Battling with biodiversity

The lush forested hills in the foothills of the Andes in NW Argentina, reaching up to 1700 metres, are an immensely valuable source of water for the agricultural lowlands beneath.  For six months of the year from November, the moisture laden winds blow from the Atlantic. These clouds race across the hot dry chaco plains and then in a series of violent thunderstorms drench the greenery of these slopes.  This ‘vertical’ rain combined with the summer heat creates low ephemeral clouds that drift amid the trees, giving rise to cloud forest.  The ‘gift’ these clouds give to the vegetation is a slow magical release of  moisture ‘horizontal rain’. The trees beneath are clothed in moss, lichens, bromeliads and orchids – this is the Yungas !

 

Selva Yungas forest , Calilegua

 

 We accessed the area along route 83 and spent a week in this wonderland, in the Calilegua National Park.

 Route 83 into Calilegua N P

 

One of the rangers of the park is Nicolas, he lives in the park with his partner Soledad and young child, Andina.

Nicolas

 

The rangers house where Nicolas, Soledad and Andina live.

 

 Rangers house  in Calilegua

 

The richness of this national park is due to the three types of distinct forest it contains. The lower slopes a threatened habitat – Piedmont woodland, a little higher the Selva and higher still the Montana forest.  Steep ravines intersect the whole, giving rise to a multitude of complex micro-climates, ecosystems and wildlife.

Swallow-tailed Kite

Swallow-tailed Kite

 

Female Red-brocket deer

Female Red-brocket deer

Rusty-browed Warbling-Finch

Rusty-browed Warbling-Finch

 

 

A dozen lifetimes would not be enough time to see and understand its unique flora and fauna. We could but only raise our binoculars and cameras to that which passed us by, marvelling at the wonders that crossed our path.

Calilegua butterfly

 

Bee
Bee

Where ever we walked the variety of nature exploded before us with vibrancy and energy.  We battled to identify what we could, but the odds were overwhelming.   Insects that looked like Crane flies but were multi-coloured and hopped on the ground.  Birds that sang and called but tantalisingly remained hidden in the dense foliage, flocks of parrots that flew noisily overhead.  Trees of every hue, some small and leggy,  others massive that soared into the heavens, this was the Southern Yungas  eco-region.

 

 

Andes Ecoregions

The Andean Wildlife Project is to make a photographic record of  ecoregions within the Andes.  An ecoregion is a relatively large area of land or water that contains a distinct assembly of plant species and animals which give it a unifying character. The scale of an ecoregion is highly suitable for consideration for global conservation planning as it encompasses biogeographically related communities, not otherwise found at site level.

ecoregions-of-argentina-1

On this our first expedition into the Andes we visited two ecoregions.

The first was the moist and humid temperate Southern Yugas rainforests ( no 4 on the above map) our chosen site was the Alisos National Park near Concepcion.

The two groups of animals that were most conspicuous during our time their were the Parrots and the butterflies.  These are Red-mitred Parrots, there was a flock of about 300 of these birds in the valley where we camped.  The whole  group foraged together, noisily moving from one part of the valley to another.  Once settled in a suitable group of trees they quietened down for an hour or so and fed.

Alisos parrots 2

The weather that brings these rains to the forests comes off the South Atlantic in the summer. The clouds speed across the hot Chaco flatlands until they reach the foothills of the Andes, there they stop and it rains and rains and rains.

The Yungas forests cloth the eastern slopes of the Andes from north western Argentina through Bolivia and way up into Peru.

Below is a Helicoius butterfly, probably H melpomene,, the Postman butterfly a common mimicking species in the forests of Alisos.

Alisos butterfly

The second ecoregion we visited was the high Puna  (no 5 on the above map), specifically the Laguna Blanca National Park in Catamarca province at an elevation of about 3,500m.

 

Laguna Blanca in May

The animal that frequents these raw mountain plateaus were Vicunas.  These were mercilessly hunted several decades ago but protected areas have now brought this beautiful animal back from the brink of extinction.

Vicuna