Amazon to Andes; Topaz to Sunbeam (Ecuador): 18 Sept 2017

One of the great advantages of birding in a country as small as Ecuador (similar in size to US state of Colorado, smaller than Italy), which also has a decent road network, is that you can move from one sort of birding area to another rather swiftly. That is exactly what we did on this day, beginning our day with some dawn time birding at 300m/980ft in a hilly part of the humid Amazon jungle, but ending the day in the high Andes, in the positively cold Antisana area (in view of some distant snow cones), at nearly 11,600ft/3550m. Waking up at Gareno Lodge, having already visited their centrepiece attraction, the currently nesting Harpy Eagles, we did some local birding around their garden to start with. Once again, this yielded Fiery Topaz, a single male hovering overhead repeatedly, but typically refusing to land somewhere he could be photographed; (i.e. always in the near pitch-black forest understory. Grey-breasted Sabrewing was also visiting some flowers in the garden. With little else happening, we set off for an area near Tena, in the hope of a Sungrebe, on a lagoon there. En-route, a pair of Laughing Falcons were clearly worth stopping for...

While the day had opened without rain, this changed as we arrived on site, when the skies emptied above us. We sheltered for a while, waited for the rain to ease and then set off by boat for the Sungrebe. Unfortunately, during this rainy boat ride, we did not find that Amazonian wraith, but did see a feisty Poeppig’s Woolly Monkey, which seemed to take particular objection to us...

Meanwhile, an acrobatic White-bellied Spider-Monkey, doing gymnastics style movements overheads that US Olympic champion Simone Biles would be proud of. Nearby, a Graells's (Napo) Tamarin hugged the trunk of a tree tight, before suddenly launching into the jungle, and evaporating into thin air!

While nothing out of the ordinary was seen, any boat ride in the Amazon is exciting and magnetic, and we enjoyed some “Jurassic birds”, in the form of the many hissing Hoatzins that lumbered around the cecropias lining the banks of the lagoon, and a White-necked Puffbird sitting typically high on an open branch, with all the horrific backlight that goes with that; (the constant foe of nature photographers). If you have not seen a Hoatzin, this species/monotypic family is well worth observing, they simply feel like they are a species that existed while T Rex wandered the Earth, and has refused to evolve ever since! I mean this as a compliment by the way, I love Hoatzins, as they are unique, bizarre, and emblematic of the Amazon, a place that every keen birder should adore, as I do. 

An excellent traditional meal was taken for lunch (Maito de tilapia), prepared by our guide Pedro. This took the form of fish wrapped tightly within the leaves of a particular tree species, and cooked over hot coals, making it incredibly flavoursome, and combined with yucca and hot red chiles.  

With one of the party flying out of Quito that night, we had decisions to make; with limited time remaining, do we retry for the sungrebes at this new site (stated as normally reliable), or head straight for the high Andes and another target, the largest hummingbird on Earth, the Scarlet Tanager-sized, Giant Hummingbird? The odds were quickly weighed up, and with the hummingbird being nearly guaranteed, it was decided that we should in the direction of the 5700m (18,715ft)-high Antisana volcano, and a certain café that sits within its shadow. As we traveled there from our position in Amazonian Tena, the time to get there ended up being a little longer than expected, making it a little tense in terms of bagging a last big bird for the tour participant. However, we arrived at Tambo Condor restaurant in time, with 45 minutes of light still remaining in the day. Immediately, the stark change in climate was palpable, and we were scrambling for extra layers, in spite of a slim time limit left to find that Goliath among hummers. Before, we had even started to look for that though, we admired Ecuador’s national bird on the wing overhead – Andean Condor, another giant of the bird world, with a wingspan that can reach 10ft/3m, or to put it another way, considerably wider (nearly 3feet more than), the height of NBA player Shaquille O’Neal, (think about that)! We admired its grace, and lack of need to take a single wingbeat, as it cruised the entire length of the valley effortlessly. 

We then moved to a small set of hummingbird feeders at Tambo Condor, where even in the frigid temperatures creeping into the late afternoon, hummingbirds were bustling, chasing their final feeds of the day. The first we were to see were a pair of Shining Sunbeams, both revealing their metallic coloured rumps that give rise to its extravagant name. Then, just around the corner sat the object of our quest, a Giant Hummingbird sitting there like he owned the joint, and dwarfing the sunbeams at their nearby feeder. While sunbeams may take the trophy for looks, Giant Hummingbird is impressive for its girth, it is one big hummingbird. 

A great end to a day that started with us watching Fiery Topaz hovering in the humid air of the Amazon, and finished with Shining Sunbeams rushing around within the icy air of the high Andes, where condors still circled overhead…

It had been a very memorable 3 days of birding, which were never meant to be for me, were it not for a delayed bag on American Airlines that opened the way for me to travel to the Amazon with said bag, (and bins and camera!). The rest is now part of my own personal avian history.

Waiting for Snow...COSTA RICA (25th Feb.)

...Now that is not something that many can claim on the eastern seaboard of the United States this year! But, more of that later.

Having bagged 7 Fiery-billed Aracaris and a Spot-breasted Oriole pre-breakfast, post-breakfast we drove into the Caribbean foothills, and Braulio Carrillo National Park. With our delayed departure from the Central Valley, delayed because of an exciting onslaught of birds, we did not roll into Braulio until the "poor birding time" of nearly 11am. I was not that hopeful of a bumper crop, with our late arrival, but decided that John and I would walk the famous Las Palmas trail. While John and I walked the trail, Pablo, my co-guide and bird photography fiend, went with John's wife, Irene, to enjoy the El Tapir Hummingbird Garden, just a few kilometers away.

As John and I entered the trail a Buff-rumped Warbler flitted on and off the trail, but the most noteworthy thing was the sheer lack of bird sounds; it felt like the birds had already left the building. The trail is only 1.6km long, so we figured, worst-come-the-worst, we would reach the other end in no time. John and I entered the trails without our cameras, a little laziness, and ominous clouds overhead leading us to this decision; a decision we were to regret dearly. Not only did we get no rain, but we got lots of birds, some very photogenic indeed. The first sign that things were going to work out was a Dull-mantled Antbird that showed very well on our first leg of the trail, then we hit several feeding flocks that created excitement with what they held within; the first of these held a Brown-billed Scythebill, a male White-throated Shrike-Tanager that sat at eye level for 5 whole minutes, several Carmiol's (Olive) Tanager, and Streak-crowned Antvireo and Checker-throated Antwren within the understorey component of the same flock. A little off trail work was required to locate a softly-spoken Song Wren too. Continuing on around the trail we walked into my nemesis bird, and a wonderful lifer right around lunchtime: a pair of Lattice-tailed Trogons, which could have been well photographed, were it not for my foolish lack of camera! On the way out we also walked up to a Crested Guan that glared down at us as it wolfed down fruits, and saw three Stripe-breasted Wrens too.

With our late arrival, and late lunchtime, we ate lunch and then returned to El Tapir, so that John and I could see some of what Irene and Pablo had seen during the morning. The unnerving news was that they had NOT seen a Snowcap, a hummingbird for which our visit there was crucial. However, we returned in the hope that it might pop up on one of the flowering Verbenas while we were there. While we waited for the arrival of snow, John and I set about catching up on some of the birds that were seen there during the morning: Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer flew in (photo immediately above), revealed its bright red feet and left; Green Thorntails flitted in and out of the verbenas, all the while being chased off by the aggressive resident Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds; the male Black-crested Coquette, perhaps as it is so tiny and so sneaky, flew in several times and avoided the usual vicious attacks. In the trees overhead we racked up Passerini's Tanagers, and better still, Black-and-yellow Tanager, Black-faced Grosbeak, and (for me at least), a male Tawny-capped Euphonia. The afternoon though was wearing on, and we still were without snow, and we still had to make our way another hour down into La Selva before the day was out. Tensions were high when the sun began to ail around 4:30PM, and even I was thinking that we might have to leave this bird behind, when Pablo shouted "S-N-O-W-C-A-P", and before we knew it there it was, a tiny hummingbird daubed in deep purple, and capped with a crisp white "Snowcap"! This bird is not only desirable for its rarity and endemic status (it is a regional endemic found from Honduras to west Panama, but is most gettable in Costa Rica), it just looks, and sounds good.

With the day wearing on, and snowcap bagged, we headed straight for La Selva, getting there with very little time to bird by the time of our late afternoon arrival. However, that did not stop is from adding Rufous-tailed Jacamar and Collared Aracari before darkness took over.

Birding with the Stars....ECUADOR (9th Nov.)

I guess we've all heard of "Dancing with the Stars", and so why not Birding with the Stars!?

Anyway, after leaving the dry, Kapok-studded, deciduous woodland of Jorupe behind, we climbed up higher in the Andes to the reserve of Utuana, tucked away out of sight of most passers by. The reason for our visit was abundantly clear; hummingbirds, and 2 very special ones indeed, which are specialties of the south of Ecuador and northern Peru...Luckily, they are both straightforward to find at the feeders within the forest, a thirty minute walk in from the main road. However, that is all that is straightforward about these birds; they are far from ordinary looking, both dazzlingly beautiful, especially the Rainbow Starfrontlet, which has been known to make grown men weep! Here are a few snaps of what we enjoyed over a very exciting lunch deep within the reserve, with not another tourist sole around....Their "dowdy" companion (for nest to that species, anything looks under-dressed), was a handful of Purple-throated Sunangels.

 Next up, we were on the trail of one of Ecuador's most famous birds, the Jocotoco Antpitta, a bird completely unknown to science until 1997, when a certain Robert Ridgely spotted one, and the path of Ecuadorian bird tourism and conservation was changed irreparably...