“…But Balsa is like a weed…”

Tags

balsa, balsa industry, deforestation, kinkajou, ochroma, wind turbines

Healthy young balsa soaring to the skies.

Balsa’s fluffy ‘kapok’

Male becard with Balsa fluff for nest.

Female becard with Balsa fluff for nest.

Pale-legged Hornero (Pacific) nest in balsa tree.

How valuable is the balsa tree to nature?  Should I allow the continued felling of these trees (for the wind-turbine industry) to bother me?  Many people shrug and say, “Balsa is like a weed, it grows back fast.”

Yes, but —

Today I will smile and delegate the defense of balsas to National Geographic:

I will always treasure the first time I saw a kinkajou raiding a balsa of its nectar – a memory that will last ‘a lifetime.’

This kinkajou was raiding a Jackfruit tree at Poza Honda during October Big Weekend 2021.

What is the threshold?  How much is too much before the flora and fauna struggle to survive?

National Geographic’s story about the Balsa research in Panama can be found here:  Open all Night.

Sometimes photos become a much-needed spokesperson for the balsas.

Squirrel Cuckoo in Balsa

Golden Olive Woodpecker in Balsa

Buff-throated Saltator in Balsa

Squirrel Cuckoo in Balsa

Gray-lined Hawk in Balsa

Black Vultures, Cissus Vine and Balsa

Bananaquit in Balsa

“Lisa’s Friend the Balsa”  -I always wondered, “What made that hole?

“Lisa’s Friendship Tree, the Balsa” with Cissus (Grape family) vine.

“Lisa’s Friendship Tree, the Balsa,” felled then discarded.

“Lisa’s Friendship Tree, the Balsa”

The tree became the poster child for the show in 2019, and the present exposition (Step into my World) at Museo Portoviejo.

“The Muir Tree” and the balsa fragments.

“The Friendship Tree of Life” (Acrylic)

The Groove-billed Anis (below) inspected the felled balsas in the not-so-protected protected forest of Poza Honda.

Poza Honda Ecuador

Comrades of the Friendship Tree of Life.

Do trees bleed?  This one did.

How healthy is ‘Green Energy’ if it desecrates a vanishing ecosystem?

How healthy is all of that smoke?

Piece by piece, more fragmentation, like whittling away patches of skin.

My friend the balsa.

Poza Honda Ecuador

Internet search:  “How many balsa trees are used to make one wind turbine?”

I did not expect to get instant answers.

A few minutes before that search began, an article mentioned Green Energy, which raised my hackles when I read, “…Earth’s electricity needs could be met 11 times over if we filled our oceans with wind turbines…”

“Fill our oceans with wind turbines?”                                                                  At the cost of deforesting Ecuador and other areas of the Neotropics?

(Lisa’s eyes have never been so wide!)

Between Tosagua and Bahia de Caraquez/Ecuador

My search for data about wind turbine construction sailed me straight to recently published articles about this ‘green energy’ affecting Ecuador.

A new site to me – ‘Open Democracy’ – asked in a story published today, “What has the destruction of balsa trees in the Amazon rainforest got to do with the wind power industry in Europe?

Sadly, more than you think.“

That story is here:  A green paradox: Deforesting the Amazon for wind energy in the Global North

I sometimes refer to an expanding group of concerned people as the ‘Davids’ who are building strength against the Goliaths of the planet.

Giovanni Ruiz doesn’t wait for an event, he picks up trash when he sees it.

Another recent story in Spanish from el Pais:

https://elpais.com/planeta-futuro/2021-11-24/los-molinos-de-viento-deforestan-el-amazonas.html?ssm=TW_CC

And one more story of interest from January 2021 breaks down the details.  Wind-watch.org shares the story from the Economist.  A worrying windfall – The wind-power boom set off a scramble for balsa wood in Ecuador 

The open Democracy video, is well worth the time to learn more about the dilemma:

As the midnight hour approaches, I hold you all in my heart.  Thank you for caring and for your empathy.  The earth thanks you.  The balsas thank you. The kinkajous thank you as well.

Lets all be quiet now so that the Kinkajous can dine in peace!

Goodnight, Kinkajou!  Goodnight, World.

Thank you, Birdwatching Magazine!

Tags

Birdwatching Magazine, brown wood rail, Ecuador, Poza Honda

The story about the Brown Wood Rail is now available on BirdwatchingDaily. Thank you, Birdwatching Magazine!

Ready, set…..

Leap!

I was drawing and looked up to see the wood rail approaching the water!

2019 – Two Brown Wood Rails allowing a rare private viewing of behavior.

Thanks also to those of you who shared tips on working around the new Block Editor. (The ‘Add Link’ does not seem like an improvement either!)

Some people have adapted and show us by example that adaptation works – but is there anyone who absolutely loves the new Block and prefers it over Classic?

See the story about the Brown Wood Rails here: BirdWatchingDaily.

https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/locations-travel/featured-destinations/encounters-brown-wood-rail-ecuador/

Ecuador’s Independence-Day Weekend – a Short Outing to the Park

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Aug 10 Ecuador Independence, Birds at Parque Las Vegas Portoviejo Ecuador

Portoviejo Ecuador – August 8/2020   Strong afternoon light provided an easy excuse for a stroll to Parque las Vegas after five this afternoon. Several blocks before the park, a dozen street cats posed for a portrait session. A dear older lady feeds those cats – and five times as many pigeons each afternoon. Her kindness warms my heart.

The earthquake-damaged city of Portoviejo slowly rebuilds.

 

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With many more restaurants now open for business, the well-fed iguanas need no more special attention at the petite park across from the museum. Still closed to the public, this small park offers established plantings, a gazebo and small fountains, and an alamanda-draped pergola.

From June 2020

 

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The Plumeria and Royal Poinciana trees’ flowers caught my attention, though my goal was the larger park – surely busy on this Independence weekend.  (August 10 is the official date.)     Keeping my camera tucked inside my bag, I observed various small groups enjoying an outing in the park.

March 21,2020 – empty exercise lanes in park

A lone man sold inexpensive kites at the intersection beside the park, and several people flew their kites from the amphitheater’s highest point. A gaggle (!)of young boys pedaled their bicycles along the exercise lanes at full throttle; each one wore the socially-responsible face coverings. I considered pulling out my camera but decided to take my own visual snapshots to imprint that scene to long-term memory.

Today the water hyacinths claimed someone’s ball!

Two more youngsters kicked a soccer ball across a vast expanse of concrete.  Already built like a long-distance runner, one agile child sported official soccer attire, knee-high ‘stretchy’ athletic socks and serious black running shoes. About six or seven years old, he illustrated a seriousness about his sport. I wondered if he would one day become a world-famous soccer player!

 

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The late-afternoon sun provided dramatic light for admiring and photographing the various species. The Neotropic Cormorant, Striated Heron and Purple Gallinules competed with the lone turtle for my attention.

Content after half an hour of communing with the aquatic residents, I began my return trip.

A ground-level picnic caught my attention, and I glanced in that direction. Four women. Fresh flowers. A white china tea pot. A straw mat. Already passing them, I paused and asked permission to photograph them.  They invited me closer.

 

I asked if they were celebrating Independence Day? (No…) or a birthday? (No… We live nearby and are just out… We do this often…)  We talked briefly about the earthquake – still imprinted on the people of Manabi.   I commented on the flowers and the beauty of their setting.   One lady pointed to another and said, ‘My sister gets credit.’

They all get credit, as each person contributed her own serenity and natural beauty to their outing.

“You are all artists!” I said to them and motioned to the flowers, the mat, the easy and natural style of their entire setting. “You have provided a gift to my heart and to my soul,” I thanked them again and left them in peace.

Not planning to be out tonight for internet, the finale with those four beautiful women prompted me to go home, write this, process the photos and share them with all of you.

Hopefully their little tea party has warmed your hearts as much as it did mine!  I’ll end with a fun closing – the selfie while walking down the hall… It too made me chuckle!

Still doing well, gracias a-Dios!

Happy Independence Day to everyone in Ecuador!

Lisa

 

SHHHH! Bird Specialists in Training!

Tags

Birding |Manabi Province, Ecuador Christmas Bird Count Manabi, poza honda ecuador

SHHHH! Bird Specialists in Training! (Part One)

(Poza Honda Reservoir – Manabi Province, Ecuador)    Just past ten in the morning, our birding party of three peered beyond the rustic bamboo corral in hopes of identifying the raucous oropendolas that had been playing hide and seek with us for the past two hours.  Luis Saltos – bird guide from Chone and Mindo – and I were guests of “Don Jorge” Arnet, owner of a lovingly-tended tract of land at Poza Honda.  (Jorge also owns the house that I rented for the past two years before I moved to Portoviejo.)  The three of us were conducting an all-day census of bird species in the area with hopes of the area being approved for Audubon’s 2020 Christmas Count.  We had been birding since 6 A.M. in intermittent drizzle.

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A few hours earlier that morning, two birds buzzed us, and we exclaimed, “What was THAT?” as I snapped two out-of-focus images of the rapidly-vanishing birds. “Oropendola?” I looked at Luis for confirmation. “That whooshing sound?”

Left: “Jorge” Arnet, owner of Casa Poza Honda and coffee/cacao farm; Right: Luis Saltos, bird guide from Mindo and Chone.

We consulted several books and hoped to see those birds again.   The (McMullan/Navarrete) Fieldbook for the Birds of Ecuador places all species of oropendolas in other areas of the country. This particular elusive group of birds must have taken a holiday vacation to Poza Honda, and we were trying to decide, “Russet-backed or Chestnut-headed.”  Two years ago my friend Xiomara and I saw and photographed one Chestnut headed Oropendola, so my bets were on that species. Photos are oh so important in documenting out-of-range species, even if the photo is a bad one.

I waited at the next curve and watched Oropendolas fly towards my friends. “Did you see them?” I exclaimed later, “Yes!” they replied, “Lots!”

There were fleeting glimpses of ‘a lot’ half an hour later – then another viewing half an hour later near the bamboo corral. The Oropendolas were out of sight, but my drizzle-baptized camera managed to document one Rufous-headed Chachalaca in the distance, one Tropical Gnatcatcher way up high, and a Long-billed Hermit inspecting flowers along the living fence.

‘Don’t forget about me,’ says the Golden-olive Woodpecker!

States the mule: “A year ago there was one lone human staring at the birds. Now there are four!”

The last thing I expected to see was another human on the seldom-traveled road and staring at the three of us. A tall, lean and well-scrubbed young man, he wore an expression of curiosity as if observing Santa Clause placing last-minute gifts beneath a tree – or gnomes and fairies in another realm.

And I Cried

Tags

Ecuadorian poetry, Ivo Uquillas, portoviejo ecuador

boceto – Poesia/Ivo Uquillas – ©2017

Portoviejo/Manabi Province/Ecuador

My friend Alexandra Cevallos Castro recently sent an email, “Lisa… Ivo will be reading his poetry and I’d like to invite you to attend…” – – – and I certainly attended!

Alexandra Cevallos Castro

Alexandra and Ivo Uquillos have known each other/have been friends forever;  we met in 2012 when they graciously supported the opening/inauguration of The Mola Series. Ivo and Alexandra also presided over the opening of “Lisa Brunetti – A Journey” which opened last November in the same Museo Portoviejo.

Between those two events, all three of us have dealt with personal challenges, including the 7.8 earthquake’s collective imprint on our psyches. (April 2016)   I experienced the earthquake from a barely-safe distance in Mindo’s cloudforest, while Alexandra and Ivo witnessed their beloved city of Portoviejo fragmented into crumbles. The people – numbed and trapped in raw emotions of angst, fear, worry and sorrow – often struggle to reclaim a sense of peace, and the trauma is often branded deep into their souls.

Just this past week while I was walking to the market, two ladies stopped me and asked, ‘Where are you from?” and then asked, “Where were you when the earthquake hit?”

When they learned that I was from Jama, their faces sobered. I quickly changed the topic to a slightly-lighter one, that of the dengue/chikungunya epidemic, as many people in this province now identify with chikungunya’s lingering side effects. We swapped stories of cramped hands and crippling gaits, which are often amusing to replicate when one is no longer suffering.   Epidemics and natural disasters often unite people – even years later.

Another friend recently shared greater depth into his own personal hell of the night of the earthquake.  Numbness provides a buffer, and it might take years to process trapped emotions and view them with neutral vision. Sometimes there are no words, no artful ways to deal with emotional trauma, and with time or with a patient listener, we open those windows that we slammed so tightly shut, and we release the pain. Slowly the inner burdens, observations – and sometimes guilt – are acknowledged and eventually released.

Near Rio Jama/Ecuador – The locals and the birds in the canals and ponds kept me entertained!

Almost each week in the six or so years before the earthquake, I walked from Casa Loca (at the last bend of Rio Jama) into town along the same predictable route. I often paused to say Hello to friends at the edge of Jama, and the second stop was to greet friends Chana and Arturo at their small tienda near the center of town. If I bypassed their corner, Arturo might spot me when he rode his bicycle through town. No scolding was needed – Ecuadorians have a talent for speaking without words! My final stop before leaving town would almost always be my friends’ tienda, and I often pulled up a stool and sat for ten minutes or half an hour – depending on the demands of that day. I departed either on foot or via mototaxi, also depending on how many purchases I carried home.

When friends wrote to say that my own beloved town of Jama had been devastated by the earthquake, I made several ‘remote’ imaginary walks through that town. When I ventured near the corner of the tienda, I sensed a great loss. “Chana? — Arturo?” Flitting between the two options, I felt a stronger loss regarding Chana. Each time I did that exercise, I sensed that someone had died there, most likely Chana. Moving on to the center of town, I also paused when I pondered ‘Rosa’ the matriarch who presided over the area facing the park. Several other areas prompted me to pause and ponder, but concerns about Chana and Rosa were the strongest.

I was not surprised when friends wrote to say they were sorry to pass along news of both women’s deaths. My premonitions prepped me and helped to soften the news. Months later I spent several hours at the cemetery and paused at many new graves, including my friends.’ After I left Rosa’s site – lovingly planted with new roses, two Burrowing Owls escorted me out of the cemetery. Coincidence? Naming them Chana and Rosa, I smiled at the thought of my friends watching over those who loved them.

Chanita and Rosita, the guardians of the cemetery.

During October’s (2019) recent protests, I walked the almost-empty streets of Portoviejo. It seemed quite eerie that most businesses were closed, that people were home and unsure about venturing out, that the corner tiendas offered not even a banana for sale – while the absence of traffic sounds and absence of people imprinted on the gringita’s psyche. It was like walking through a ghost city, yet the policemen held silent vigils at strategic points.

Perhaps that is why I cried when Ivo’s words captured my own emotions, of another who walks the streets and ponders the silent trauma of the masses. His poem captures universal grief and concern, especially following a disaster.

Ivo Uquillas

With Ivo’s permission, I share one of the poems from page 15 of his book ‘boceto’ – translated by Alexandra Cevallos Castro. He wrote this after the earthquake, when – unable to sleep – he walked the streets of Portoviejo each night. (Ivo’s original Spanish version follows the English one.)

EMPTY SPACE
Empty space, no one in the streets,
Face of abandoned cemetery.
City covered by loneliness
No one goes in, no one goes out,
No one goes up, no one goes down.
No one sits outdoors
To see no one pass by,
No one gives out hugs,
No one lives
No one is in the spaces,
No one thinks, no one talks,
No one buys, no one sells
No one gives credit, no one steals,
No one is silent, no one sings,
No one shouts, no one walks,
No one chases, no one runs away,
No one dies,
No one passes by, no one goes away,
No one plays anything
No one cries,
No one moves anything,
No one opens doors, no one laughs,
No one writes love letters,
No one leaves traces in the void.
No one is there,
No one says goodbye,
No one.

ESPACIO VACIO
Espacio vacio, calles sin nadie,
rostro de cementerio abandonado
ciudad cubierta de soledades
nadie entra, nadie sale,
nadie sube, nadie baja,
nadie se sienta afuera,
a ver pasr a nadie,
nadie reparte abrazos,
nadie habita en los espacios,
nadie piensa, nadie habla,
nadie compra, nadie vende,
nadie fia, nadie roba,
nadie hace silencia, nadie canta,
nadie grita, nadie camina,
nadie persigue, nadie huye,
nadie muere,
nadie va, nadie se va,
nadie juega a nada,
nadie llora,
nadie mueve nada,
nadie abre puertas, nadie rie,
nadie escribe cartas de amor,
nadie deja huellas en el vacio,

Nadie esta ahi,
nadie dice adios,
nadie.
………

…and yes, I cried.

Water Runs Downhill

Tags

Lluvia 2019 Ecuador, poza honda ecuador

 

March 08, 2019 – Currents of strong water over the Poza Honda dam. The water reached the 108 mark yesterday.

Poza Honda/Manabi/Ecuador —   With a meter of water over the dam, four inches of rainfall sent Poza Honda’s waters rising another meter.  Not only did Wednesday night’s rainfall send floodwaters downstream, it also sent another mass of water hyacinths downriver as well.

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Several landslides blocked the road on the  far side of the dam, but that was a very minor annoyance compared to what the folks downriver are experiencing.

In front of Melissa’s House

Big landslides, no – trees and bamboo down, yes!

If this weather pattern continues, and the flooding makes international news, remember that the little neighborhood where I live is fine.

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I’ll be off line until Tuesday, weather permitting!

Have a good weekend!

“Lisa, Are You OK?”

Tags

Friendship, lluvia 2019 manabi, poza honda manabi ecuador, Timeout for Art

Neotropic Cormorants /Poza Honda/Ecuador

“The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.” ~Elbert Hubbard, The Notebook, 1927

Our friend Hugh Curtler wrote this week about Friendship, a post worth pondering.  Reading off line, I wrote a reply to send when on line (now) but circumstances  dictate responding via a just-received example of friendship.

In my unhurried off-line reply, I mentioned one dear friend who emails about twice a month.  She always asks, “Lisa, How are you?  How’s your back?   Do you need anything?   Are you OK?”

Dady inspecting the Squirrel Cuckoo watercolor at Museo Portoviejo

This past Tuesday I dropped a music CD at her house after visiting the nearby Portoviejo Museo.  Stocked with ‘survival’ groceries in case the heavy rains provoked more mud slides, I needed to get home before dark.

At sunset I photographed the reservoir, which lacked about a sneeze worth’s of water to send the excess over the spillway.

That night and last night we received more heavy rains.     The waters now reach the high-water level, and the surplus is surely generating enough electricity to illuminate the planet!

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Water hyacinths cascade over the spillway, and chocolate-colored water marks the beginning of Rio Portoviejo.  After taking photos, I drove to Ayacucho to make progress on neglected cyber tasks.

Waiting in the inbox was an email from my friend Dady.  The subject read “Lisa Are You OK?”

“Hmmm,” I thought, “she must know more about something than I!”

Nomadas en Manabi – Opens Tonight at Museo Portoviejo!

Tags

Nomadas en Manabi, portoviejo ecuador

Portoviejo/Manabi Province/Ecuador – Thanks to the magic of scheduling a post to be published at a specified date and time, this should reach you when the inauguration  of Nomadas en Ecuador begins.    What follows is my ‘Artist’s Statement’ written specifically for this event.  Enjoy!

Life in the Campo

Tags

15 birthday, ecuador birthdays, life in the country in ecuador, tongas for food

One year ago – my closest neighbor Melissa

Poza Honda/Manabi Province/Ecuador – One year ago I first visited this little coffee farm, inhabited by one family of five, one young married couple, the owner, three dogs, two cats, an always-changing number of free-range chickens, several squirrels, a micro-community of Howler monkeys – and thousands of birds.  Rosa, a single ‘older lady,’ lives in her authentic campo house on several acres which this property surrounds. These lovely inhabitants of this ultra-petite community graciously allowed one artist to wean into their neighborhood.

July 22, one year ago – I booked for one night and stayed ‘forever!’

Rosa

Birthdays are quiet events, shared with the immediate neighbors. Period. No aunts, uncles, grandparents or friends from nearby towns are present for these lovely and quiet gatherings.   Lovingly-prepared luncheons are served, and then the cake is presented to the person of honor. Conversations easily roll from random subject to random subject, and I always remark on how fast the pre-teens/teens are growing.  The first gathering was for Melissa’s birthday in October.

Please leave your shoes at the bottom of the steps! Come inside!

What Happened to Google Earth?

Tags

ecuador butterflies, google map where are the images in google maps, Lisa Brunetti art, Museo Portoviejo

Google Earth has sent ‘congratulations’ notices to say that a few of my images – like this one of Poza Honda – were very popular.

Poza Honda/ManabiProvince Ecuador – Have any of you ever added images to Google Earth-Maps?   It’s always been interesting to peruse those images and explore areas that we know well or to ‘cyber travel’ to new destinations without leaving home!  The Satellite Image option helped me fine-tune my search for a new place to live, and reference images were very helpful.

This past week on Google Earth, I entered some GPS points for where I live –  before passing them along for scientific reasons; almost immediately I hit a glitch.  I could not find a place to type the coordinates.  Perhaps that option is somewhere on the page, but I did not find it.     Next I looked for my pinned images, and they were gone!  In fact, there were no pinned images to anything on the map.  Towns and places of interest were marked by name only.  The letters were small and difficult to see – and my laptop has a large screen!

Google Chrome browser… note how tiny the bottom right options appear. That’s where one finds the photo options.

Eventually I found the image option, which on my windows browser showed in a long horizontal strip at the bottom of the page.   There were photos from different areas, and mine could not be accessed until scrolling east on the map, leaving the house site out of view.  After I selected and enlarged one of my ‘popular’ images, a little arrow-type bar zipped from the photo and pointed into the middle of the lake!  Ha, I had to laugh – it was several kilometers from the right location and was obviously submerged at the bottom of the reservoir!

Opera browser provided slightly-easier to view options.

The Dec 3rd earthquake, which rattled the house for almost a minute, must have nudged this particular GPS point into the lake!

Unable to drag it back in place via the old system that worked well, I opened a new window and did a search which took me to a Google Earth/Maps forum.  Oh my, demons must have firmly attached themselves to those who make decisions for Google Earth/Maps, and they have made a lovely mess of what was once a well-managed site.

I moved to another quadrant that I know well – the area around Jama, and I remembered that someone had posted a picture of a Royal Poinciana/Flamboyant.  I was curious to see if it still marked the correct spot.  In real life, the tree was within view of where I once lived near the mouth of Rio Jama.

Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia)still stands, though the nearby farmhouse was destroyed in the April 16, 2016 earthquake.

Flamboyant/Royal Poinciana paired with the Green Kingfisher for a great photo op –  The rear balcony of Casa Loca. 2013

There were zero photos of that area, but there were new ones from 2018 of the community of La Division.   Checking various photos in the town a few kilometers inland, I discovered that the lovely flaming Poinciana tree had been magically transplanted to Jama!  (Jama, still recovering from the earthquake, could actually use several dozen of those lovely trees!)