Travel Travails

This trip to Southern Ecuador grew out of our need to expend a credit with tour provider Tropical Birding, created when a 2020 trip to Oaxaca was cancelled. TB was not particularly generous and I probably would not have used them were it not for the credit. And given the ongoing COVID uncertainty, I would have waited longer were it not for the credit deadline. 

As travel restrictions and requirements became more stringent, planning got more complicated.  It’s now necessary to get PT-PCR tested no more than 72 hours before departure and, of course, test results can take up to 72 hours. Hope for the best or pay $150 for a rapid test. Realizing it’s even possible to test positive, I increased the travel insurance to cover some of the tour costs, as well as medical emergency coverage.  But I coughed up the $150 and got a negative result (that's the good one).

The next hurdle is air travel, snarled by COVID and weather but "On Time" as of this writing.  American Airlines did its best to ensure that our travel schedule was as inconvenient as possible, thoughtfully changing flight details 2 or 3 times to get us to places between 11 PM and 2 AM, and allowing us to leave places at 4:30 AM.   But at least I’ll be meeting up with friends from Arizona, who are also connecting through Miami. 

My priorities are hummingbirds, of which 90 or more species are possible, including a few that only occur in the area we are traveling.  And one that was only discovered a few years ago.  I’ll continue to ponder the evolutionary influences that resulted in some 350 hummingbird species of almost unimaginable variety in plumage and habits.  My infatuation with hummingbirds came late, a late-life regret right up there with having sold my 1957 Ducati motorcycle in 1967.

Overall, the trip could find over 750 species of birds, a remarkable 7.5% of all the birds in the world.

Sparkling Violetear - One of the many possible hummingbirds to see in southern Ecuador.  I photographed this one in Colombia a few years ago.

Blog posts will depend somewhat on WiFi access and time availability, but I hope you'll vicariously enjoy following my trip.

Ayampe Adventure

We decided to get in to Ecuador a couple days before the tour and try to get a few Pacific coast specialties before joining up.  Also a little insurance against air delays. Which amazingly did not happen, although American Airlines did its best to try. And arrival was refreshingly efficient, zoomed through health screening, passport, and customs in about the amount of time it takes in Miami to be directed to the right desk. 

Off in a too small car (see below) to Ayampe on the Pacific coast, where surf is king and birds are friendly.

Curtis Smith, another Arizona friend, drove and engineered the luggage 

Hoped for ONE OF THE RAREST BIRDS IN THE WORLD - the Esmeralda’s Woodstar hummingbird, but doinked on that one. Compensation was a few roadside bonus birds including Pearl Kite and Chilean Flamingo species, spotted by sharp-eyed Jay Hand, a one-time Connecticut birder now in Arizona.  An afternoon and morning yielded around 70 species, many of which were new to one or another of us or offered stunning views previously unseen.  

Like this female Hook-billed Kite.

And this Masked Water-Tyrant.

A walk along a famous surfer beach didn’t yield much in the way of birds, but a first communion with the Pacific Ocean south of the Equator was one opportunity to ponder the wonder of nature at her macro level.

I was disabused of my speculation that these rocks were the Galapagos Islands.

A nice pizza dinner over looking the Ayampe estuary.

Back in Guayaquil in time to avoid the overtime penalty on the rental and get ready for 5:30 departure tomorrow. 

Off to Buenaventura and Umbrellabird Lodge

After our trip to Ayampe we joined the main tour, which had atrophied to only 2 more birders, plus the guide from Tropical Birding and a driver.  Several hours of driving south brought us to Umbrellabird Lodge, where we are to look for two famous endemics - the Long-wattled Umbrellabird and the El Oro Parakeet.  Found both, the first after a mud climb and the second after a mile climb until the trucks finally arrived.  But worth it and bonus was great hummingbird photo ops.

Long-wattled Umbrellabird at its courting lek.

Wow, what a place.  This lodge is located in the Buenaventura Reserve of the Fundación de Conservación Jocotoco, an Ecuadorian non-governmental organization (NGO), to protect areas of critical importance for the conservation of threatened species in Ecuador.  Hummingbirds everywhere.  Mosquitoes also; it took me an hour while writing this to finally feed all of them that snuck into the Lodge. 

Violet-tailed Sylph

Warning: bird porn, may not be suitable for all audiences.

Copulating El Oro Parakeets, a species found only in the El Oro District of Ecuador

Off tomorrow for the Peru border and hopefully some more unique hummers.

All photos © C.S. Wood 

Endemics, Not Pandemics

 Our terrific guide, Sam (“call me the endemic whisperer”) Woods (no relation, we think) was indeed superb at getting us on endemics, for which southern Ecuador is famous among those who obsess about such species. (In the pantheon of birder lunacy, endemic chasing ranks rather high.)

Endemics are defined somewhat subjectively, if not arbitrarily, to encompass a specified area. For instance, hummingbirds are endemic to the Western Hemisphere, while humans are endemic to earth, as related to the Universe. But we narrow it down for the purposes of bird chasing, and here we are after endemics (not pandemics or epidemics mind you) found in the Tumbesian region of southern Equador and northwest Peru. We don’t go into Peru, but we can see it from near our lodge, which I suppose qualifies us to run for Vice-President. 

A Peru Mountain from Urraca Preserve

Anyway, Sam has this endemic thing down pat, with what I like to call the 3-2-1-1 formula: drive 3 hours, hike 2 miles, stand 1 hour, see 1 bird.  Not always of course, sometimes we see things along the way that soften the disappointment if the final “1” of the above formula turns into “0”.  

Endemics come in all shapes and sizes, bird-wise that is.  Some are small but stunning:

Black-crested Tit-Tyrant

Speaking of tits (no, really), we had noticed that Sam’s introductory bio blurb included this tidbit of info: “Sam’s unhealthy obsession for birds began with a pair of tits in a London park at age 11.” (I am not making this up.) We presume he also enjoyed the birds flying around the park. But this is clarified for the “average American”, by which I mean everyone, with the information behind the Beatles song “And Your Bird Can Sing” which refers not to one of the chickadee-like parus species (i.e. “tits”) but to Mick Jagger’s girlfriend. In Britain, hot girlfriends are called “birds”.  Oh, and Sam is British.

And some birds may be valued for endemism but not looks:

Tumbes Hummingbird (this is as beautiful as this hummingbird gets)

But some of the endemic hummingbirds on this trip are more like common perceptions of hummers (a bird-cognoscenti term):

Purple-throated Sunangel

This guy was among a small swarm (another technical birder term) of squabbling hummers living up to the reputation given them by the Aztecs, who believed brave warriors who died in battle were resurrected as hummingbirds. Let’s hope that was true. 

One of the fancier hummers, this territorialist (I’ll explain that later) species guards his food supply against all comers. 

Rainbow Starfrontlet

As promised, hummingbirds will be a focus of future posts, and I take comfort in hearing about 10 inches of snow and 4 degree weather at my house in Connecticut knowing that I’ll have several thousand photos to cull for the best hummer shots during the cold winter days. 

And thanks to my travel mates Jay Hand, Sue Carnahan, and Curtis Smith for brainstorming blog ideas. Ciao for know. 

All photos © C.S. Wood 

Bird Photo of the Day

White-necked Parakeets, endemic (recall your earlier class on endemics) to Southern Ecuador and a small piece of northern Peru, gleaning minerals to assist their digestion. In Podocarpus National Park in Zamora-Chinchipe, on the eastern slopes of the Andes. This species is endangered due to deforestation of its preferred habitat and collection for the pet trade. There may be only 2,000 - 3,000 of this bird remaining and they are only found at four locations, three in Ecuador and one in Peru  

All photos © C.S. Wood 

Up Into the Andes

Two Andean Mountain ranges split Ecuador with eastern and western cordilleras. From the southern edge of Ecuador we drove into the eastern range to Casa Simpson, the first of the Jocotoco Foundation lodges.  The Foundation was created to protect vital ecological resources in Ecuador, including the relatively recently discovered Jocotoco Antpitta (a species of bird, not some sort of pit-digging ant trapper).  

We started after some target rarities at high elevations on Cerro Toledo, where the wind is strong and the birds are few. Above tree line at about 10,000 feet AMSL, it’s not a setting that portends a high BPH (another technical birding term meaning Bird species Per Hour). But with persistence we (by which I mean our guide Sam) find one of the most sought-after hummingbird species, the Neblina Metaltail. You might wonder how a hummingbird could fly with a metal tail, but that’s just a euphemism referring to the gunmetal color of the tail on several hummingbird species. 

Neblina is Spanish for “mist” and this demure species lives at the high edge of the misty elfin forest and can only be found in a narrow range of southern Ecuador and northern Peru. 

According to the bird list Sue compiled of this outing (one of about 65 she has done so far, requiring meticulous attention to detail while at the same time having the sharpest get-on-the-bird-eyes in the group) we had a BPH of about 2, but this one was worth the trekking up and down the mountain-side - well, mostly up.  Seems every time we headed down, we had to turn around and go back up. 

Off this mountain we make our way to Casa Simpson, where hummingbird feeders quickly provide me with three more new hummer species.  After a failed night slog to see a Screech Owl we set out early the next morning on what to become a rainy, bird-filled, 6 hour, 3 1/2 mile trek.  A pretty good workout for our group of approaching-maturity adults. Jay points out that if 60 is the new 40, 80 is the new geezer. 

A stop at a shelter included a relatively new trick to birding, attracting and feeding Antpittas (a rather specialized group of birds) with worms.  This was the famous Jocotoco Antpitta (read about them here: https://www.worldlandtrust.org/species/birds/jocotoco-antpitta/) - pronounced “hokotoko” - a family of which has become so accustomed to being fed, that they appeared to be waiting for us “litrilly stamping their feet” in the words of our British guide. This I am making up, but they were clearly hungry and expecting a handout.

A juvenile Jocotoco Antpitta learning how to beg for worms.

Travel around Ecuador can be tricky since landslides (“derrumbes” in Spanish or “YIKES!” in English), are commonplace and pretty much ignored by both the Highway Department and the trucks, cars, motorcycles, cows, and pedestrians that use the roads. But our excellent driver, Antonio, maneuvers our van expertly around these inconveniences that border on catastrophic rolls down vertiginous slopes. 

Road safety might be a bit more lax than in the States.  Note the secure and effective plastic tape preventing accidents.  It reads “peligro” which is either an ad for fizzy water or Spanish for “danger”.

Eventually we arrived at one the main reasons for the trip (other than a few weeks away from COVID and political news in the US), a private garden hosting the spectacular Spangled Coquette.  Of course, as with the rare Jocotoco Antbird trek, this was also a chance to wash our shoes in the pouring rain as we climbed to the verbena garden and jostled among 15 or so people for views of not-the-Spangled Coquette. Until, miraculously, the rain stops and suddenly I hear alert and sharp-eyed Sue say “there!”  And indeed “there” is a full-blown male SPCO (birder shorthand) and by some species of legerdemain I get a few decent photos. 

A male Spangled Coquette, one of the most stunning of the hummingbirds. 

Back to the Peru border tomorrow, over which a not-so-committed war was fought back in the 1990s.

All photos © C.S. Wood 

Paramo Birds and Birding Interruptus

Well, in spite of all the vaccines, boosters, masks, and rum we came down with COVID - except Jay for some inexplicable reason.  Too many insalubrious interactions with lodge staffs, other birders, and probably each other in the end. 

Initially, only one of us tested after feeling ill (HIPAA prohibits identifying her as Sue), so the rest of us leave for a date with the most recently discovered species of Trochillid, the Blue-throated Hillstar. 

This Hillstar is a paramo specialist, of which there are several bird species, and we find ourselves after a mountainous drive clambering over a windswept grassy hillside at 11,500 feet altitude in the Andes. The Hillstar does not take long to appear, and the photogs all jockey for position to get a frontal shot, to limited success. 

Hummingbirds often appear as if they were teleported, not there one second and there the next. Something to do with their speed of flight and our slowness of eye, I suspect, but it makes for excitement when it occurs on a bush that a group watches in anticipation. 

Blue-throated Hillstar

But it’s more than satisfactory to photograph a bird that was only described as a new Trochilidae species in 2017; if you are ornithophilous you understand. This critically endangered hummingbird numbers probably less than 1000 individuals within a range of less than 100 square kilometers.  It is a paramo species from one mountain in Ecuador, Cerro de Arcos, where it occurs between 10,000 and 12,000 feet above sea level; this photo was taken at about 11,500 feet.  (Nothing like chasing birds at almost 12,000 feet to remind you that you’re 74 years old.)

A few more paramo specialists sweeten our visit, including a rare hummer, the Viridian Metaltail. 

Viridian Metaltail (one of the original “Angry Birds”)

Another cute little paramo specialist, but decidedly un-hummingbird-like, is the Tawny Antpitta. Recalling the Jocotoco Antpitta we watched being fed in a deep jungle (approximately 37 times the size of the Tawny) one marvels at the diversity of this family of birds as well. 

Tawny Antpitta

But our celebration of the Hillstar sighting and the wonder of Andean peaks is dampened when Sam relays the news that most of us tested positive for COVID.  So we have to speed back to Guayaquil to isolate in a hotel and await a negative test.  

After almost three weeks in the wilds and mountains of southern Equador, being limited to a 20 x 12 room is somewhat confining. Perhaps presciently I am reading A Gentleman in Moscow, about a political enemy of the Russian Revolution who is internally exiled to a single hotel.  And I start to relate to his fears that “it would not take long for the ceiling to edge downward, the walls to edge inward, and the floor to edge upward, until the entire hotel had been collapsed into the size of a biscuit tin.”

A view of the paramo and Blue-throated Hillstar habitat at about 12,000 feet.

And a view of Guayaquil from the first floor.

I have little or no symptoms, so I go through the so-called five stages of grief: Angry, Dopey, Sleepy, Grumpy, and Resigned (thankfully, no Sneezy).  Fortunately I have several thousand photos to go through and I have Lightroom on my iPad to play with, and the 100 or more eBird checklists that Sue prepared to go through and reminisce about happier days. 

But after seeing and hearing over 570 species of birds the last three weeks, a diet of one Turkey Vulture, one Ecuadorian Thrush, a flock of Southern Rough-winged Swallows, a few Scrub Blackbirds, two Tropical Kingbirds, several pigeons, and - painfully - numerous airplanes, is less than satisfying. 

One of my few “hotel birds” a Tropical Kingbird 

Next up, I hope: weird birds of the trip.

All photos © C.S. Wood