November 16: Southern Ecuador with Jon Feenstra
We are all home now after nearly two and a half weeks of birding the remote rainforests, cloudforests, deserts, paramo, roadsides, wetlands, lakes, rivers, valleys, and hilltops of southern Ecuador. We had mostly good weather and conditions throughout and ended up with a list well over 500 species of birds.
A group favorite was the Jocotoco Antpitta, an iconic species for bird conservation in Ecuador and just plain huge, weird, and charismatic.
Another was also pretty strange-looking. A Gray Tinamou stalking a forest path for where the lodge staff throws out some corn kernels was part dinosaur and part watermelon with legs.
We saw dozens of species of hummingbirds, large and small. Often in the gloomy forest, hummingbirds just look black, but sometimes the sun hits them just right and they really pop, like this Rainbow Starfrontlet…
…or, this Blue-throated Hillstar (new to science only 6 years ago) on its favorite stick.
The group was the same. Here they are in cold blowing rain and fog, an occasionally condition of high mountain birding.
And, looking sharp in better light, and enjoying a nice sunny, dry day.
Posted: November 16, 2023