Amazon 092 Chatty Report April-june 2009

092 GVI - 10 week end of-phase news letter 22nd June 2009

Staff Updates Karina Berg continues to function as the Ecuador Country Director, overseeing not only camp life but doing much hard work behind the scenes in Quito. Jon Escolar starts his second phase in the Field Manager position and staff members Andrew Whitworth and Matt Iles continue work at camp with their respective projects on amphibians and dung beetles. Intern from the last phase, Chris Beirne has now joined as a full time staff member after showing his expertise with amphibians, hard working nature and adeptness in a tropical field environment. New intern, Daniel Neilson, joined at the beginning of the phase who was a volunteer from the previous expedition. Daniel was offered the internship as a result of his relentless hard work and enthusiasm towards all aspects of research and life at camp. Hannah Urpeth also stayed on for a second ten week phase as an intern, working hard on the butterfly project and presentations in particular. Three weeks into the expedition a new staff member, Samantha Brimble, arrived and brought a wealth of enthusiasm and ideas to all aspects of research, TEFL teaching and local management plans and has already begun developing ideas for future GVI projects. Week One 9am in the hostel garden, a crew of excited volunteers gathered for their introduction. The admin sorted, they boarded their bus to Tena, a jungle town surrounded by stunning scenery. Torrential downpours didn’t dampen their spirits as they wined and dined at a good restaurant, followed by a few cocktails. After another bus ride, this time through dense jungle, a canoe then took them to GVI port. They climbed up numerous steps to their home for the next five or ten weeks. Learning the wildlife of the reserve occupied the next few days, with animated talks and slideshows on birds, mammals, tropical health, and Emergency First Response training (EFR), which proved very entertaining during the role playing scenarios. Machete training, vegetation mapping lectures, insect (not bug) talks were very informative, especially due to the enthusiasm of all the staff. The staff also managed to find time to take the volunteers out on walks, both during the day and at night, going to a variety of different trails and seeing an extraordinary amount of wildlife, some of which is rarely seen. The highlights were two mating frogs, a Glass Tree Frog, a Green striped vine Snake by Stream One, which came just ten minutes after two Blunt-headed Amazonian Tree Snakes. An Opossum and a Tailless Whip Scorpion, which climbed over everyone, were a few of the other numerous excitements of the week.

Everyone got along exceptionally well and evening entertainment for the whole week consisted in the exchange of funny stories, often about previous travels. With the camp running smoothly and the promise of a three beers on Saturday, spirits were very high! Week Two Satellite camps dominated the schedule for the weekdays on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Two staff and up to six volunteers trekked through the forest to a camp area, pitched hammocks, ate dinner around a fire with a cup of tea or coffee and then headed out for a night walk, returning the morning after. Due to some very poor weather the Monday and Wednesday camps weren’t met with unanimous enjoyment, but the Friday campers had perfect weather and headed up to the Laguna, primarily in search of caiman. After the weeks rain the paths were treacherously slippery, which did make it more fun, albeit slightly more dangerous as well. After 30 minutes of spotting spiders and scorpions, a great view of two caiman was the highlight of the walk. They were incredible and so quiet as they sat with their heads poking out of the water. The next morning called for half an hour of bird watching on a very nice spot looking over a valley in the jungle. From up on the ridge birds dotted the horizon and before they knew it the volunteers’ time was up. A short walk around the ‘Laguna’ later, they packed up their stuff and headed back to base camp through the ‘Green Inferno’ and the ‘Bloop’ trails, absolutely exhausted from the previous day’s excursions. The Saturday night excitement of that week was provided by an extremely difficult pub quiz. The winning team scored a massive 26 out of 51, but heavily competitive behaviour, generally from some of the staff members, meant that everyone had a very enjoyable time. Watching Andy and Jon getting increasingly frustrated with spelling mistakes and controversial answers, such as the Tour de France being the longest sporting event, was exceptionally funny! Sunday was the first chance to play the Ecuadorian students across the Rio Napo at the Yachana Colegio at football, but half an hour into the game, conveniently when they were winning 1-0 they had a lesson to start. GVI formed an a game amongst themselves, which was a lot more physical as there were less players and running around in the Amazon heat is not your average game of football! It was a great afternoon and the end to a brilliant week. Week Three Preparation for amphibian project continued this week. Groups of volunteers went out to Chris and Andy’s chosen locations and dug four holes spaced eight meters apart. It was really tough work but a bit of competition and peer encouragement made it a lot more fun! Bird and amphibian transects went out during the week to collect the data for the various projects set up by our staff members. Poor weather interrupted one bird transect but volunteers still found time to go out twice at a later date when the rain had cleared, but still with overcast conditions. It was surprisingly perfect weather for birding. Sadly this didn’t yield any spectacular birds, as slightly disappointed staff members returned to base having only seen as few as four birds in an hour and 1.2 km of roadside jungle.

Wednesday was largely preparation for a trip to Hector’s island, a monkey reserve set up by Hector Vargas three and a half years ago, now having collected nine of the eleven different species of monkeys that can be seen in the surrounding jungle. He obtained them predominantly from people who bought them from markets and decided that they no longer wanted them as pets. Week Four The start of the week saw the group return from Hector’s Island, all very tired with a boat load of washing to do. Whilst in Coca on their way back a few of the male volunteers decided to have interesting hair or facial hair cuts, resulting in some strange looks from others. Some invested in their own machete to use in the field now that they feel confident in wielding it, after being safely trained by the staff. The Ecuadorian elections meant that the local school in Puerto Rico was closed for the week so TEFL was postponed, much to the prospective teacher’s disappointment. But the science continued as normal. Dung beetling went out for the very first time with the aim to set out transects for future pitfalling efforts. Locations had to be precise so everyone got their compasses out. Paths were cleared in between the traps and seven of the nine traps were put in place before a steep drop away put a stop to number eight. The group had to search a little harder for a suitable location for the last two. Butterfly and amphibian surveys continued. Sweep netting for butterflies was enjoyed by all, catching a one in the net leaves a great sense of achievement. A wide variety of species were caught, ID’d and released. The amphibian pitfalls were proving tricky to place as natural obstructions blocked the digging process, but a bit of hard graft with spades, hoes and machetes led to success. Mist nets were set up and on Saturday afternoon a group went out to the upper ‘Bloop’ trail and waited patiently for half an hour. Two humming birds were caught, which were spectacular to see up close, as they usually whip past in a blink of an eye with barely time to see the intricate colouring or the beautiful gloss of their feathers. That session also saw a new addition to the species list (a total of 277 birds) a Pearly Antshrike. Everyone was very excited though as they are ordinarily very secretive. It was a stunning jet black bird with exceptionally dark eyes and white stripes on its wing and white circular spots on its tail feathers. The Saturday night, the last before the mid-phase break, saw a fantastic Camp Olympics competition, including an obstacle course with apple bobbing, passing a balloon down a line of people without using hands, eating buns suspended on string - no hands, eating chocolate whilst dressing up in an array of different clothes, and games that involved lowering a pencil (tied around your waste by a long piece of string) into an empty beer bottle. After these events the score were level at 3-3 so the decider was a good old fashioned English boat race – before one team finally came to glory! Sunday means only one thing in camp, beating the Ecuadorians at football! As yet this was not really a common theme, but the weather today suited GVI perfectly; torrential downpours meant that the locals couldn’t use their skill and speed as the pitch was now a muddy quagmire. Sliding tackles in the mud were unavoidable and GVI were victorious (and extremely muddy) 3-1, a historic day for GVI Amazon, it seems a long time since there had been glory on the pitch. In the evening one of the volunteers, Gayathri, treated everyone to a talk on environmental politics, which led to a heated discussion about the issues raised. It’s always interesting to hear everyone’s differing opinions about the environment. It was also surprising to see how varied the views were.

Week Five As the end of the five weeks drew to a close, a lot of optional walks and transects were planned. Monday morning saw a successful bird transect completed with an array of different bird species. TEFL continued and good progress was made towards the goal of writing a postcard to a school of children in the UK. It was extremely satisfying to see the improvement over the past five weeks. A combination of a fixed goal for the 10 weeks and perseverance by the volunteers has proved to have an impact on the children this half phase. Several long walks and a shorter walk were scheduled for the evening so with a packed dinner groups headed out to the ridge to eat dinner al fresco and then plunged into the stream for an exceptionally long stream walk. Plenty of spiders were spotted along with a few catfish in the water and fly catchers perched on hidden branches close to the river, asleep. The walk took the group through deep water and over some fallen trees and three and a half hours later they emerged up on to the ‘Bloop’ trail. Walking at night can be disorientating, but the full moon provided an amazing light for the return to base camp. Thursday morning, packed and ready to go, the group headed to Tena for their last meal together and then out for a night of drinking dancing and general merriment. They rocked the dance floor and enjoyed a night in a town for the first time in five weeks. The next morning volunteers went their separate ways, some to Quito with the staff and a others to the nearby town of Baños, a popular spot for travellers that sits at the foot of one of Ecuador’s volcanoes. Slightly higher up than the jungle lowlands, the temperature is less intense and much to the relief of many volunteers the mosquitoes and sand flies disappear. Week Six The ten weekers return to the GVI base camp after a long weekend break sad to be missing those that only stayed for five weeks, but excited at the prospect of five more action-packed jungle weeks, with the new volunteers. The week started with the final push to get the amphibian pitfalls ready to go. The last handful of baffles were dug in and then they were set to be opened! TEFL was a success, with the older class continuing with their progress towards the letter, while the younger class focused on a shorter task; to write postcards. Bird transects continued and the data collected would soon be enough to start analysing and comparing birds found between transect areas. On Saturday volunteers had different agendas, some went to the local market of Agua Santa, whilst others got stuck into some clearing of an old nursery area and land around it in the rainforest, in order to plant and grow some tree saplings as part of the Management Plan for the Yachana Reserve. A large pile of wood was found and had to be shifted in order to make space for the re-planting. The wood was supporting a huge variety of creatures, including Armoured Millipedes, Tailless Whip Scorpions, a large variety of spiders and even some lizards.

That evening there was the usual Saturday night fun – a game of human Cluedo was initiated, and the murders began, including one with a guitar in the smoking area. Week Seven The highlight was the grand opening of the amphibian pitfall traps! Andy, Chris, and Lizzie set out early Monday morning for the first day of checking, hoping that the back-breaking labour of the past five or so weeks had not been in vain. They returned Monday afternoon with an impressive data sheet: 20 frogs, a few lizards (including a Forest Whiptail), and an unidentified mammal. The success continued through the week, with each consecutive group of pitfall checkers recording high numbers of amphibians. There were also a few incidental catches of mammals and other creatures, including a Forest Crab that was prompted to pinch Hassan on his nose. Everyone at camp was ecstatic that all of the digging and baffle building of the first five weeks had been more than worthwhile, and had high hopes for similar results the following week. Some of the surveys had some unexpected disruptions this week, firstly a group were unpleasantly surprised by a local named Lucio who herded his cattle down once of the trails in the reserve. This is something that hopefully can be avoided in the future, by working more closely with the local communities and giving them a clearer understanding that the area is actually protected. Bull dozers and buses on the road disrupted the bird transects but even so some good sightings were had. The work on the Management Plan continued. Collaborating with Isaac, the local Ecuadorian who is implementing the Management Plan, a new trail was marked, additional portions of the boundary were cleared to act as a limit for the reserve. Some wood from an old farm house was cleared and transported to Yachana for re-use. The last major focus of this week, which was headed up by Hannah, Jon and Sam, was butterflies. They caught a significant number up on the Frontier trail, mostly through their incredible sweepnetting skills. They also laid the foundations for a new butterfly transect on the Buena Vista Trail, which Sam plans on using in the future to compare the species richness and diversity between disturbed and undisturbed forest. Week Eight Monday morning saw more pitfall checks which uncovered a caecilian in one of the traps. There were two amphibian transects this week, the highlight of one an amazing encounter with a juvenile Bluntheaded Tree Snake. Two butterfly transects also took place, the highlight of these was the successful sweep netting of the enrapturing and captivating Morpho – this early incidental catch was the signal of a successful day butterflying ahead. Many Satyrinae, ymphalidae, Ithominae and Charaxinae were caught using both the sweep nets and canopy nets.

Other survey work included more boundary marking for Yachana’s Management Plan, making use of their machetes that were bought earlier in the phase in Coca. There were some grid transects laid out for the dung beetle project set up as well, so all volunteers were kept busy in different projects. A couple more volunteers kept everyone entertained with evening ‘talks’ on a subject of interest to them. They are always entertaining and interesting and everybody gets a chance to broaden their knowledge or get their point of view across. A keen group headed out on a satellite camp on Friday for ‘Laguna’ site, with the hope of seeing caiman. After setting up the jungle hammocks, there was a spot of bird watching, which yielded some White-throated Toucans and a White Hawk. After dinner the volunteers headed out on their night walk around the ‘Laguna’. This revealed no less than 15 Phylomedusa vaillantis along with a Hypsiboas calcarta. The sat campers returned to camp Saturday afternoon ready for the weekend celebrations, the theme for this week was a super villain’s fancy dress party – the group pulled out all the stops for their costumes with very limited resources - there were parasitic wasps, Sweeney Todd, Acid Rain, Master of Mischief along with various jungle killers and a ninja. Fun and games included action Chinese Whispers all wrapped up with another game of jungle twister. An excellent end to another action packed week in the jungle. Week %ine The group kicked off the start of the week celebrating Lucy’s 19th birthday. She had a great jungle birthday and caught her first birthday frog on the night walk. Other froggers found a selection of Phyllomedusa sp, nigrovittatus, peruvianus and the trusty ockendeni and bilinguis. The beginning of the week was spent closing the pitfalls, mist netting, carrying out bird and amphibian transects and butterfly surveys, as everyone worked hard collecting as much data as possible. They were treated to sightings of the illusive Kinkajou, a pair of Golden-collared Toucanets and a Purple-throated Fruit Crow. On Thursday morning, the group caught the ridiculous o’clock bus to Coca where they were met by Hector Vargas again to begin their adventure in Yasuní National Park. After a three hour boat ride down the river, taking in the scenery and bird life they arrived at their home for the next three days. Jungle hammocks and tents, along with a kitchen were set up overlooking the picturesque views of the Rio Napo. The first full day in Yasuní, Hector took the volunteers to the clay licks where they witnessed the spectacular Cobaltwinged Parakeets chomping on the mineral rich clay, along with a rainbow coloured show of tanagers. They had amazing views of a couple of Scarlet Macaws. Over the weekend Hector led the group on a few treks, whilst sharing his jungle wisdom and showing them his tricks of the trade. Some stunning toucan calls were heard, climbing trees with vines on your feet and pointing out plants that are used for shampoo, jewellery and face wash. He also took them on

some spectacular boat rides around the river waterways, providing perfect bird watching opportunities as well as taking in the sights and sounds of Yasuní. Everyone dabbled in piranha fishing, unfortunately yielding no results, this was followed by a relaxing evening on a private sand beach to watch the sunset over the jungle. A stunning weekend of location and wildlife and Cocoi Heron, Green Kingfisher, Crested Owls, Yellow-headed Caracaras, a whole host of tanagers and the Umbrella Bird were all happily added to the volunteers’ bird lists. Week 10 With everyone exceptionally tired and a lot of cleaning up around camp to do, only dung beetlers went out on the Monday morning; up to ‘Cacao Grove’ and ‘Columbia’ in search of possible transect locations. As is tradition at the end of the expedition a freestyle birding session went out for some last chance viewing of the more spectacular road side birds. A whole host of birds showed themselves, a male and female Gilded Barbet and Lettered Aracari were among the highlights, along with copious numbers of puff birds. Two amphibian transects went out in the evening. An Edalorhina perezi was spotted by our Ecuadorian graduate Mauro. An Osteocephalus planiceps was also found, a tree frog which is always exciting to see as they’re arboreal and therefore normally hidden away high up in the trees. The final TEFL group went to Puerto Rico on Tuesday morning for one last lesson before the end of the phase. It’s been a successful phase with those children and all have produced a little letter to send back to some children in the UK. Volunteers were getting the most out of their last few days in the Yachana reserve, with long walks and visiting the manakin leks that have been spotted in the reserve The final two night walks departed from base camp, one embarking on a very long stream walk and the other stretching the entire length of the ‘Bloop’ trail. Both had an amazing send off by the rainforest with spectacular sightings; highlights being a tree boa by one of the streams and a monster Smoky Jungle Frog. Those on the stream walk saw frog spawn hatching into tadpoles and falling from their leaf into a temporary swamp on ‘Inca’ trail. Love seemed to be in the air, as three sets of mating animals within 15 minutes of each other were spotted. They might have been slightly embarrassed by all the onlookers taking photos. The forest group emerged at the entrance of lower ‘Bloop’ having spotted the others walking down the road, they decided to try and scare the other group, so crouched in the dark of the forest, Chris impersonated a macaw(!) the response to this was “I think that’s a Beirne”(Chris’ surname), so not the scare that was hoped for. Everyone returned to base extremely tired but thoroughly pleased with the last night time excursion into the forest; a wonderful way to end the ten weeks.

Science updates Dung beetles Matt Iles has begun marking out sites around the reserve for dung beetle pitfall traps, which will allow comparisons of different habitat types around the reserve and look closely at the species compositions within them. Amphibians Chris Beirne, Andrew Whitworth and Dan Neilson, along with the volunteers have focussed on installing 12 pitfall sites in varying habitats around the reserve for amphibians and reptiles, as well as marking out transects for visual encounter surveys. These combined methods will allow a comparison of terrestrial and some arboreal species of amphibians at different sites around the Yachana Reserve with the aim of looking at species compositions in different habitat types. Birds Jon Escolar has been heading up a new bird study looking at what bird species are found along the road that cuts through the reserve and is looking at developing a map of where particular species can be found. Mist netting has continued to get a clearer picture of the birds that can be found inside the rainforest (as opposed to the roadside and canopy dwellers). Butterflies A new butterfly project began this phase headed by Hannah Urpeth and Jon Escolar. The project began with looking at species composition in the rainforest, at varying distances from the road along one of the well used trails within the reserve. The project will be developed by Samantha Brimble during the following expedition phases.