birding-aus

Birding in Ecuador

To: <>
Subject: Birding in Ecuador
From: "Nigel Harland" <>
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2011 12:41:25 +1000
Hi All

I have just returned from a trip to Ecuador and whilst the trip was not just a 
birding trip, I did manage to fit in quite a bit.  A 12 day trip around the 
Galapagos was followed by two day's birding around Quito and then five days in 
the jungle near the river Napo.  To say that it was the highlight of my (long) 
birding career would be an understatement.  Ecuador is a little larger than 
Victoria and boasts a total of over 1600 birds and most of them are delightful. 
 There are three main regions:- the coast, the Andes and the jungle, each with 
very different varieties of bird.  This doesn't include the Galapagos Islands 
which provides habitat for over 50 additional birds.  I managed to find and 
identify (with quite a lot of help!) around 250 species, so I still have a long 
way to go.

I received a lot of help, both in terms of the locations and the identity of 
the birds we saw.  On the ship and around the Galapagos we were guided by 
naturalists Martin Loyola and Greg Estes.  They combined an enormous knowledge 
of the region and its flora and fauna with a terrific sense of humour.  We saw 
nearly 60 species of birds - including many Red-billed Tropicbirds!! - and many 
animals, none of which exhibited any fear of humans.

Around Quito we contacted a birding organisation called Neblina Forest and were 
guided by Xavier Munoz - without whose help, we would have been very lost in a 
new world.  It was here we received our introduction to Hummingbirds and 
Tanagers.  Even these were eclipsed by early morning views of Andean 
Cock-of-the-Rock at their lek followed by amazingly close views of Antpittas, 
skulkers of the forest floor - even my photos aren't that bad.

The last week was spent in the jungle on the Napo river where we were guided by 
a local called Enrique.  The only English he could speak was the names of all 
the birds, that was great, but we had trouble understanding his desciption of 
where the birds were!  On our last day, we were on a man-made platform at the 
top of a very tall tree and apart from many other birds, we saw a 
Golden-collared Toucanette.  It was quite astounding I still get a thrill just 
thinking about it.  We decided that would be our last bird of the trip - 
something we would always remember.  We managed to communicate that to Enrique 
and his smile indicated that he understood perfectly well.

I am in the process of putting together something more detailed - so if anyone 
is interested in taking the subject a little further please contact me off-line.

Regards
Nigel Harland
===============================

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 

http://birding-aus.org
===============================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Birding in Ecuador, Nigel Harland <=
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU