23 February 2010

Buenaventura & El Empalme (Ecuador): 24 January 2010



A final few hours were spent in the western foothills of the Andes at Buenaventura, picking up a superb Plain-backed Antpitta, and finding a Brown-billed Scythebill in a flock, not to mention another Long-wattled Umbrellabird. We then headed south into Loja province and the reserve of Jorupe just north of the Peruvian border. Before we checked into that reserve though (and the new Urracas Lodge), we stopped off for a short time at El Empalme, where deciduous scrub was made all the more impressive due to a number of massive ceiba trees dotting the landscape. Here we found the local White-headed Brush-Finch (see photos), Tumbes Hummingbird, Tumbes Sparrow, and our first White-edged Orioles of the tour...

1 comment:

sergio said...

Sam, great photos of White-headed Brush-finch. I am making a free online article for dry equatorial forest conservation and I will love to include your photograph about this bird in section of vulnerable species to land transformation. Will you like to allow me include your photo, of course with your name included?