ECUADOR: Hummers in the Andes.

Violet-tailed Sylph and Brown Inca at the feeders at Angel Paz's place pictured here.

ECUADOR: Mindo - Andean West Slope.

Giant Antpitta.


Rufous-bellied Nighthawk.

Snr Paz feeding "his" Dark-backed Wood-Quails.

Yellow-breasted Antpitta.

So no sitting around playing tapes to lure birds out at this site. Angel Paz feeds his birds regularly in the cloudforests of his poperty and they've become very acustomed to this. Antpittas and wood-quails, normally retiring creatues, can be seen with relative ease here.

ECUADOR: Scaled Fruiteater.

Another scarce bird this - the Scaled Fruiteater. Not a Choco endemic, but the cloudforests near Mindo are certainly a good place to find it. It can also be found as far south as Bolivia on the east slope. This one was photographed at Angel Paz's property (Refugio d las Antpittas).

ECUADOR: The Choco Forests.

Cloudforest at approx 1900m near Mindo.


Masked Trogon at Tandayapa.

My favourite section of this N. Ecuador circuit has to be the visit to the forests west of the Andes. Known as the Choco (a biogeographic zone restricted to south-western Colombia and north-western Ecuador), these are apparently the wettest forests in the world. Montane cloudforests can be accessed from Quito in less than a couple of hours by car at Tandayapa and in the Mindo area. Lowland Choco is less easy to find owing to the deforestation of the area but the Mindo Cloudforest Foundation preserves some nice forest lower down at Milpe and Rio Silanche (near Pedro Vincente Maldonado).

ECUADOR: Sword-billed Hummingbird.

We left the Amazon for the Andes and Papallacta Pass. Guango Lodge is a really handy place to stay here as it makes a good base to explore the pass and the cloudforests near to Guango too. The feeders at the lodge are simply loaded with birds including a couple of Sword-billed Hummers.
The cloudforests near the lodge were pretty quiet this year but the pass was very productive with Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe, Stout-billed Cinclodes, Tawny Antpittas, Paramo Tapaculo and Giant Conebill. It's a good area for Andean Condor too and we saw a couple in as many days.

ECUADOR: Clay-lick.

Orange-cheeked Parrot and Cobalt-winged Parakeet.

Scarlet-shouldered Parrotlet.

They're not everybody's cup of tea, but when a clay-lick produces Scarlet-shouldered Parrotlet and Orange-cheeked Parrot it's got to be worth a visit. There were hundreds of Cobalt-winged Parakeets here too.

ECUADOR: Sacha Lodge - away from the forest trails.

It's not just all flogging the forest trails at Sacha either. We sent a whole morning out on the Napo visiting river islands of varying maturity. The first we visited was a mature island covered in big Cecropia trees and had no trouble finding our target species: Amazonian Umbrellabird.

The youngter, more open islands had many Oriole Blackbirds, Dark-breasted and White-bellied Spinetails, Black & White Antbird and a Grey-breasted Crake amonst other things.

This Striped Cuckoo was a bit of a surprise on the islands as they mostly occur west of the Andes in Ecuador. They are however spreading to the Amazon, though very scarce there.

Another option was a canoe trip down one of the channels through the flooded forest. Sungrebe, Boat-billed Heron, Green & Rufous and American Pygmy Kingfishers and Orange-crested Manakin all frequent this habitat.

ECUADOR: Amazon Forest Trails.

Mealy Parrots.

Great Potoo.

Walking the forest trails at Sacha produces an unbelievable variety of species. A carefully planned itinerary taking in some tiera firme and varzea (seasonally flooded) forest will provide anyone with a superb selection of birds. Local knowledge is invaluable here and Sacha's guides know the whereabouts of roosting Common and Great Potoos. Evening walks produced Tawny-bellied Screech-Owl and Crested Owl.

ECUADOR: Sacha Lodge Canopy Walkway.

White-necked Puffbird from the canopy walkway.

We spent a morning at Sacha's canopy walkway once the mist had cleared. We stalled a little in the forest on the way to let conditions clear seeing some quality birds like Undulated Antshrike and Black-tailed Leaftosser.

Sacha's walkway is very impressive indeed. We spent a couple of hours here watching Pied and White-necked Puffbirds, Orange-fronted Plushcrown, Opal-rumped and Opal-crowned Tanagers, White-throated Toucans, Ivory-billed Aracaris, White Hawk, Double-toothed Kite, Black-headed Parrots, Purplish Jacamar and much more.

This smart Black-tailed Tityra was one of the first birds to show near the first platform along the walkway. The walk back to the lodge wasn't "half bad" either: Plain-throated Antwren, Wire-tailed Manakin, Great-billed Hermit, Black-faced Antbird, Cinereous and Dusky-throated Antshrikes being just a few of the species seen.

ECUADOR: Andes to Amazon.

My latest South Amerca tour was an immense success. We visited the Amazonian Rainforests along the Napo River, the east slope of the Andes at Cabanas San Isidro and the Choco Forests of the west slope. We started at San Isidro with the "San Isidro Mystery Owl" (see last year's Ecuador postings) as the star bird but photo opportunities were few and far between due to the wet weather.

This was my sixth Ecuador trip and as in many of the others, most folks considered the four days at Sacha Lodge in the Amazon as the highlight. Excellent accommodation, superb and varied birding (forest trails, canopy towers, river islands, etc) makes Sacha a real winner, not to mention the couple of hundred birds we recorded there!

I rarely get a lifer on this circuit nowadays so the Chestnut-headed Crake seen on our first morning near the lodge was most welcome. No repeat of last year's Crested Eagle though.