Ecuador Pictures

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Ecuador Adventure I

Trogan - San Isrido near Yanayaku Research Station

For the last two weeks I have had the amazing experience of visiting the beautiful country of Ecuador and with the help of a couple of incredible guides, see over 400 species of birds. The trogons, toucans, and hoatzin are fantastic, but you simply can't imagine the diversity of hummingbirds, tanagers, and many other birds endimic to this remarkable place.

We (BYU Business School Dean Ned Hill, Robert Parsons of Maryland and his son Daniel and myself) hired renowned bird guide Rudy Gelis to show us birds in all of the primary habitat. Starting in Quito which sits in the saddle between the east and west spines of the Andes mountains, we climbed up to about 14,000 feet and then eventually descended to the Amazon basin. Along the way we stayed at "Lodges", which were specifically set up for wildlife exploration. Most of them are associated with one or more research stations where students and scientists live and work on a variety of projects. While Ecuador has greater bird diversity than virtually any other place in the world on a per sqare mile basis, I was surprised to learn that most of them have not been studied at all. Rudy was constantly noting the location of nests, leks and other locations to come back and study.

I was shooting these pictures with my new Nikon D700. Most of the time I was using an 80 - 400 VR lens. For birds I usually use A-priority. I set the f-stop one up from full open, in this case at 5.6, and tried not to use any flash at all. Sometimes under the jungle canopy it was a bit dark, but we still got a lot of good shots. If I had wanted to carry a tripod and a larger lens around, it would have been possible to get a lot more of what we saw on film, but much of the time we were trudging along on very muddy, sometimes swampy trails, often for several hours, and I just didn't want to lug it. The 400 mm is hard to hand hold, but with the VR it worked out ok. The D700 allows you to shoot up to 6400 ISO without significant degradation, which was a big help!

Here we are (from left to right, Ned Hill, Rudy Gelis, Carlos (our native Kichua guide in the Amazon basin at Sani lodge), me, Daniel and Robert Parsons. We are in an oil town on the Napo river, just after a 3 hour motorized canoe trip back upriver from the lodge. These oil towns dot the banks of the Amazon and it tributaries, and are evidence of the real battle that continues between progress and protection. The towns have the feel of a true frontier enviornment. In this case the flight to Quito was only 40 minutes, whereas the trip by road had taken about 6 hours! The oil companies are mostly owned by big multinationals of course and the local labor works very cheap. For young men like Carlos, the increased interest in eco-experience is a real blessing as it provides an alternative to working in the oil fields.

This is an example of the beautiful Tanagers that are found throughout the country. We saw more than 50 species of them (remember Ecuador is about the size of Colorado, and there are only a half dozen or so tanager species in the entire US!) Here an enterprising local hung banana's in a tree with the idea that folks like me would stop by and buy a soda or something. Except that no one knew that tanagers would eat banana's! In the meantime, it ended up attracting a newly discovered species of tanager (not this one) which all of the guides are really excited about.

All told, this was a very full experience, one which I intend to do a few more posts on in the next few weeks. It certainly left me pensive about the poverty of our brothers and sisters in many places in the world which are so rich with natural beauty and life.

I Love This Counrty

I am not much of a photographer, but I feel even less comfortable as a writer. Nevertheless, I feel a need to attempt to record some of my feelings at seeing the speeches of still Senator John McCain, and President Elect Barak Obama tonight. I have been a loyal Republican all of my voting life, but I feel nothing but hope as I come away from this election.

The campaigns were tough. Obama was brilliant. His organization was incredible and deserved to win by virtue of it's breath and depth if nothing else. But, as I saw the tears in the eyes of my black brothers and sisters in the crowd in Chicago, I too felt the emotion of living in a place where as unlikely a candidate as Barak could become president, and am proud to be an American. I am glad that a little black boy or girl can believe in doing whatever they want. I am glad that my Muslim brothers and sisters can believe in a place where there is no reason to despair the opportunity to be whatever they want to be!

It does not matter who we voted for in this election, we are lucky to have the opportunity to see true democracy in action. I agree with John McCain's observation that we should be proud to live in a country where the process works. We have a person born poor, who worked hard, got an education, got involved and got elected. This is just not a likely story in virtually anywhere else in the world.

I believe in the destiny of the US. I also believe that Barak Obama will be helped in facing the challenges that we have as a country. 2 wars, economic distress, many without good health care, etc, etc. I for one will pray for him.

This is written mostly for my children, who have the world in front of them. I am positive about the future. I love this county, and I am proud to be an American. Love, Dad

New Baby Felix

Another landmark week with the birth of Felix VietHam Huynh, 8 lbs. 4 oz., born Thursday, October 30 at about 8:30 a.m. to Choung Huynh and Liyan Xiao. He looks a lot like his brother Victor, and is very healthy.


This was the second c-section delivery for mom Liyan, and she was really tired after almost 6 weeks of bed! She was really glad to have Felix here at last.



He wasn't staying awake much, but seemed pretty happy even when he was asleep.



All toes and fingers intact!


He doesn't seem to mind a snuggle with Grandma.


And even puts up with Grandpa!


Grandma doesn't trust Grandpa yet with the details.



And in the end, Grandma is ultimately the Queen of the snuggle!



Anybody else jealous of little Felix? Stay tuned, they just seem to keep coming.