaching the peak.

Indian Paintbrush, those North American hikers will surely recognize this flower. Another old friend met on the trail.

Annette with Volcan in the background

Indian Paintbrush

Lyra, our daughter

And her mom, Alma

Solomon Seal relative, now we are in the Appalachians? This was in the slower slopes in rich forest habitat.

Terrestial Orchid

Forest scene with Clusia sp. tree in the foreground.

Gonzalo Chaiy Aizpurua, a local bird guide from Volcan, visited Mount Totumas with his family on Saturday May 26th. He parked his car in the lower pastures and hiked up to the cabins where he greeted me excitedly having just shot an image through his spotting scope of the Fiery-Billed Aracari, an uncommon bird here in Western Panama and a first for Mount Totumas Cloud Forest. This individual drifted up from lower down the valley where rarely they are spotted along the road.

A great addition to our bird list.

Chaiy ended up inviting our family to join them climbing Volcan Baru on Sunday May 27th which we did. It was a great hike up to the peak with perfect weather. Stay tuned for the next blog entry on photos of this memorable hike.

Mountain lions are common in these forests. Their tracks are often seen in the mud at streamside. Jaguars are here too, wandering in from La Amistad National Park. My neighbor Mr. Romulo Vega lost two young calves the past 10 days, this following another neighbor having lost three further down the valley. Locals refer to the Mountain lion as leon and the jaguar as the tigre. Mr. Vega has homesteaded his small farm with cattle since he started clearing his land in 1960. In 53 years he has lost 48 calves to Jaguars and mountain lions.
The chances of seeing these cats are slim. Knowing you are sharing the trails and forest with them is enough to feel their presence. We might not see them but they most likely do see us.
When powerful top predators are sharing the same forest with you this adds a distinct feel to a place where you tread with more humility.
Knowing the tigre and leon are here and not seeing them makes them in many ways more present. The result is that a deeper sense of wilderness is felt with every howler monkey heard and every quetzal, bellbird and guan seen.

We have highlighted the Lichen Katydid before. This is such a cool insect, reminds me of those camouflaged shrimp you see on coral reefs.

The usual experience with Three Wattled Bellbirds here is that you will be right under a tree getting blasted by their super loud bonk call and crane your neck and fail to spot the bird. About a week ago we found a young adult male calling about 30 feet high up a tree on a small bare branch in the subcanopy and lucky enough there was an unobstructed view from a spot at the base of a nearby oak tree. Almost like a lek which it might be, the male was faithful to this spot and was visited by other bellbirds, in the video footage one was another adult male and the other was either a female or a juvenile male (immature males have the same yellow green plumage as the females).

This young adult male bellbird still has spots of dull dirty green plumage mixed in with the adult brown and white plumage. You can compare him with the “cleaner” older male on the video.

Males can be heard calling from up to a half a mile during breeding season along a narrow band of elevation here at Mount Totumas from roughly between 1900m – 2000m. This site was only a 10 minute walk from the homestead so the video is a composite of about 4 visits to the base of that old oak tree, setting up the spotting scope and holding a point and shoot camera up to the eyepiece.

Terry Stoddard was very kind to send some photos of variations in specimens of Copaxa syntheratoides and rufinans that he collected last summer during his visit to Mount Totumas Cloud Forest. Thank You Terry!

Every assent to the top of Mount Totumas yields surprises. Our most recent trip in January was no exception. This beautiful terrestial orchid was in full bloom at 2630m above sea level.

Magnificent Hummingbird

Truck in service, construction crew sent home, a few days of simplicity. Time during the last couple of afternoons to photograph the hummingbirds on the deck. The sun from 3-5pm is low enough on the western horizon to light up the deck at just the right angle. These photos were taken through a Leica APO 62 spotting scope while hand holding a Lumix DMC-Z19 point and shoot camera.

Green Crowned Brilliant (male)

Green Crowned Brilliant (female)

Snowy Bellied Hummingbird

Snowy Bellied Hummingbird

White Throated Mountain Gem (male)

White Throated Mountain Gem (male)

White Throated Mountain Gem (female)

Green Violet Ear (male)

Snowy Bellied Hummingbird

Violet Sabrewing (female)

Violet Sabrewing (male)

Magnificent Hummingbird (pollen on bill)

White Throated Mountain Gem (male)

Magnificent Hummingbird

Scintillant Hummingbird (top) and Magenta Throated Woodstar (bottom)

Taking a moment to reflect back on the past year, here is summary of progress made in our infrastructure with some preliminary information on what’s in store for 2013.

Guest Accommodations

We finished our first cabin in July 2012 just in time for the arrival of back to back entomology groups who christened the cabin setting up their lights on the deck. This cabin is a milestone since we can now offer guests exclusive accommodations. Prior to this visitors shared rooms with us in The Homestead. We can now accommodate up to 14 guests at The Homestead and The Cabin. Images of The Cabin on our website or on the photo gallery here

MTCF Cabin 1

In 2012 we also put a new roof on The Homestead. The previous roof was a fibrous cement product that created new micro fractures as fast as we patched it up. We got tired of placing up to 10 pots around the homestead under the drips falling from the ceiling.

The last large construction planned, the common area lodge out on the lookout point, will start in 2013. During 2012 a backhoe leveled out this area and we brought power and water to the site. We are now ready to start the foundation work. Here is a drawing of the planned structure.

It will have five bedrooms (3 with private bath and two with shared bath) a 2nd floor loft with private dormer balcony, a wrap around deck, viewing platform, large kitchen, dining room and living room. When the lodge is complete we will max out our occupancy to 24 guests with the new lodge, cabin and homestead. Here is the site of the new lodge

Hydro Power

Our micro hydro system was greatly improved in 2012 on several fronts. A load controller was added to manage the distribution of power.

We now have a steady 6kw of power with stable 220V / 60hz. Here is a brief description how this works. The turbine is fully open and the generator is producing a constant 6kw. Power not being used at any given moment is being dumped into a 6000 liter concrete storage tank. Here it is with yours truly having a hot soak.

Eight 1500W heating elements heat the water in the tank.

The load controller distributes the power constantly between the load we are drawing running our project (lights, machines and appliances) and the dump load where unused power heats water in the tank. This insures steady voltage and frequency 110-240V/60Hz to the whole project.

The water intake was also improved in 2012 with the construction of a holding tank fed by five 4inch PVC pipes to capture and filter the required amount of water from the stream.

Previously the penstock (8 inch PVC pipe) was laying directly in the stream with a reservoir made of bags of sand. Flash flooding after heavy rains was washing away the sandbags and leaves were constantly clogging up the intake. This new intake tank requires almost no maintenance.

The last improvement on our hydro was to add cement columns to support the 8 inch PVC pipe in areas where the slope of the land required us to raise the pipe off the ground. We have 35 meters of drop from the intake to the turbine. We also removed dead timber during the entire 200m section that was a threat of falling on the pipe.

Our hydro system is the nucleus of our project and we are making all the efforts possible that this is stable and secure. Our generator has an operating lifespan of 80,000 hours. We calculate that it has already past the 50,000 hour mark. We plan in 2013 to secure an additional generator and keep the existing one as a backup.

Water

Our common area lodge will be higher than the current intake of our water source for the project. This required us to choose a higher location on the property to insure enough water pressure for the new lodge and all the structures. We were fortunate to locate a spring about 125 meters from the current intake and we had this water tested at a laboratory in David and it came back 99% pure. This is a great improvement over our previous water intake which was the same stream that feeds our hydro system.

Once we cleared the area of the spring we laid a 5 gallon bucket down on its side and poured a small amount of cement to create a dam. A 1 inch pipe exits from the 5 gallon bucket and travels 50 meters to a level area where we built a 6000 liter concrete holding tank.

The volume of this holding tank will insure enough water for the project even at full occupancy. In late spring at the height of the dry season the flow of the spring is lower but still steady to keep the holding tank full. The one downside is that the holding tank looks pretty stark on the hillside with Mount Totumas as a back drop. We need an artist volunteer or a school group up here during 2013 to paint a mural!

Employee Cabin

We constructed an employee cabin in 2012 to house the construction staff until the common area lodge is complete when our caretaker Reynaldo and his family will move into this new space. It is the first structure you see as you approach the common area of the project. 6 bunk beds, kitchen, bathroom, and best of all, there is local television reception for the work crew to entertain themselves at night. This is a make or break feature in convincing employees to come all the way up this isolated valley and work Monday – Friday away from their families.

Internet

Our internet service was improved in 2012. Our microwave antennae received a weak signal from the microwave towers in the valley during 2010 – 2011 with spotty service. Internet Activa, our internet provider, installed our own dedicated antennae on their microwave tower in the valley with point to point service to our onsite antennae. We now have an excellent reliable internet connection. Netflix movies anyone? Skype calls work great. We can also temporarily order more bandwidth from the provider if we have larger groups requiring internet.

Workshop

A secure storage room and expanded workshop area was constructed in 2012 out of aluminum framing and cement blocks. This space is currently being used to cure the timber harvested on site that will be used for construction of the common area lodge. The secure storage room is used to store all our construction tools and machines. This workshop would make an ideal ecology lab space for educational purposes once the construction is complete.

Roadwork
In 2012 ditches were dug and concrete pipes added with the help of a backhoe to improve drainage on our 2km private road. In addition road improvements were completed out to the construction site of the new common area lodge

Timber

In 2012 we got permits from ANAM to harvest 2 oaks, 8 pines and 4 bambito trees. About 8000 board feet of timber was processed by our chain saw alchemist Mr. Noe and is now curing in our new workshop. This timber will be used for construction of our common area lodge.

That’s about it. Come on up and check it out.