Ellie Schertz writes about her experience birding at Yachana Lodge:
This may-term class has been a really valuable experience for me in many ways—one of those being the connections I’ve made between knowledge I gained in the classroom at GC and reality here in Ecuador. I was able to make one of these connections when part of our group went birding in the early morning at Yachana Lodge. Our guide, Kevin, was really good at picking out birds in trees at a distance and we were really impressed with his ability to identify each bird before we could even locate it. We learned a lot from Kevin and we got to see birds with bright greens and blues as well as birds of all sizes.
I spent my summer last year doing bird banding at Merry Lea and Cecilia had done some work in the eastern US with banding Osprey. The two of us especially enjoyed talking with Kevin about birds that migrate between the US and Ecuador. Kevin told us about the time some people doing bird banding near Yachana caught an Osprey with a band from the United States and Cecilia shared about her experience banding them. I was able to surprise Kevin by telling him that I had seen a Scarlet Tanager, a bird that spends part of the year in Ecuador, and part of the year near my home in the US.
Before arriving in Ecuador, I knew that there are birds that migrate between the Goshen area and where I would be vising in Ecuador. However, going birding at Yachana and having those conversations with Kevin made it much more real for me. I wasn’t necessarily expecting to make those connections and being able to do so was really exciting.