March Madness...ECUADOR (March 1)

After the phenomenal feeders of the day before we could not have hoped for better the day after. Although it has to be said the feeders at Mirador Rio Blanco in Los Bancos ran them very close indeed. After a morning in the Milpe reserve (owned by the Mindo Cloudforest Foundation), where Laura and I got close ups of Club-winged Manakin in the throws of their "harmonica" displays, and Betty got intimate with Green-crowned Woodnymphs, White-whiskered Hermits and Green Thorntails at the feeders, we headed for a jar of juice and a tanager or two at the Mirador. In came the regular mob of Blue-gray Tanagers, interspersed with a visit from a Buff-rumped Warbler bounding across the floor below the feeder, while an Ecuadorian Thrush could not resist a fallen banana that some messy tanager had mislaid. Up on the feeder itself the scene was dominated by tanagers, with Silver-throated Tanager dropping in regularly, but outclassed by the Blackburnian-esque Flame-faced Tanager, and the final drop in of the afternoon by a Crimson-rumped Toucanet that lingered for an age just daring any other birds to even look at his precious banana!