Wednesday started very early, about 4:45 a.m., because I had booked a birdwatching tour that would start before dawn. A birding guide, Sandy, and her driver David picked us up in her Chevy SUV in front of our lodge/cabañas at 5:20. Nathan and I were ready: him with a camera and me with my binoculars.
Our first stop was a place in a protected forest where the bird that I really wanted to see, the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, displays every morning during breeding season. After a 30-minute walk uphill in the dark, over a stream crossed by a 2-log-wide bridge, we reached the lek, the display place, which remains in the same place every morning. It was noisy with spectacular displaying males, about 15 per Sandy’s estimate, and 1 female who gets to choose the male that appeals to her the most. Wow, what a show of crazy-looking red birds! We were mesmerized watching the males display in the trees, while they watched the female and each other. Whenever the female flew away, the males suddenly got quiet, but became animated and boisterous again when she returned. Sandy took a digiscoped photo with my phone of one of the males and the duller female.
Two more groups of birdwatchers arrived while we were there, one French-speaking with their guide and a pair of Spanish speakers and their guide. We stayed for about 30 minutes, then hiked back toward the start, onto an open hilltop, in order to spot other types of birds. By this time, the sun was up, so seeing the trail and birds was much easier. Sandy used her expert listening and song recognition skills plus her scope to find many new species for us, including a pair of Golden-headed Quetzals, Swallow-tail Kites, Rufous Motmots, and several others. It was great!
Next, Sandy and David took us to a birding site called San Tadeo, where the owner keeps fruit and nectar feeders stocked to attract hummingbirds, tanagers, and other birds. The owner also provided coffee, tea, fresh fruit, granola, yogurt, toast and hard boiled eggs for our own breakfast while we watched the birds. Between bites, Sandy identified all the birds that were coming to the feeders, including many of the numerous hummingbird species in Ecuador. And the stop was located on a hill overlooking the town of Mindo, so we had a beautiful view. It was another super experience.
The final 90 minutes of the tour took us to another high location at which Sandy hoped to find toucans for us. We didn’t see those, but did see the interesting Barred Puffbird, vultures, a Common Potoo, Golden Olive Woodpecker and many other birds. We also met her son, who was guiding a group of British birdwatchers in that area. The tour ended back at our cabaña about 11 a.m. It had been an excellent birding experience.
We walked to a restaurant in Mindo for lunch of lentil soup, rice and fried chicken, and then returned to our cabaña’s porch to relax for the afternoon.
I had also signed up for a night walk, hoping to see some of the nocturnal creatures of the cloud forest. So after eating dinner in town, I waited outside the cabañas to be picked up at 7 p.m. for the walk. It was already dark by that time, since the sun sets about 6 p.m. Nathan sat out this tour. A young man driving his white Toyota pickup collected me and another pair of young tourists and drove us to the walk location, back on the same dirt road we had been birdwatching on earlier in the day. The young couple were Ecuadorians from Quito who spoke Spanish and English and the guide was a man of about 40 whose English was just ok, not great. We were given small flashlights and followed our guide on a hillside trail into the night.
During the 90-minute walk, we saw numerous species of very small frogs, millipedes, fruit-eating bats, a kinkajou, small scorpions with bioluminescent spots, and a huge forest cockroach. No snakes, which suited me fine. It was a misty, still night and when the bats flew by, we could feel the breeze they generated and hear their wingbeats. It was a fun experience but not as great as the morning birdwatching. When the driver took us back into town at about 9:15, to our lodgings, it was raining.
Lori's Travels 