Birds of the Paramo of Central Ecuador

Resumen

Paramo is the name for the treeless zone of the Andean Mountains which reaches from the lower border of perpetual snows to the upper border of the tree line.This zone corresponds in western Ecuador to the areas found between the elevations of 12,000 and 14,000 feet.It is wide or narrow according to the relative steepness of the mountain sides between these elevations.While the transition area between the lower Paramo and the upper tree and bush line is more or less an interlocking of the two, and some stunted trees are found in sheltered gorges far up into the typical Paramo, there is no mistaking the region as soon as you near its lower edge, after a strenuous climb through the diminishing forest.You are then in the tussock-grass country.This tussock-grass, and the numerous minor plants and shrubs which crop out among it, feed numberless herds and droves of cattle, horses and sheep, a chief source of revenue to the owners whose vast haciendas often reach up, from the lofty tierra templada, five thousand feet higher into the abodes of everlasting snow.Until the Andean traveler reaches the Paramo he can have no right conception of the immense grandeur of the Andean chain of the Cordilleras.Before that event he is so hemmed in by narrowing gorges, by chain upon chain of foothills, or by suspended oceans of vapor and clouds, that he begins to say in his heart, "There are no Andes; Chimborazo is a dream and Cotopaxi pure 141