Jon Feensta recently led a fantastic trip to the Mindo area of Ecuador

We just finished our week long trip to one of South America’s great birding spots: the Mindo area of northwest Ecuador. With the benefit of a week in one lodge, we took day trips to areas of elevation high and low in search of the area’s famous avian diversity. And, diverse it was!

Some of our highlights were some of the big things, like this Giant Antpitta, one of four antpitta species we saw that day.

…and some were kind of small things, like this Streak-headed Antbird, a denizen of high elevation bamboo thickets.

…and some were things with very tiny ranges, like Tanager Finch, which is only found in a little sliver of “Chocó” forest in northwestern Ecuador and southwestern Colombia.

We also had some close encounters with a few of our birds. Here a Velvet-purple Coronet is perched on Dave’s notebook as he writes “Velvet-purple Coronet” in it.

…or, note the cell phone photo being taken of this Dark-backed Wood-Quail.

It’s not only about birds, though, check out this Diactor bilineatus.

Under the great gaze of the giant Andean Cock-of-the-rock statue, we proclaim the trip successful.