Jon Feenstra has just finished an excellent East Slope of the Andes tour in Ecuador

Tour completed and more than 10000 feet of elevation change later, we’re back from birding the Amazon slope of the Ecuadorian Andes. We began the tour at and above treeline in the high paramo.

 One of the favorites was Tawny Antpitta, “the nice antpitta” that was readily found wandering around out in the open.

Giant Hummingbird was truly amazing, shown here on a normal-sized hummingbird feeder for reference.

The scenery was pretty vast, as well. Here is the gang in front of the Antisana Volcano looming in the distance.

Further down the hill, the birds changed completely. Everyone liked Cinnamon Flycatcher – cute, easy to identify, and always accommodating.

Peruvian Racket-tail was also one of the favorites. Its puffy orange “boots” gave this little hummingbird an extra funny look.

We encountered Coppery-chested Jacamar on two days. It’s a local specialty in foothill rainforest (and, conveniently, often seen perched along the sides of roads).

Sometimes it was cold, wet, windy, a little short on air, and a lot of work.

But, a lot of time, it was just some good old chilling out and watching the birds that would come to us.

Check out the eBird trip report here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/203192