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Birding Sites

Antisana
This is a private high altitude reserve which Tropical Birding has access to, albeit after a lot paperwork. We had intended to visit the more famous Cotapaxi reserve but after corresponding with Tropical Birding it appeared Antisana could be a better option. We were picked up from our hotel early by Iain Campbell and driver just before first light. After getting through the checkpoints we were able to start our first Ecuadorian Birding. On the way up the track passes over a small stream and at the bridge here we got our first tasters. Brian in fact started his life hummingbird list off with a cracker in the form of the Ecuadorian Hillstar. Several were seen here. Along one side of the stream is a steep cliff face whilst on the other is a more subtle hillside. There was low scrub along this small and narrow valley but the likes of Black-billed Shrike Tyrant, Brown-backed Chat Tyrant and Cinereous Conebills were seen. Further along the road it opens up into a huge open plain where Carunculated Caracaras were common. As we drove through this plain other good birds were found; a pair of Black-faced Ibis, about a hundred or so Andean Gulls, Andean Lapwings, both Stout-billed and Bar-winged Cinclodes were common, our only Yellow-bellied Siskins, Variable Hawk, four Aplomado Falcons and an immature Andean Condor. Eventually the track takes you to the lake where some high altitude specialities are found. At the lake we found quite a few Silvery Grebes, Andean and Yellow-billed Teals and Andean Coot. The primary reason for visiting Antisana over Cotapaxi were for the Ibis, the Condor and the grebes as they no longer occur there. In addition we had so many good birds here and there was no one else about, we basically had the place to ourselves which you probably wouldn’t get at Cotapaxi.

Papallacta Pass
This high altitude site was visited in conjunction with Antisana. It took about an hour to get from Antisana to Papallacta Pass. It is a steep ride up to the top where the radio masts are and you are at about 14,300 feet above sea level so running about is not a good idea. We passed several birders on the way up who had all seen our wanted bird at the top, Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe. Sure enough after a little searching we found a pair on a ridge that showed well for next _ hour. From the summit we walked back down the main track hoping to pick some of the areas specialities as once we left here we wouldn’t have another chance of getting them. Papallacta is covered in low scrub that can be surpassingly difficult to find birds in though we found most of our wanted birds: Tawny Antpitta, Andean Tit-Spinetail and Many-streaked Canastero. Allow at least half a day to get the most from the place.

La Selva (include the different habits and areas)
For the purpose of recording the birds the trip to La Selva is broken down into several elements. La Selva encompasses the lodge, the canopy tower, the forest trails and the Terra Firme forest on the southern side of the Rio Napo. Birds seen on the Rio Napo are listed under the river and those at the várzea Islands are listed as such for there. These locations were all visited during our stay at the lodge but are distinctly different habitats and basically its easier to record the birds for these sites as such. The lodge itself is located on the edge of Garzacocha Lake and is a birders paradise. This is a long cut off oxbow lake with remarkably soft water. Birding around the lake is by dug out canoe and birds seen at various points included the very sought after Zigzag Heron, one of which it was seen at the nest, several Antbirds and Antwrens, Rufous-and-green Kingfisher and Sand-coloured Nighthawks. A pair of Spectacled Owls were seen one evening by torchlight. Birds are also regularly seen flying over the lake with memorable sights that include the beautiful Blue-and-yellow Macaws.

There is another lake, Mandicocha Lake, which is reached via a string of trails and is very different to Garzacocha. At one end it is covered in Lilies which harbour several good species including Azure Gallinule and Black-headed Donacobius. Drifting around the lake in the canoe produced so many great birds it’s hard to pick any that are more memorable than the rest.

The trails through the forest are the hardest birding with sometimes no birds for long periods at a time. When you do come across something then it’s nearly always something new. It was strange that there was little in the way of duplication in the birds seen. Our guide found us some superb birds that included many of the manakins (displaying Wire-tailed Manakins amongst them), numerous antbirds, antwrens, antshrikes, well the list goes on. The forest on the other side of the river has several parrot licks but only one performed for us, the sight of hundreds of parrots in one small area is special. Perhaps the highlight at La Selva for me was birding from the Canopy Platform. We spent two consecutive mornings up there and the birding was very special. Of the many highlights the Ornate Hawk Eagle sat in a tree, the White-fronted Puffbirds, the Cream-coloured Woodpecker and the stunning Paradise Tanagers stand out.

The river often had several egret species and Yellow-billed Terns were seen most days. However the best birds seen whilst on the river were the Pied Plovers, the Roseate Spoonbills and the Amazonian Umbrellabirds. The várzea islands have special birds all of their own and a visit should be made during a stay at La Selva.

A visit to La Selva and the Amazon will increase your trip list and you will see birds that you will no come across on the Pacific slope. However it is the experience of walking through the Amazon Rainforest which is the ultimate highlight of the visit.

Yanacocha
This is a relatively high and even isolated forest mountain with some special birds to be found. On the road up the mountain there is open pastureland which was obviously once forest. Midway along the track one of the surprises of our visit ran out in front of us, Curve-billed Tinamous. This is a difficult to find species and here it was running around in front of us. After you have driven as far as you can you will need to walk the rest of the main track. The track leads you around the cliff with mid elevation species becoming apparent with several Mountain-tanagers and new hummingbirds being seen. A roaming bird flock produced a Barred Fruiteater and several other fine birds. There are several hummingbird feeders along the path which attract various hummingbirds that are not seen at Tandayapa though the daddy (our should that be mummy) of them all was the superb female Sword-billed Hummingbird. We spent some time watching the feeders racking up a number of good species. There is a trail off of the main path that leads down then back up the mountain and is a little strenuous but some good birds were seen including Rufous Antpitta. Frustratingly and after much effort the only views of the constantly calling Undulated Antpitta was as it flew off. Tick or not to tick that is the question. I didn’t see it so I don’t have that dilemma. It would appear that early morning visits are best as afternoons can be quiet and even foggy, it began to close in whilst we were there.

Tandayapa Valley (include upper and lower valley, lodge trails, Nono-mindo Road)
Tandayapa Bird Lodge was used as a base for visiting many nearby areas whilst the lodge trails themselves produced a wealth of birding highlights. There are several lodge trails that can be worked with the main one going in a long loop, through the forest, then the meadow on the far side of the valley and finally coming back to the lodge again. It takes several hours to work this trail. As usual forest birding can be difficult but we did have a few bird waves to go through and there were plenty of special birds found. Highlights from these trails include the striking Toucan Barbet, several cracking antpittas that included a Moustached Antpitta at the first ever discovered nest. This species was only discovered in 1996. Other highlights included Golden-headed Quetzal, Long-tailed Antbird, well the list can go on and on.

The valley has several different levels, indeed birds at the upper valley can be largely different from the lower valley. The lower valley goodies included lecking Andean Cock of the Rocks whilst the old Nono-Mindo road had some of the birds of the trip, Plate-billed Mountain Toucan and Ocellated Tapaculo. The later was a real skulker though everyone eventually had good views. Indeed it was bird of the trip for much of the time but perhaps ended up sharing that accolade with the Tropicbird seen on the coast.

Los Bancos
The location at Los Bancos though, known as the Milky Road, produced numerous interesting species. A single track leads through open habitat scattered with stands of trees and is the best place for getting Moss-backed Tanager. We lucked in and saw several. Other interest birds were seen here and a protracted bird waved kept us busy for a while.

Four Rivers
This was perhaps my personal favourite forest that we visited. This is a remnant forest area of limited size though still big enough to spend a week exploring and still not see it all that it has to offer. The under story was relatively open allowing easy viewing of the antthrushes and antbirds that were present. We spent the better part of a day here and the quality of the birds seen was exceptional. Although we had a wet start the rain stopped mid morning and then the birds came out to play. The trail leads down to a small pool and stream in a idyllic setting where again we had a selection of fine birds, including excellent views of Collared Trogon, Rufous Motmot, Green Manakin, Bi-coloured Antbird and Buff-rumped Warblers. Even back near the car we had a bird wave that added many new and fine birds to our burgeoning list. In a bush right by the roadside was our only Striped Cuckoo of the trip. A showy bird singing its head off.

Pedro Vincent Maldano - Silanche
This location is well off the main road and up the hill past a working quarry and is basically a trashed habitat site. You basically bird from the main dirt track. There are trees on both sides of the track further along but this opened out into a fairly recently felled area on one side further down. For a trashed habitat the birding was very good indeed. We spent an evening and a morning here and saw some fine birds including a Semi-collared Hawk, Pacific Antwrens, displaying White-bearded Manakins, Stub-tailed Antbird and as with many sites the list just goes on.

La Perla
We stopped here briefly on the way to Rio Palenque. This is a fine Tropical Dry Forest and it produced some species that were new including Guayaquil Woodpecker, Masked Water Tyrant, Vermilion Flycatcher and the bizarre Pacific Hornero. Most of these birds were seen at subsequent locations.

Rio Palenque
This is another remnant forest though access is by permit only. We spent the whole day here adding many new birds to the list though some of the highlights included the spectacular Great Antshrike, a family party of Ecuadorian Trogons, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, Banded-backed Wrens, Russet-crowned Warbler, Pied Puffbird and Red-billed Scythebill. The afternoons birding was slower than the mornings but several interesting birds were found in the cultivations on the way back to the main entrance.

Chone Marshes
There are several parts to this location. The first is what can only be described as a canal that runs parallel to the road about a mile after passing the cemetery. This long stretch of water and exposed mud had hundreds of wading birds and the short time we spent here just didn’t do it justice. In the time we had though we had seen both Yellowlegs, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, Semipalmated Plovers, Stilts, Jacana’s and herons galore. I was loathed to leave but shortly afterward we came across the ‘lagoon’. This was a huge lake just covered in birds. We managed to get fairly close to the water where we were able to determine that there was hundreds of wildfowl, herons and cormorants. We added Pinnated Bittern when one flew along the near shoreline which was apparently a tick for our guide Iain so he was pleased. It was also unusual to see Magnificent Frigatebirds here as we were still about 100km from the coast such was the draw of the place for birds. Further along the road are several smaller pools and again these had many herons, egrets and waders.

Machalilla National Park
This is an extensive dry forest habitat on the coastal strip. Not much more than thick extensive scrub the whole area has a completely different set of birds. We mainly explored the area from below the MantaRaya Lodge along the road and from a wide dirt track south of Puerto Lopez. This dry scrubland habitat gave us Elegant Crescent-chest, Collared Antshrike, Anthony’s Nightjar, Blue-crowned Motmot, Necklaced Spinetail and Peruvian Pygmy-owl. We only had a couple of hours to spend here in the morning but numerous birds added to the over the top trip list.

Isla de la Plata
One of the highlights of the whole trip even though I was a bit sea sick, much to amusement of the others. The outward crossing from Puerto Lopez took about 1_ hours and was booked by Iain Campbell the day before. On the way over several pelagic species were seen including a couple of Pink-footed Shearwaters and a small flock of Phalaropes. As we came closer to the island the numbers of boobies, pelicans and frigatebirds increased but it was a fly by Red-billed Tropicbird that made us stop the boat. The bird flew past and we all were ecstatic, that was until someone noticed one sat on the water about 20yards away. The views of this stunning bird were amazing and it rivalled the Ocellated Tapaculo for bird of the trip. The landing requires you to get your feet wet but be aware the shore is a bit stoney. On arrival we were greeted by a tame flock of Collared Warbling Finches. All the island specialities we ticked off as we set off around the trials. Although over cast it was still a hot day and plenty of water was drunk but it was still perhaps not enough. On the far side of the island are the main breeding colonies where Blue-footed and Nazca Boobies are common. Amongst these were two large juvenile Waved Albatross, a real bonus as they should have been long gone. There were also numerous Tropicbirds around the various headlands but none match the earlier bird. This is a well worth it trip. The return crossing was marked by coming across a couple of trawlers that just simply had thousands of Laughing Gulls, pelicans, frigatebirds and boobies around them, shame I had my head over the side most of the time.

Rio Ayempi
This was a hidden gem. I had read trip reports where birders had visited this site and had done well but we did very well here with Grey Hawk, Plain Antvireo, Rufous-headed Chachalaca and Speckle-breasted Wren being amongst the very fine birds on offer. The locations is odd in that it’s a lush open rainforest type habitat where everything else around it dry scrubland at best and this is probably the reason why its birdlife is so special.

Ecuasal Lagoons
These are basically a series of salt pans on the Santa Elena Peninsula and is reputed to be the best wader site in Ecuador however an impromptu stop further north at a tidal creek produced more waders here that all of the salt pans put together. This tidal creek had a large mixed flock of Short-billed Dowitchers, Stilt Sandpipers, Wilson’s Phalaropes, Black-necked Stilts, Greater Yellowlegs, Semipalmated Sandpipers and plovers and Western Sandpipers. This was great wader watching. The salt pans though were not a disaster with a large flock of Chilean Flamingos being present. Careful searching through the hundreds of Royal Terns revealed several Elegant Terns whilst the beach opposite had the only American Oystercatchers and Grey Gull of the trip.

Tropical Birding

The greater part of the trip was spent with Tropical Birding and primarily with Iain Campbell. Iain has lived in Ecuador for a number of years and is founder and co-owner of Tandayapa Bird Lodge and he certainly knows the birds, where the specialities are and he certainly works hard to get you what he can. We certainly wouldn’t have seen half as much if it wasn’t for Iain and we probably wouldn’t have found may of the sites that we visited with him. Organising a private tour with Tropical Birding will be a better and cheaper option than going with an organised trip with one of the bigger bird tour companies and you will see far more than going it alone. Tropical Birding, highly recommended.

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