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This was one of the most spectacular days of the tour, as we wandered just outside the colonial city of Cuenca into the high Andean park of El Cajas. While there we checked a number of high altitude lakes and ponds, wandered through temperate cloud forest, scoured the distinctive polylepis woods that dot the high spots, and walked the open paramo grasslands that dominate this scenic park. We started by a scenic lake (that held an assortment of waterbirds, including Andean Gull and Andean Ducks), that was fringed with thick temperate forest that bought us Chestnut-crowned Antpitta, and a couple of splendid multicolored Gray-breasted Mountain-Toucans, with freshly fallen raindrops glistening on their backs. Rarest bird though was the endemic Violet-throated Metaltail that was seen visiting bright pink blooms on the lake edge.
Once up in the paramo we picked up an array of high Andean furnariids, like the Stout-billed Cinclodes, and a confiding Mouse-colored Thistletail, in addition to our final antpitta for the trip, the easiest of the lot, Tawny Antpittta that literally bounded clumsily across the main highway running through the park.
We visited a range of altitudes, up to just over 13,600 feet, which allowed us to explore the highest growing trees in the world, the flaky, red-barked polylepis trees that bought us two of the days best birds, as both Tit-like Dacnis and Giant Conebill specialize in this endangered habitat (see photos). Orange chuquiragua flowers attracted a super, violet-hooded male Ecuadorian Hillstar, before we finally descended picking up both Andean Lapwing and Paramo Pipit before we finally left this beautiful park behind, for our return journey to the humid city of Guayaquil and the start of the Pacific Coast extension...
For these days we were based out of the excellent Copalinga Lodge, perched on the edge of the Rio Bombuscaro sector of Podocarpus NP, in the eastern foothills of the Andes. The lodge itself provided excellent birding, with Spangled Coquette, the punk-haired Wire-crested Thorntail, and a marvelous Golden-winged Tody-Flycatcher all seen within an hour of our arrival! The park itself boasts a massive list of tanagers, and one magical flock of tanagers there contributed to an amazing day where we recorded 23 species of tanagers alone in a single day, including a male Golden-collared Honeycreeper among them. The mega flock around the park HQ also hosted the recently described Foothill Elaenia (only discovered in 2000), Equatorial Graytails, and several Blue-naped Chlorophonias among a host of colorful tanagers of course! Other highlights from our time in the eastern foothills included a Black-streaked Puffbird, a pair of Blackish Nightjars, Striped & Blue-rumped Manakins, and a perched up Semicollared Hawk along the Old Loja-Zamora Road, where at the very death we found a troop of the near-endemic White-breasted Parakeet (photo) perched quietly in the treetops, just as the thought of dipping this flagship bird was looming large! Next up: The high Andes in El Cajas NP...
Several days were spent mixing it up between the humid deciduous woods in Jorupe reserve, tracking down way too many Tumbesian endemics to mention, and also venturing up into the highlands of Sozoranga and Utuana searching for specialties of the region. At Jorupe highlights included 4 Henna-hooded Foliage-gleaners, and the scarce and local Rufous-necked Foliage-gleaner too, a Watkins's Antpitta that literally jumped onto an open track in front of us all, a nesting pair of Slaty Becards, a few dapper Black-capped Sparrows (third photo), several troops of White-tailed Jays among a whole host of other birds that are largely restricted in their ranges to a small area of southern Ecuador and northern Peru. Many too are considered threatened. Our final third night at Jorupe lodge finally got us a Peruvian Screech-Owl that we had been hunting down for two nights previously without success (bottom photo).At Sozoranga and Utuana we witnessed a number of the local Chestnut-collared Swallows peering out of their mud nests (top photo), a pair of Piura Hemispingus, three Elegant Crescentchests, a hulking Black-cowled Saltator, a very cute pair of Black-crested Tit-Tyrants (second photo), many glistening Rainbow Starfrontlets, and even tracked down a Gray-headed Antbird too.
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...
Have not had a lot of time to update, so here is a quick note and photo about one of twelve different Horned Screamers seen in the Manglares Charute area of Guayas on the first days of my recent Southern Ecuador Tropical Birding tour. More highlights of the tour to come, where we recorded over 550 species, including 52 different hummingbirds, 62 different tanagers, and saw 7 different antpittas...
