After a very satisfactory few hours at San Isidro being amazed by antpittas, dazzled by hummingbirds, and recovering from the dawn siege of bird activity right around our cabins we had to move on. For me, Bruce and Terri this was truly exciting, as none of us had visited there before. Despite living and guiding in Ecuador for nearly five years I just had not got around to seeing the new WildSumaco Lodge, nestled within the eastern foothills of the Andes, and now famously home to some often rare and difficult species. Few guides who had visited there for the first time had come back without a lifer or two, no matter how experienced! As we were all keen to get into the foothills, an area the group had not birded much, that offered multiple lifebirds, we did not intend to hang about much birding en-route. Indeed, we did not see that many birds en-route, although it just so happened the ones we did see were not half bad. First up we stopped just beyond the Cordillera de Guacamayos, in rich moss-laden subtropical forest, where we found our main quarry with surprisingly little effort, a pair of vocal Black-billed Mountain-Toucans obliging by remaining fixed in my 'scope for some time. Then it was full steam ahead for the foothills, though we made a few stops to break up the journey. In one of these innocuous stops as we descended into the foothill zone we made one of the discoveries of the trip... Perched right out on top of a stand of roadside bamboo was a chunky jet black finch with massive, swollen black bill, the well-named Black-billed Seed-Finch, a rare bird throughout its range and a top quality lifer all round! I frantically rattled off some shots knowing the significance of this (see photos). After lapping up the finch and pausing for the odd Blue Dacnis en-route we made our way to Sumaco, and the promise of more top quality foothill birds...
1 comment:
Great bird indeed - what a bill!!
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