23 December 2010

El Cajas Part II Tyrant ends reign of terror...ECUADOR (19 Dec '10)



I have lived in Ecuador for five magical years and seen in excess of 1200 species in the country, although one rare, bold, and beautiful highland flycatcher had somehow, remarkably, eluded me. Many sleepless nights had passed, and tortuous near misses, and now here I was back in its territory again - the polylepis shrubbery well above the treeline in the high Andes of El Cajas. I tried to play the "hunt" down in my mind, but this was the king of "bogey birds", the ultimate nemesis, and images of it swum around my mind. I even admitted this terrible "illness" to the group. IIam sure I heard sniggers, most of them had seen one before, and all their sightings came in Ecuador!

We gingerly approached the polylepis grove where I had so narrowly missed it at my last visit in February 2010 (when rather cruelly I had most probably taped one into view of another birding group there, when I was blocked from the tyrant's view!) The local guide commented it had been at the spot "frequently", although when he said his last sighting was three weeks ago, I was not holding my breath. Three weeks is an ice age in birding. We made our way down, kicking cinclodes, sierra-finches and more Tawny Antpittas out of our way as we did so, glanced up and was greeted with a quiet, seemingly deserted grove of trees. They can hide a lot within, although these guys are known for sitting up high and prominently, there was clearly no sign of them. In my latest desperation I clicked the jog dial on the I-pod and hoped for divine intervention...
Then one of the group, John, exclaimed "there it is!", I spun around quickly and was thrilled to see a large red flycatcher sitting agitatedly on top of a near polylepis tree...peace returned to my life once more. I even thought about dancing, but held myself back!

There were more great birds to come from El Cajas, but right at that sweet, sweet moment I was lost in birding, in the image of a wonderful pair of Red-rumped Bush-Tyrants (photos), my ultimate nemesis bird!....


More from El Cajas to follow...

3 comments:

Gunnar Engblom said...

Great Sam. That is a beautiful bird and very scarce in most of its range. In Peru on our tours we see one-two occassionally in Abra Malaga and Unchog. Apart from that - nada!

john said...

It's always a bittersweet moment for me when a jinx bird goes down. I have the great satisfaction of getting a much sought after species, but sadness that it's one less new bird to anticipate seeing.

Steve Blain said...

Well done, sir! That's been a long-time coming. Fantastic shots of it too.

Have a great New Year!