First Impressions

View from a trail at Yanayacu.

These were some of my first impressions of the rain/cloud forest surrounding the Yanayacu biological station.

- Plants on top of plants on top of plants! Epiphytes everywhere. It felt like such a classic "rain forest" that someone would paint or draw. Large leaves, pretty flowers, ferns and mosses dangling from tree branches.

- Noisy birds. So many ridiculous sounds, all the time. Somehow I expected things to be quieter, that real life wouldn't sound like the background of a nature documentary. But all day long we heard whooping and calling and whistling, really exotic sounds. The student accompanying me was more into birdwatching and was able to identify a few, but I was pretty much lost.

- Wasps everywhere, and very pretty. Brachonids and ichneumonids seemed to be perched on every plant, flitting their metallic wings over their colorful bodies. No wonder they study parasitism at the station! There was also a series of nests dug by tarantula hawk wasps, which busily buzzed around the hiking path.

- While I'm at it, there were beetles and bugs and butterflies and flies everywhere, too. Insect diversity was unbelievable, I had no idea I'd be seeing a different colorful interesting insect on nearly every leaf I walked past. It made it difficult to get anywhere, really, because I kept having to stop to look at something. I sure took a lot of photos!

- Thunder and rain and clouds and rainbows. The sky was always in turmoil and always beautiful.

It is going to be difficult to choose which things to share here, I have enough material to write for months I'm sure! If you'd like a sneak peak at my photos, you can check out my Flickr page.