Birding Ecuador Part I; the North-West

In February 2011 me and my partner went on a private birding trip to Ecuador, guided by Jonas Nilsson. The trip was quite extensive and took us to a wide variety of that country's excellent birding hotspots. From the northwest, to Amazonas, to the southwest, to the southeast, then back north but then to the eastern slope.
This first video covers the first two days and an hour of day three.
Feb 6: the rainy afternoon we spent at Las Grallarias, mostly stakeouting the Hummingbird Feeders for the Hoary Puffleg. In the process I got some nice footage of the other Hummers frequenting those feeders. (The Puffleg did show up, but no film). Those Hummers are: Fawn-breasted Brilliant, Buff-tailed & Velvet-purple Coronet, Gorgeted Sunangel, Violet-tailed Sylph and Booted Racket-tail.
Feb 7: Quite a lot of footage from the morning spent at Paz de las Antpittas. The Moustached and Giant Antpitta were nesting for the moment and was a no-show. Well, Giant were heard and the Moustached was glimpsed at the end when the rest ot the (too big) spectator crowd had moved on to the breakfast tables. Most of the footage of the Mountain-tanagers (the Black-chinned especially) and the Crimson-rumped Toucanet were filmed well away from that crowd. As was the shaky part with the Orange-breasted Fruiteater! After the refreshments Angel Paz led us down the road to where the Yeallow-breasted Antpittas abode, and there we got Antpitta-lucky at last. The extremely rainy and foggy afternoon was spent at Mashpi, with absolutely no footage at all. Then we drove up to Quito for the night.
Feb 8, day three, was a transportation day. We had a mid-day flight to Coca, final destination Napo Wildlife Center. However, we took a morning stroll in Quito Botanical Garden and got a few good birds, but almost none of them on film. Since the park lies under the inflight zone, some of the soundtracks are deafening. The end result of footage is meagre, with just common birds: Eared Dove, Summer Tanager, Rufous-collared Sparrow and Black-tailed Trainbearer.

Through the whole film you can mostly hear Jonas talking with other birders, checking for bird tips or just plainly socialising. Sorry about that, but he's just doing his job, and people tend to talk eveywhere you happen to find them so that's just how the story goes.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Birding
• Ecuador
• nature
• birds
• Feeders
• Hummingbird
• Black-chinned
• Mountain-Tanager
• Yellow-breasted
• Antpitta
• Sickle-winged
• Guan
• Flowerpiercer