Before I continue with the narrative, I messed up in the last blog post and forgot to link a video I made at the Buenaventura lodge. This short video is of a pair of Green Thorntails as the male displays above the female to show his stuff. Watching a tiny male thorntail display is one of the true joys in life. I'm not sure she was so impressed...
Green Thorntail male displays for female
Video link (in case the video doesn't show in the version of this blog you are viewing):
April 7 - 12, 2022. Over the next week we visited two lodges, and places between, in the Andean foothills and lowlands near the Peru border. On our way to the next lodge we stopped in some scrub habitat near Veracruz for some special birds, especially Chapman's Antshrike.
We continued birding our way south to the Uracca Lodge at the Jorupe Reserve on the Peruvian border. This location would allow us to bird the dry "Tumbes" region, known for numerous endemic species. On our first full day we stayed local, birding the reserve and finding many great species, and great flowers. I won't kid myself thinking I can identify many of these, but just post them for you to enjoy.
Another travel day as we moved on from Jorupe. We were up early and on the road before sunup, heading much higher in elevation. As the sun rose we had beautiful views of the clouds below us.
The village of Sozoranga below
The main objective this morning was to visit the Utuana Reserve, another in the Jocotoco foundation reserve system. This reserve protects one of the last remaining humid highland rainforest tracts left in southern Ecuador. There were some specialty hummingbirds to pick up here, along with other regional endemics. The flowers were great here too on this small reserve.
The rest of the day was spent traveling to our next lodge, but not without some interest. As I said before, it can really rain in this part of the world. And when it does, there's no guarantee the infrastructure will hold up.
Our final destination for this segment of the trip was the Copalinga Lodge and Reserve, adjoining Podocarpus National Park near the town of Zamora. The first morning we did a beautiful birding hike in the park.
The first evening we did a stakeout at dusk in a good location for Blackish Nightjar. He showed up right on time, and even perched on a branch right above our heads!
The lodge had a few short trails and a great viewing platform with feeders, along with lots of hummingbird plants in the gardens. Best of all was the blind for seeing Gray Tinamou in the evening. Pretty spectacular to see this deep forest skulker out in the open.
On the second morning we took a drive up another mountain nearby and found some really spectacular birds including the almost impossible to see Blackish Antbird.
That wraps up this segment of the trip, but not before one last fun photo from our drive out from the lodge on the second afternoon for a bird outing. We were now on the rainy side of the Andes - and rain it did, especially at night. We had to wait a bit while the heavy equipment took a few feet of slimy mud off the road... Never a dull moment...
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