Ecuador: Republic of the Equator. Week 1-Part 1

Tandayapa Bird Lodge.  The name is famous among those in the birding world, even to those who have never been there, those who wish they could go someday.  What does the name mean? It means birding in the Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve, a place in which more than 300 species can be seen.  It means traveling a short distance and birding the world famous Mindo Cloud Forest Reserve, some of the most pristine cloud forest in the world. Travel a short distance down-mountain and you reach the Jocotoco Foundation's Reserva de Milpe, a lesser known, but up and coming birding hotspot.  It means driving the old Nono-Mindo road, home to some of the best birding in the world.  But it also means home to Tandayapa Lodge, the best spot in the world to see Hummingbirds.  Some 14 species regularly patronize the lodge feeders with some days seeing 16 or more species.

Tandayapa Lodge is owned and operated by Tropical Birding, a birding tour company that runs tours around the world.  During the spring and summer, there is usually a volunteer resident at the lodge to help point out birds to clients and keep the place shipshape.  I had the good fortune to spend 3 weeks in April as one of these volunteers.  The following is an account of the 3 weeks that I spent birding around the lodge and areas nearby. In all, I found 209 species (rather pitiful for South America, but pretty decent considering where I went and that I spent most of the three weeks right around the lodge itself).


I flew into Quito on April 1st. The 5 hour flight got just a tad long towards the end. Arriving at the airport after 9pm, I caught a taxi to my hotel in downtown Quito.  The next morning, I awoke early and hopped outside on the balcony.  I quickly picked out a dove that looked suspiciously like a Mourning Dove. A quick check of my field guide revealed that this was in fact an Eared Dove, superficially similar to Mourning Dove but, of course, Ecuadorian.  Several Great Thrushes were present in the area as well.

A couple hours later, Nick Athanas of Tropical Birding came to pick me up and take me to the Tropical Birding office. Sparkling Violetears were almost deafening, calling from the trees around the office. There, I met Pablo Cervantes (the manager of the lodge) who was going to take me up to the lodge.   Pablo spoke some english and he and I communicated fairly well, so the drive up was quite pleasant.  On the way, I was surprised at the amount of rainforest that had been logged off for farmland:

Once we got back into the Tandayapa Valley, it became a bit more natural and much more of the forest was protected. The "road" up the valley was narrow and muddy and full of potholes. Not the world's greatest road by any means, but at least you could call it a road. Sort of.....

The driveway up to the lodge was in substantially worse shape due to a recent landslide that took out half the driveway:

You could sort of call it a road.

I hauled my suitcase out of the car and then discovered the infamous stairs. Rising nearly 100ft straight up from the parking area. 77 steps later, I got my first look at the lodge. It was a long, low building with a single main room and a long hallway with bedrooms on either side.  Pablo directed me to what was to be my room for the next 3 weeks.

Once I had dumped my belongings in my room, I grabbed my camera and bins and took off, checking out the amazing bird life around the lodge.

Since there wasn't much light left, I spent most of the time watching the Hummingbird feeders attempting to figure out exactly what each Hummer was.
The most common bird at the feeders was by far Buff-tailed Coronets like this one above.  They were also one of the more vocal Hummingbirds in the area.  Green Violetear was the other.

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird was the first species I recognized having seen it in Costa Rica a month earlier:

This one appears to have gotten into quite a fight and lost part of it's lower mandible.

I was amazed at the number of Hummingbirds there that had bent or broken bills. I would guess a lot of it is due to fighting, but who knows how much of it is due to environment as well.

As I watched, another Hummingbird with a long tail flew in. It made a quick visit to the feeder, then flew to a nearby perch, flaunting it's long, violet-purple tail.  Violet-tailed Sylph!!  This Choco endemic was high on my list of must-see birds and here was one, sitting right in front of me:

Unfortunately, the bird's tail was too long to get the whole bird in the frame, and have it appear larger than a pixel.  They are amazing birds. One of the larger Hummers at the feeders, they can be bullies sometimes, but nowhere near as bad as the Buff-tailed Coronets that perch near a feeder and guard it.  

One of the other common birds at the feeders was this Booted Raquet-tail. While not an endemic, these little guys are one of the most sought after birds of the tropics.  They're about the size of a Rufous Hummingbird (maybe a tad smaller) and the males have long tail streamers with feathered "Raquets" at the end. The only similar species is the Peruvian endemic Marvelous Spatuletail.  Both sexes of Booted Raquet-tail have the white, feathered "boots" around their legs. 

                                      



A less common, but still totally awesome visitor to the feeders is the tiny Purple-throated Woodstar.  While not the smallest of Hummingbirds, they do have the fastest wingbeats of any bird; their wings buzzing at nearly 130 beats per second.

Seeing 14 lifer species of Hummingbirds in less than an hour is a completely overwhelming experience. Identifying each of the 12 species proved tricky at first, but within a day or two, I became used to recognizing each of the 14 regular species without having to refer to my field guide.  

After a quick dinner, darkness falling, I turned in after an awesome first day in the tropics of Ecuador.  

Where in the world is Chris?

That's always the question anymore among my friends. I'm always vanishing off to some different place and showing up where people least expect. 

Currently? I'm sitting in Denver Int airport waiting to see if I can catch an earlier flight home. 

I spent the past 10 days birding Colorado and adding 6 lifers and a host of state birds. 

Finding some of them proved tricky. White-tailed Ptarmigan, Sage Sparrow and Mountain Plover were among the trickier ones.  

I will detail the trip a bit more when I arrive home. 

Where am I off to next? I have no idea. I think it'll be family vacation to somewhere in the US... but... if you know me and how my schedule changes, I could end up half way around the world next week.......

Til next time, Happy Birding! 

Ecuador Republic of the Equator

A very common question as of late has been "where in the world is Chris?"  Well, 24 hours from now, I will be in a hotel in downtown Quito, Ecuador.   What will I be doing?  I have a position as a birding volunteer at Tandayapa Bird Lodge in the Upper Tandayapa Valley about an hour's drive north of Quito.  For the next two months, I will be living and working at Tandayapa Bird Lodge. My job is to assist the staff with whatever they require, help guests with finding and identifying the local bird life, and pretty much just go birding all day every day and find as many of the local endemics as I can!

How many species is that?  The lodge checklist is approx 300 species long. 250 of which are fairly regular around the lodge.  200 of which I will likely see.  Considering it's spring, there won't be any boreal migrants around and almost all 200 species will be lifers. The only exceptions being the ones that I saw in Costa Rica at the beginning of the month.

Did I expect to be flying to the tropics twice in the same month? nope! Even two weeks ago I couldn't have told you I was leaving in just a few hours.  Just another surprise trip for me. Just like the Costa Rica trip.

Anywho, I will update this as often as possible with photos and tales of my adventures in the tropics, so stay tuned!!

Til next time, as always:
Happy Birding!!!

Aerial Tram and Savegre Lodge

Yes, that is a Resplendent Quetzal.  One of the most sought after birds of the Tropics, possibly in the world.  They are endemic to Central America, ranging from southern Mexico into central Panama.  A bird of the highlands, their range is usually restricted to above 7000ft in elevation, but sticking to the deep valleys rather than the mountaintops.  

With their deep, blood red chest,  iridescent blue head and shimmering blue-green back, they are widely regarded as the most beautiful bird in the world.  

The twin "feathery" feathers extending past the tail are one of the signature field marks of this species.  Not really tail feathers, the two feathers are actually the extended central two upper tail covert feathers. 

We saw a total of about 8 Quetzals during our 2 day stay at Savegre Lodge.  Not bad eh? :D

Our last day at La Selva Research Station brought rain, a few lifers, and a sighting of a bird that we would see only once. Mimi picked out a Laughing Falcon sitting on a dead snag half a mile away through the rain.  Not a bad find considering how tricky these birds can be!

Our drive to Savegre Lodge was marked by an early start, a stop at the Aerial Tram and Butterfly Garden and a rather long day.

The stop at the Butterfly Gardens was a productive stop considering that we saw only a couple species of Hummers. Violet-headed made up most of the birds we saw. Rufous-tailed made up the rest.
The lack of Hummers was more than made up for by the flight of raptors that went through.  It started with a flyover Double-toothed Kite that some of us managed to get onto before it vanished over the trees.  Then, while waiting for a Lattice-tailed Trogon to come out, someone happened to look up and spotted this huge, black and white bird cruising slowly over, far above us.  The call went up within a matter of seconds. KING VULTURE!!!  In all, 6 of these awesome birds floated over, high above us.
Then a few people (including me) spotted a large, buteo-like raptor with broad wings and after much discussion, decided it was a Great Black-hawk.

A flock of Tanagers flew through. Mostly Olive, but also containing Golden-hooded among others. A Scarlet-thighed Dacnis gave quick views and our thousandth Chestnut-sided Warbler was seen (well, somewhere up there anyway...)
After deciding that we had plundered all the goodies from that section of forest, we moved on to Savegre Lodge.

Savegre Lodge turned out to be nestled at the very bottom of one of the most beautiful valleys I have ever seen.  The greenery was a welcome change from the drab brown I'd been seeing all winter here in the upper midwest.  The entire valley was a glittering shade of green.

Panorama stitching is courtesy of my friend Andrea over at the Earthbirds Blog

 The buildings blended well with the surroundings and the blue sky overhead was a welcome change from the grey clouds we had been seeing all week.

Even as we hopped off the bus, the birding began in earnest. This was a completely different group of species than the lowland rainforest birds we had been getting used to.  This Black-capped Flycatcher posed quite nicely for the camera.

The Hummingbirds proved to be easier to see and even a little more spectacular than the lowland Rufous-tails.  The star of the show turned out to be this White-throated Mountain-gem who appeared to be well versed in the art of posing:

Green Violetear was by far the most numerous Hummingbird and possibly the most numerous bird of the highlands. You could hear their fast, chipping call almost everywhere we went.

The best part about Savegre Lodge was the beautiful gardens on the grounds.  Words cannot fully describe them. Neither can photos, but here is my attempt at it:

I spent most of the last part of our first day at Savegre exploring the gardens with Dave, Mimi, and a few other people.  The actual number of species at the lodge wasn't even close to the diversity of the lowlands, but the quality made up for it. There were still some reminiscent species from the lowlands. The ever present Tropical Kingbird had perched himself high on a power line, and Clay-colored Thrushes still attempted to wake me up long before the designated time, but the higher-elevation, montane species took over from the rest. Flame-colored Tanagers were very vocal, Grey-breasted Wood-wren replaced it's White-breasted cousin, Spangle-cheeked Tanagers took over from Olive and Swallow-tailed Kite filled in the nearly absent spot that the Turkey Vultures once filled.
Perusing our way through the garden, a Ruddy-capped Nightingale-thrush captured our attention as it acted much like a Robin. Hopping around on the ground out in the open and giving excellent looks:

Here in the highlands, a few extra families reside that don't show up at all in the lowlands.
The ringing, echoing, bell-like tones of Black-faced Solitaire filtered down from above like sunlight filters through the leaves of a forest. We never saw the majority of them, but fortunately, a few did give us excellent looks and one was nice enough to pose just long enough to have his portrait taken:

Hunting deeper through the gardens, someone eventually spotted one of the far cuter birds of the area.

I had taken a break and gone rock hopping down the creek, but managed to get back just in time to see and photograph this Collared Redstart. Unfortunately, he didn't pose long, but did stay long enough for everyone to get excellent looks at this awesome bird.

Back at the lodge that evening, several of us took advantage of the hummingbird feeders (something non-existent in the humid lowlands due to the extra-high maintenance they require down there)
The hummingbirds proved to be very much used to people and would let us walk right up to them without even blinking.

White-throated Mountain-gems are totally awesome aren't they? :D


Just as a comparison to how close they'd let us get, I took the following photo with my little Point & Shoot rather than my big DSLR.  Crazy eh?

Our first and only full day of birding at Savegre Lodge involved a run to the very top of the nearby Cerro de La Muerte. As one goes up in elevation in the tropics, the species diversity decreases with every 1000ft of elevation gain. Only about half a dozen species live at the top of Cerro de La Muerte. Several of them are Endemic to the highlands of Costa Rica and Panama.

Sooty Thrush is one of the simplest birds to ID in the Costa Rican highlands. Simply because it is bigger and darker than anything else that can be found at the top of Cerro de La Muerte.  Although, even when seen further down the mountain, it is still unmistakeable.

Our trip to the top of the mountain targeted only a couple species because they could be found nowhere else.  Our primary search was for Volcano Junco. A bird that is restricted to a few mountain-tops in Costa Rica and Panama.  Fortunately, the search proved easy as we saw 3 within the first 15 minutes of getting off the bus. This particular individual posed quite nicely:

After some searching, we eventually found Fiery-throated Hummingbird, Large-footed Finch, Volcano Hummingbird and Timberline Wren.  Having filled out our list, we headed back to the lodge for the evening.

Our final morning at Savegre, we started with one of the most productive hikes I've ever been on.
We made excellent use of the Lodge's 4X4 vehicles as we headed to the top of the mountain in preparation to hike down.  On the way up, several of us in the first vehicle heard a Rufous-browed Peppershrike. A hidden testament to the fact that there were more birds here than we could possibly see in the alloted time.  Arriving at the top of the trail, we checked out a staked out Costa Rican Pygmy-Owl nest. Despite our repeated attempts to coerce one into showing itself, we gave up and started inspecting the other local birds. Here, at 8500ft in elevation, Golden-bellied Flycatcher replaced the Kiskadees of the lowlands.  While the group headed off chasing one of these admittedly awesome birds, I stuck it out for the Pygmy-owl.  Reverting to my 4 months of experience looking for cavity-nesting owls in Arizona, I decided to try a classic trick. I walked up and scratched the tree. Having proved it working on every cavity-nesting owl I had tried it on so far, I had high hopes for it working this time. Sure enough, curiosity got the best of the little owl and he poked his head out just long enough for me to take his portrait:

Unfortunately, even though I called to the group the moment he stuck his head out, they arrived just as he poked his head back in and, not to be outsmarted again, refused to come out. Despite all further attempts at convincing him to appear.

As we were about to head down the trail, Dave's sharp ears picked out the sound of a Silvery-throated Jay calling from somewhere nearby. Using playback with great effectiveness, Dave lured the Jay closer so we could see it. Highly intellegent, like most corvids, the jay was not easily convinced and kept his distance. Just close enough for us to see. Just barely. Eventually, he flew into the tree directly above us where we lost him. While looking for the jay, I spotted a movement at the top of a 100ft Oak.  The white belly combined with long, spotted tail and black and yellow bill left little doubt as to the family but the exact ID was a tad harder in figuring out. The weirdness of the location left me guessing for a second before it hit me.  I called to Dave "Dave, I've got a Cuckoo"  Dave just gave me a look that said "a what???" He called back "A Cuckoo???" "Yea, I've got a Cuckoo" I replied.  He came running over and we both studied the bird. After photographing and examining both the photos and the highly cooperative bird through the scope, we both reached the same conclusion. The pattern of the tail and the rather buffy coloring underneath left no doubt. It was a Mangrove Cuckoo.

It was definitely one of the rarer birds that we found during the trip. It is also my understanding that this was not only a new bird for the tour's all time list, but also a new bird for the Savegre Lodge list.
Seeing a bird that I connect with the lowland swampy forests of southern Florida so far from it's regular habitat at the top of an oak halfway up a mountain was, while wacky, pretty awesome!  It was the last new bird for the trip that we actually saw (we heard Buffy Tuftedcheek on the way down).

In all, it was a completely awesome 8 days in Costa Rica with an awesome group and awesome guides!
Many thanks to Dave and Mimi for putting up with my nearly constant questions!

The rest of my photos from the trip can be found at:
http://flickr.com/photos/swallowtailphoto


Would I go back? of course! In a second!!

La Selva and the area around

I discovered very quickly that Green Honeycreepers are excellent at posing for photos. This female gave great views and posed quite nicely.   It was a start to an awesome day. 

Male Green Honeycreepers, as I found out, aren't all that inclined to pose. They prefer finding Bananas to eat........

They sure do light up though. Like an iridescent fluorescent light bulb. 

After breakfast, we hopped on the bus to La Selva. This time, we stopped only a couple times on the entrance road. Once, long enough to find and photograph this Slaty-tailed Trogon: 

While waiting for our guide, I found out that Blue-black Grosbeaks don't like to pose either. This one stayed for only a second long enough to snap this shot: 

Black-striped Sparrows are open-country birds and we found them only when we left La Selva and headed toward the foothills.  This cooperative individual posed quite nicely: 

The research station did have a few species that we couldn't do without and couldn't find elsewhere.

This Crested Guan was one of a group of 6 Guans that came to the feeders at the station. 

They're pretty awesome birds and nothing like anything else I've ever seen.

Kind of a cross between a Chicken and a Turkey.........

Very cool to see. 

Many species in the rainforest are easy to see. They have bright colors, they're gaudy, they sit out in the open, etc.  But some species can be very difficult to see. Tinamous are a family of birds that has roots that go back to the first bird-like creatures.  They have no other living relatives and are in a family to themselves.  Looking a bit like big chickens almost, they are very seclusive birds and very difficult to find at all, much less see.  Our luck turned out to hold for the good as Dave spotted this bird sitting right beside the path.  I was surprised it came out so sharp since I was using manual focus practically in the dark when I took this: 

The other species we couldn't go without was another Guan-like bird. 

This time, a special bird of the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica, Panama.

Great Currasow is perhaps the most striking of these birds and deserves it's place here at the bottom as the last bird mentioned and a prominent one.

It was definitely a highlight species of the trip as this was our only chance to see one: 

Sorry for the clipped post, but I wanted to get some photos out there. I have a couple more posts about Costa Rica coming soon and hopefully, I'll include more story-telling. 

Til next time, Happy Birding!