Mount Totumas Cloud Forest

New born calf

Farm life compliments the cloud forest wilderness here at MTCF and provides fresh local produce for our guests who also enjoy participating in the homesteading life.

Alma harvesting hydroponic lettuce for this evenings salad

Hydroponic lettuce nourished with compost tea.

Watering the garden, leaks in foreground.

Beet greens and salad greens are grown under shade cloth due to the high winds and strong sun at 1900m

Big fat fennel grows really well here.

Naranjilla is a native fruit belonging to the tomato family.

Naranjilla fruit peeled and ready to cook into jam.

Fresh harvested wild blackberries from the pastures

We make our own home made blackberry popsicles.

Dan is very happy enjoying his popsicle.

Our tom turkey lost his bride when a dog attacked her and she past away. Since then he has fallen in love with one of our hens who he follows around strutting his stuff and displaying. She is not impressed.

We make our own compost tea mixing in a 55 gallon drum a couple bags of chicken manure, a gallon of molasses we got at the sugar cane factory along with some micro nutrient foilage fertilizer. Let the whole thing ferment for a month and then spray this on your garden veggies…..

Ian harvesting coffee

Nicole harvesting coffee cherries. January and February are coffee harvest time here at MTCF.

It takes approximately 20 five gallon buckets of harvested coffee cherries to eventually yield 100lbs of coffee.

Reinaldo Sr. Graciela and Olga depulping the coffee.

Reinaldo pounding the coffee cherries to remove the fruit from the bean.

Mike grinding coffee on the hand mill.

Gage grinding coffee

Wyatt grinding coffee

Loading the grinder

Ground coffee

Our gourmet high elevation coffee is hand roasted on a cast iron fry pan that allows Timo and Nicole to fine tune the profile roast to bring out the best characteristic of our Cataui, Tipica and Geisha coffees :)

Coffee drying in our greenhouse. Seedlings will be ready to plant in May/June.

Ian, an arborist who visited MTCF, brought along his climbing gear and we had an amazing day scaling a 120 foot old growth oak tree on the La Amistad Trail. This is Ian on the ascent.

Happy Nicole in the canopy.

From the canopy looking down the straight trunk

Yours truly attempting to ascend

Ian and Nicole

Rufous-Browed Pepper-Shrike. This bird has a loud grosbeak like call but is frustratingly difficult to spot as it stays well hidden in the trees. A great photo shot of this bird!

Pam McGroarty and her friends Steve and Barney came up yesterday for a day visit to Mount Totumas Cloud Forest. Pam is a photographer and resides here in Chiriqui. She made some stunning photographs while hanging out on the balconies and decks of the cabins. At the Bambito Suite of the Bellbird Lodge is a large tree (matahombro) and there were insects everywhere from the lights we had up the night before and this drew in the birds. That is where Pam got the shot of the Pepper-Shrike.

The weather had a major shift with rains, the first in awhile. Birdsong everywhere….. a hint of the breeding season just around the corner.

Long-Tailed Silky Flycatcher

Yellow-Thighed Finch

Yellow-Throated Vireo

Wilson’s Warbler

Acorn Woodpecker

Common Bush-Tanager

White-Naped Brush-Finch

Slaty Flower-Piercer

Green Violet-Ear

Flame-Colored Tanager male

Flame-Colored Tanager female

Reinaldo is the son of our caretaker here at MTCF. Two years ago during his summer holidays Reinaldo started joining guests on their walks on the trails and quickly developed basic English knowledge and learned the names of the common birds here. His keen eye misses very little on the trails. In the past two years his knowledge has increased greatly and he shares the excitement with guests when a Resplendent Quetzal or Highland Tinamou is spotted on the trail.

Reinaldo still has one year left in high school as he continues to develop his English and Bird Identification skills. He looks forward to graduation so he can dedicate himself full time as a guide here at Mount Totumas Cloud Forest. We will support him with training courses and certificates once he is graduated from high school so that he can launch his career in tourism as a bird and nature guide.

Reinaldo’s origin is indigenous from the first nation Ngöbe Buglé tribe (Guaymí). He is proud of his heritage. We are very grateful that Reinaldo has shown such a passion for bird watching and developing a deep understanding of the importance of conservation.