Ecuador, December 6, Rio Silanche

December 6 gave us the canopy tower experience.  We were up in the air with the birds.  I don't know how the builders knew the birds would stick around after the tower was built, but they did.  We had a packed breakfast with us and were planning to eat it while leisurely watching a bird flit by.  Instead, the birds came too quickly for more than a bite now and then.  It was great.  118 species of birds in the day, 52 were new trip birds, and 30 were lifers.

Orange-fronted Barbet.  A pair of these stayed around a long time.  Perhaps we looked as strange to them as they did to us.

 The Guayaquil Woodpecker with a beautiful red head.

A stunning Black-faced Dacnis.

A Golden-bellied Warbler.

A White-tailed Trogon.

The rather strange looking Masked Tityra.

A Yellow-throated Toucan

Ecuador, Dec. 5, Mashpi Amagusa Reserve

It was Day 5 of our Ecuador experience, our first day to discover what the term cloud forest really means.  We were introduced to the spectacle of rapidly advancing clouds, or what we normally call fog.  It came and hid everything.  When we were especially blessed it also left.


My chart shows we saw 37 new trip birds on this day, 27 of these were lifers for Ray and me.  Do I remember all 37 of these birds?  Did I see them all clearly?  Do I have photographs of them all?  Well, not so much.  I have added 17 photos to my best birds file. 1 of those is so bad I find it painful to look at, and 3 others are more parts of birds than an actual picture of a bird.

One of the early birds in the day was a Choco Tyrannulet, one of the endemic birds to western Ecuador and Columbia.

Three of my favourite birds of the whole trip were also seen on this day.  They included the Orange-breasted Fruiteater

 the Ornate Flycatcher

 and the Glistening Green Tanager.  Both this Tanager and the Fruiteater above are also Choco endemics.

I was excited to see this Striped Cuckoo, a cooperative bird that stuck around for several minutes.

 This Sooty-headed Tyrannulet is sitting on its nest. When we first arrived it appeared to be doing some housecleaning.

The strangest birds of the day were a colony of Oilbirds, roosting in a cleft between rocks before going out at night to find their diet of fruit by echo location.

I am straying from the constant stream of birds to show some fog shots.  We stopped along the road for breakfast some time after 7 a.m.  I took this photo at 7:25 as the clouds began rolling into a valley that had been completely clear a few moments before.

At 7:35, in approximately the same spot.

One can imagine how difficult this can make finding birds.  I have enough trouble when it is clear.

We had a similar experience later in the day when the clouds rolled in on the fruit feeders.

These Crimson-rumped Toucanets were difficult to see. (The Toucan Barbets in the further away trees were totally invisible.)

 But with a little help from the software the birds appeared, though the background did not.

And for a non avian creature.  How would you like to meet this earthworm in your garden?