Dracula Youth Reserve Expedition: Day 3
Aerial view of camp. Drone photo by Callie Broaddus
Thursday, November 12, 2020
Written By Pearson McGovern
This morning was our first at the Peñas Blancas field camp, a 50 square meter tarp-covered clearing within “Dracula Youth Reserve,” the site we have been fundraising to protect through Reserva all year. Raised above a nearby stream (our water source while at camp) and 20 meters below a recovering pasture, our field camp provided the perfect combination of running water, elevated clear space for drone flying, and breathtaking views of the surrounding pristine cloud forest.
A view from Callie’s first drone flight from camp shows Peñas Blancas in front, stretching all the way back to the Awá indigenous territory in the distance. Photo by Callie Broaddus
Having met everyone on the hike up the day prior, we got straight to work dividing into teams for the activities ahead. What would soon become routine on the expedition began on the first day at camp as Callie and Natalia took charge of documenting the trip and I had the good fortune of joining the herpetology team (Mario, Juan Pablo, Miguel, and Daniel Chavez) in the field in search of an incredible diversity of known and yet-unrecorded herps.
Watch Natalia’s tour of camp!
Though I would go on to work with all herp team members over the course of the expedition, on our first day in the field I joined the Daniels (Chavez and Valencia). The other two teams for the first several days consisted of Mario, Miguel (whom we would later find out is the lead vocalist for a successful punk band in Quito called Pulmon Verde, which means “Green Lung”), and Geovany in Team 1 and Juan Pablo (who went by Juanito) and Milton (who, as an aside, can only be described as one of the kindest, most eager, and physically impressive people I have ever met) in Team 2. Our mission over the next four days would be to monitor three previously demarcated transects for two endangered toad species endemic to the high mountain streams of the Andes: Rhaebo colomai (Carchi Andes Toad, Endangered) and Atelopus coynei (Rio Faisanes Stubfoot Toad, Critically Endangered).
Javier shows Juan Pablo how to set up the new data loggers, which will be collecting important environmental data for the long-term monitoring of endangered species habitat conditions as well as the local impacts of climate change. Video still by Natalia Espinoza.
After a breakfast of eggs, rice, yucca, and guayusa tea, the teams split up and headed for their respective stretches of stream. Both species are habitat specialists, being found along running, rocky streams surrounded by pristine, forested banks. Arriving at our stretch of stream around 8 am, we got a brief description of the monitoring protocols and began making our way over the slippery, moss-covered rocks that lined the stream and provided the ideal habitat for our focal species. At each 25 meter interval, we identified a sturdy branch overhanging the bubbling stream to tie a piece of bright tape, delineating points along the transect for monitoring the potential variation in both species diversity and individual abundance along the stream. When coupled with microhabitat data taken at each of these points over time, these abundance curves can then be used to investigate species preferences. After 400 meters, we sat down at the base of one of the hundreds of waterfalls concealed by the rolling green canopy of the forest to write down the necessary data for our transect start point (e.g. Time, Date, Observers, Temperature, Humidity, Elevation, Forest Type, etc.).
Daniel Chávez leading the way on our first survey. Photo by Pearson McGovern.
As the best metric of the speed at which we would proceed in monitoring nearly every rock and leaf along our transects, the process of making our way up our chosen 400 meters took nearly 4 hours. This 100 meters/hour rate would be the speed at which we’d meticulously carry out all surveys in an effort to maximize our ability to both encounter our target species and accurately monitor changes in abundance over time and conditions. While our morning hike was fruitless, this incredible place showed us that the true joy of these surveys comes from the unbelievable opportunity to see this location in person, a potential encounter with the species we were seeking being just a cherry on top!
Daniel Chávez searches for our target species at the first monitoring transect. Photo by Pearson McGovern
We hiked back to camp around 1 pm, both in awe of the pristine nature that surrounded us and also quite hopeful of a more successful night outing to follow, especially given the high number of treefrog tadpoles we had seen in the streamside puddles lining our transect. We spent the next couple of hours back at camp admiring and photographing two snakes—Erythrolamprus vitti & Chironius monticola—found by the other teams.
Javier shows park guards Milton and Geovany how calm snakes like C. monticola are to handle; most local people have a deeply-engrained fear of snakes, thanks to the many venomous snakes that also inhabit the area. Photo by Callie Broaddus.
The E. vitti was a particularly exciting find given its entire global distribution is only around 8,500 km2 with nearly half of it already lost to deforestation. And while C. monticola is considered the most common snake locally, its shimmering green/blue scales and the unique blue-colored tongue of the captured individual made for a very excited team.
E. vitti, photo by Callie Broaddus
Natalia and E. vitti, photo by Callie Broaddus
Our hope of a herp-filled outing was justified that night, as the nearly-continuous afternoon rains awakened the local chorus. Replicating our same survey effort of the earlier transects yielded six species of herps and both of our target species, the beautifully patterned Atelopus coynei and the brown-and-gold but charismatic Rhaebo colomai!
The elegantly patterned Atelopus coynei is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Photo by Callie Broaddus
Our other finds on this rainy night included an undeniably adorable juvenile anole (Anolis gracilipes) sleeping on a streamside leaf, and several individuals of loudly vocalizing Emerald Glass Frogs (Espadarana prosoblepon).
Anolis gracilipes juvenile, photo by Callie Broaddus
The most ubiquitous frog of the transect was Hyloscirtus conscientia (Rana Nubular de Chical / Chical Cloud Forest Frog), the recently discovered and described species of torrent frog named through the efforts of the first-ever global species naming competition, open only to youth entrants (Congratulations, Carolina Bustillos and Dome Benitez!).
One of the more interesting finds of the night was this one-eyed Hyloscirtus conscientia (or what we hope will soon be published under that name), collected by Mario! Photo by Callie Broaddus
I was so excited to finally get to see the species I had learned so much about during Reserva’s international naming event that I recorded and photographed nearly every individual I could see (a mere fraction of the number we could hear high in the streamside treetops), unwilling to recognize that this newly described and striking species could be, and in fact is, the most common frog species at our site.
Callie and Anolis dracula taking a break from photos … to take a photo. Photo by Natalia Espinoza
Feeling accomplished and ecstatic, we returned to share our news with the rest of the expedition team. Callie, Natalia, and Javier had been photographing herps at their “camp studio” all day. This outdoor tabletop photo space consisted of a small white box for the required scientific images next to a carefully-arranged set of leaves on a table, which allowed them to photograph animals collected by the herp teams in a natural environment that mimics the animals’ habitat without the danger of losing any of the specimens.
They were jubilant at our success, and when the other herp teams returned an hour later, we celebrated again. As the other herpetologists had been unsuccessful at finding Atelopus coynei on their previous expedition to this area, it was a relief to everyone to know that the population was still intact.
Dinner often came with extra protein. Photo by Callie Broaddus
We closed out the night with a well-earned camp dinner cooked by Doña Rosío, who made our camp experience one of luxury with her varied and scrumptious meals. As a result of our rapid success in finding our critically imperiled and seldom-seen target species, we ended the night with the ultimate camp reward of chocolates from Javier—exactly what was needed to quickly fall into a deep sleep that easily overpowered the discomfort of the slanted and root-riddled soil beneath our tents. Though it must have been veiled in sleepy subconsciousness, I later found out that Daniel and I had fallen asleep swapping English-Polish-Spanish sayings for all around us to hear and that it was this immediate camaraderie, or maybe just the topic of conversation, that put a snoring Javier immediately to sleep in the neighboring tent.