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| Green Honeycreeper |
It was adventure time again, and we were off in early April to Southern Ecuador. We were in Ecuador last June, but primarily in the mountains surrounding Quito and the Galapagos Islands. The far south of the country has many birds that would be new for us, and we were keen to see as many as possible. Once again we went on a tour arranged by Bird Ecuador and were guided by one or our favorite guides, Andres De la Torre, who we spent a week with in June. This trip would take us south from the southern port city of Guayaquil on a long loop of the coastal lowlands and southern Andes right down to the Peru border. Going in April is risky as it is the rainy season, but it also means the birds would be more active and breeding. This particular rainy season was even more active than average, and several areas we visited had seen massive amounts of rain and flooding. But we did well overall, didn't get too soaked with rain most of the time, and exceeded our wildest expectations with the birds. We saw over 530 species and added more than 140 birds to our life lists in just 21 days of birding. Our guide Andres has been at this a long time, and it was his highest total for a single trip. And as for target species, those that are regional, scarce, or difficult to find, we only missed a precious few. And when your very experienced guide gets three life birds on a trip, you know it was a good one.
A red-eye from Los Angeles got us into Guayaquil mid-day, and after some rest we went to dinner with Andres.
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| A beautiful mosaic Green Iguana at our hotel - a symbol of the city |
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| The historic newspaper building in downtown Guayaquil |
April 3, 2022. The first birding day was local, allowing us to see some birding sites within a few minutes of the city. As with all of our trip blog posts, the included eBird lists are representative and not all inclusive.
eBird list Cerro Blanco
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| Agouti |
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| Collared Forest-Falcon |
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| Fasciated Wrens |
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| Golden Grosbeak |
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| Male Green Iguana, the real thing this time |
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| Guayaquil Squirrel |
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| Gray-cheeked Parakeet |
April 4, 2022. We said goodbye to Guayaquil this morning and headed south along the coast visiting some lowland sites along the way.
eBird List Manglares Churute - Sendero Aulladores
eBird List Manglares Churute - La Lagartera
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| Mangrove Swamp |
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| Croaking Dove |
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| Peruvian Meadowlark |
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| Peruvian Pygmy-Owl |
We turned east and headed up into the Andean foothills. After a long day of travel we had arrived at our first lodge - Umbrellabird Lodge at the Buenaventura Reserve. The Reserve is part of the Jocotoco Foundation, one of the more active forest and wildlife preservation organizations in the country. They have 16 reserves in Ecuador, and before our trip was over we would visit 6 of them.
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An evening arrival to the Buenaventura Reserve
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April 5-6, 2022. We spent two full days on and around the Reserve sampling the amazing bird diversity. One of the primary missions of this reserve is to protect the habitat of the critically endangered El Oro Parakeet (only discovered in 1980). We were off early the first morning to the top of the ridge where the best chance of seeing the parakeets fly out of their roost for feeding happens. The weather started out excellent, but by the time we hiked to the top of the ridge, a heavy cloud/fog had engulfed us. We had a brief but less than satisfying flyover where we pretty much only heard and glimpsed them in the fog. After waiting a while for the cloud to lift, and it didn't, we moved to lower elevation where the birding was considerably better.
eBird list Buenaventura Ridge
eBird list Buenaventura lodge and lower road
eBird list Buenaventura upper road
The next morning we decided to give it one more try for the parakeet. As we were hiking up the old road to the top of the ridge, a dozen parakeets flew in and landed in a tree right next to us. It was pretty amazing as we watched them for a good 5 to 10 minutes. With that success, we abandoned the hike and returned to the van for a visit down slope to home property of one of the Buenaventura rangers where we would find some other rare and difficult to see birds, like White-vented Plummeleteer and Elegant Crescentchest. Overall our visit to Buenaventura was fantastic, and a great way to start our trip.
eBird list Buenaventura Ridge
eBird list Moro Moro
