Birding in the Cloud Forest of Ecuador

It seems amazing that it has taken me this long to start writing the 2nd part of my blog on birding in Ecuador but it has taken me this long to transcribe all the birds I saw into my database and then note down all the individual observations. South American birds seem to have the longest names and as usual there is a lack of consensus as to which birds belong in what families. The birding in Ecuador was only three days but in that time I managed to break all my records. The total number of individual birds for the trip was 158. 118 of those I saw in those three days in mainland Ecuador and 35 in the Galapagos themselves with the remainder in Guayaquil and at airports. My previous record for a trip was in Uganda and Rwanda with 136 but this was in Africa where birds are so much easier to see and over a longer period. I also had my biggest day of new birds which was 61 birds, my previous record being 35 also from the Uganda trip.

We were met at Quito airport by Gabriel who turned out to be our driver and guide for the next three days and to my delight he was a bird expert. The best birding is always when it is just you and the guide where you're free to stop wherever you like and take as long as you want. Lindsey of course doesn't always like this but I have to say she was a real trooper over these three days never complaining about the hours of birding. Quito is the highest capital city in the world at 2,800 meters and I definitely felt a little short of breath. We were going west of Quito and actually although we had to climb even higher initially, our eventual destination was lower than Quito.

On our way we stopped several times to see what birds we could find and I actually recorded 20 new species just on the way. Of course, its always easy on the first day when every species is new. When I am on a trip like this I only count the new birds of that day and not the total number of bird species. The terrain was quite open and the birding was quite good allowing me this good shot of an American Kestrel. I also saw Gabriel use his bird calling device for the first time. This was simply an ipod with just all the bird calls on it hooked up to quite a powerful hand held speaker. During the trip he used this a lot and although it worked rarely in bringing the birds, occasionally the effect was dramatic.

The distance wasn't far but the roads weren't good and what with stopping for birds it took us a good three hours to get there. The reserve is called Macuipucuna and the lodge was an eco lodge typical of the ones we use through Discovery Steppes Travel. At the lodge they had lots of hummingbird feeders set up and I was thrilled that we were literally surrounded by hummingbirds the whole time. The main species was the White-necked Jacobin which our guide was really happy about so I think they can't be too common elsewhere but there were other species too. The Purple-throated Woodstar was particularly pretty.

After lunch we went birding where the birding highlight was the golden-headed quetzal, that high scoring scrabble bird, but actually the wildlife highlights were seeing the rare Tyra and an Agouti both mammals. We got back and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to photograph hummingbirds. Next to the frigate birds in the Galapagos, I took more shots of hummingbirds than anything else. Without really knowing what you're doing it's really hard to take decent shots and the few I have were all just flukes but it was fun trying.

The next day was my biggest ever day for new species at 61. Our first walk was at 6:30 in the morning where the highlight was having a female Cock-of-the-rock fly right at us for a few seconds and in the after-breakfast walk I got an ok shot of a Scale-crested Pygmy Tyrant (you see what I mean about the names). After lunch we drove to a different reserve in the Mindo Forest where I think our guide was more used to going and immediately started to see different birds probably as we were at higher altitude. According to our guide, Ecuador is joint 3rd with Brazil in terms of number of species with Columbia, surprisingly to me, having the highest diversity. Ecuador has the Andes going right through it as well as coast line so really has every kind of terrain possible hence the high of number of different species. On the way back from Mindo we stopped at this house built by a hippie, vegan, American couple. They hold the record for the most hummingbird species in one place (over 20 I think). True to form we saw 9 different species including my favourite, the Booted Racket-tail. A whole day of birding and Lindsey didn't even want to divorce me!

During these 2 days Lindsey was always saying that she wanted to see a Toucan.

We had seen a smaller species, the Toucanet and the extremely pretty Toucan Barbet but, despite Gabriel's best efforts, we had yet to see a proper Toucan. While eating lunch before leaving the lodge one of the lodge guides all of a sudden grabbed us and ran over to where a Pale-mandibilled Aracari, a Toucan in all but name, was sitting in a tree right next to the lodge. It was then joined by two others who casually began eating some fruit within easy view. To top it off, we stopped again at Mindo on our way back to Quito and finally saw the Plate-billed Mountain Toucan, a triumph!