Brandon & Debbie's Travels: Ecuador Oct 2018

In October 2018 Debbie and I spent a week in Northwest Ecuador visiting the cloud forests on the western slope of the Andes. Our travels took us from elevations of 11,000 feet at the beginning and down to about 1,500 feet, with a wide variety of habitats and birds found along the way. For the birdwatcher, Ecuador is an amazing place- it is about the size of Colorado but has about 1,600 species of birds. For comparison, the US & Canada combined have recorded about 1,000 species ever! Additionally, it is easy to reach from the US, and there is lots of infrastructure for visitors- lodges, guides, drivers, etc. It is pretty great for adventure travelers as well- with such a wide range of elevations and habitats, there is just so much available to do.

We hope you enjoy this album that shares some of the things we saw during our time there. - Namaste, Brandon & Debbie

Day 1- We were picked up from our hotel in Quito (JW Marriott, highly recommended) and set off to get high! Our lodge for the rest of the week (Reserva Las Gralarias) sits at 6,000 feet, but our first location was Reserva Yanacocha at 11,000 feet.

Plain-breasted Hawk.

Scarlet-bellied Mountain Tanager

Farmland in the Andes at about 10,000 above sea level. That snow-capped mountain is Antisana Volcano

In the tropics you can cut a fence post and sometimes they'll just grow back!

Black-chested Buzzard-eagle.

Looking down on the Andes from Yanacocha Reserve above 11,000 feet. Cloud forest in the distance.

Andean mountain high

Great Sapphirewing showing their namesake. These are very big hummingbirds of high elevations.

Buff-winged Starfontlet

Sword-billed Hummingbird. This is their default position because they have to balance the weight of the bill. They normally feed on very deep flowers that other hummers can't access.

Masked Flowerpierecer. Flowerpiercers are thieves. Where hummers enter a flower normally and often get dusted with pollen (and help with plant reproduction), flowerpiercers slice the base of a flower and steal nectar without helping the plant any.

Leaving the dry high elevations and descending into the cloud forest. The first day the fog was so dense we couldn't see past 50 feet.

Golden-headed Quetzal, female. The males have gold-green heads, the females are just brown.

Scaled Fruiteater

Day 2- We stayed around Las Gralarias today and enjoyed the trails there along with the hummingbird feeders. Those are insane, at any one time there could be a hundred hummers buzzing around you, of several different species as you can see below.

Fawn-breasted Brilliant

Gorgeted Sunangel

Empress Brilliant. Not a lot of flashy colors but they're big and that shining green is incredible.

In the next 2 photos, I shot a Buff-tailed Coronet. You can really see the effect of iridescent feathers, the bird turned its head just slightly in the 2nd shot.

Sometimes you just have to share a feeder port.

Violet-tailed Sylph. This was Debbie's favorite hummingbird to see of the trip. Nicely, they about the most common species found at the feeders at Las Gralarias.

Velvet-purple Coronet. These birds look black until they turn in the light and then they're an amazing array of colors. This was the best shot I could get to convey that.

And not just purple, they've also got teal just to show off a little more.

Collared Inca.

Booted Racket-tail. Among the smallest hummers that come around to the feeders. Maybe small, but they've got some suave.

Pearled Treerunner

Day 3- We headed downslope today to a place called Milpe Reserve, a patch of primary forest. This was our favorite place of the trip, there was just so much life in the forest!

This gives an idea of how dense the forest is, with our guide Marcelo for scale.

Golden Tanager

White-necked Jacobin. Hummers are pretty aggressive, this one was picking out the winner of the next ass whipping.

Crimson-bellied Woodpecker

Guyaquil Woodpecker

Choco Toucan

Yellow-chested Toucan, very similar to the Choco Toucan but bigger

Ornate Flycatcher

Green Thorntail, showing why the species got its name.

Crowned Woodnymph

There are some big leaves in the tropics.

Snowy-throated Kingbird

Swallow-tailed Tanagers. These are incredible to see in the flesh.

Standard position, camera in hand.

Day 4- we visited a place nearby called Paz de las Aves. It was started by a man named Angel Paz on his family's farmland. There are some special birds that can be seen there easily which otherwise are very difficult to see.

Andean Cock-of-the-rock. There are lots of better photos out there than this one, but this was our favorite bird of the trip. We saw a couple dozen of these guys gathered in one place (a lek) trying to show off for the ladies. It is a crazy cacophony of sound and color.

Crimson-rumped Toucanet

Dark-backed Woodquail. Normally these birds are seen running away from you in the undergrowth. These have been trained to come for bananas when whistled for.

Roadside Hawk

Chestnut-capped Antpitta with Angel's brother Rodrigo. Antpittas are famous for being very difficult to see or find. The Paz's figured out you can whistle them in for earthworms, which is just out of this world.

Ocher-breasted Antpitta, also called in for worms. About the size of 2 golf balls. Imagine this guy sitting dead still in a dark shady forest- impossible to see!

Toucan Barbet.

Orange-breasted Fruiteater.

Later in the day we headed to this town. They love their colorful signs in Ecuador.

Purple-crowned Fairy, one of my favorite hummers of the trip.

Collared Aracari, a species of toucan. One of Debbie's favorite group of birds.

Yellow-tailed Oriole.

Common Basilisk resting on a rock.

Day 5- This day we headed down to our lowest elevation, about 1,500 feet to a place called Rio Silanche. Many different birds were found here that aren't seen at higher elevations.

Me with our driver Milton on the left and our guide Marcelo on the right. Both were great company to spend the week with.

Hook-billed Kite. This species feeds mostly on large apple snails, that big schnozz helps with getting the snail out.

Black-cheeked Woodpecker

A selfie while Debbie wasn't paying attention. She was diligently looking for toucans. She found some...

Collared Aracaris that Debbie was looking for.

White-tailed Trogon

White-tailed Trogon. Subtle but glorious.

Masked Tityra

Purple-throated Fruitcrow.

Chestnut-fronted Macaws. Bad lighting but these were my first-ever macaws so I was pretty excited.

Looking up through the canopy of a tropical forest.

Swallow-tailed Kite. This species can also be see in Florida and southeast Texas. They are among the most graceful flying birds on earth, they seem to float in the air at times.

Fasciated Tiger-heron.

Colombian Screech-owl, seen after dark at Reserva Las Gralarias.

Day 6- I decided to get up early and try to catch a few shots of the sunrise. The rest of the day we headed back to the Mindo area and cleaned up on a few species we'd missed previously.

The cloud forest at daybreak with the mists receding.

Sun rising over a farm in the forest.

The mists dissipating as the day is born.

Female Red-headed Barbet.

Torrent Duck. These ducks live in clear turbulent streams like you see around this bird.

Flame-rumped Tanager, this was one of Debbie's favorites, they're very common in the area we were in.

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

Crowned Woodnymph all fluffed out.

Brown Violetear

Sparkling Violetear

Golden-naped Tanager

Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan

Tanager Finch. This is a species known from only a handful of locations in Ecuador and Colombia and is globally rare. Fortunately our guide Marcelo knew one such location.

Crested Quetzal, male.

Day 7- As our tour came to an end, we were taken back to Quito. Quito sits at a higher elevation in a valley between the mountains and is much drier than where we visited. There are yet again a whole different suite of birds found where the city sits.