April 18 - 22. This post will be a little longer than most as I need to wrap up this adventure as we pack for our next - a family trip to Ireland. Leaving the Tapichalaca Reserve and Casa Simpson we had a decision to make. Guide Andres suggested that we had an extra day in the schedule for something a little different. He knows we love to hike, and he's a hiker and trekking guide himself, so he suggested we go climb a mountain! How could we resist! We drove over the pass and descended to the small village of Vilcambamba where we began our adventure to bag Cerro Mandango. It started on a steep ascent up a trail toward the mountain and after a bit of bushwhacking we got to the serious part of the climb. There was a very steep gully with a permanent metal rope to assist the scramble up. But once clear of this obstacle the rest of the way to the summit was straight forward. Atop we had beautiful views of the surrounding mountain range, down to the town below, and out to the Andes crest to the south. It was warm and breezy but the rain stayed away.
We had an early lunch at the summit and took in the views. While sitting there I glanced at the map on my phone and saw that the trail supposedly continued along the ridge to other summits, then descended a different ridge and came out on the road near where we started. Susan is usually the one to propose what we term as "Mission Creep" in our hikes, but this time I was the guilty party. I showed the map to the others - Susan was immediately in favor, and Andres went along with us crazy gringos. What could go wrong? 😀
The ridge across the top was spectacular, a knife edge with excellent views and some moderate scrambling in places. After about a mile we had made it to the junction with the down trail. This is where the wheels came off the buggy... After a short descent the trail, which had been so clear on the ridge, simply vanished into a tangle of bushes, and spiderwebs. We thrashed around for a while and using gps kept pointing ourselves toward the line on map. Eventually we came to a good trail and continued our descent. And then came the gate... The locked gate... Uh oh. We had come too far to turn back now, so crawled under the gate. There was a Private Property sign on the gate, but it pointed toward the land we had just come from. Okay, on we go! After another half mile or so we came to the farmer and his two sons who's land we were now apparently on. He was holding a very large metal tool and was none too pleased with us sauntering down his road. He and Andres traded a lot of fast and furious Spanish, with the farmer seemingly getting angrier by the minute, and Andres keeping his cool and apologizing profusely. Apparently the farmer didn't give a damn about the line on the map. Uh oh. Somehow Andres talked us past them and we scurried on happy to have survived the experience. Another mile later we had made it to the road, called Nestor to come pick us up, and headed to town for a cold beer and ice cream. What an adventure!
Scrambling down slope on the knife edge ridge
Such a great hiking experience on this ridge
Almost back to the road!
The next day was another travel day with some birding stops along the way for specialties.
The bird of the day came in the afternoon while birding a small forest reserve. We heard some parakeets and saw them in the distance. Moving closer we got some great views and they turned out to be endangered Golden-plumed Parakeets, the species we only got glimpses of at Tapichalaca. This time we were able to watch several pairs for 15 minutes. Awesome. And the flowers on the reserve trail were pretty incredible.
The next part of the story is a tale of woe. We had one target bird in my favorite habitat in the Andes. We started very early the next morning for the drive up Cerro de Arcos to above treeline, or Paramo. There aren't many species at this elevation, above 13,000 feet, but the ones there are special. And this particular mountain has one that's more special than most. Cerro de Arcos is a "sky island," a high mountain that's disconnected from other high elevation mountains in the Andes. In this island evolved a unique hummingbird, the Blue-throated Hillstar, and we were going to see it. This species was only discovered in 2017 and lives on just this mountain. Like the similar Ecuadorian Hillstar of the high paramo in other parts of the Andes, it is tied to one particular flower species, the Chuquiraga. We made it near the top of the mountain in the van, then Nestor threw us out the door to hike the rest of the way. The road was just too muddy. And then came the bad weather. Not just your average bad weather, but about has awful as is possible. We had cold driving rain, fog so thick that visibility was 50 feet at times, and wind. The hummingbirds weren't flying in this kind of weather. The spot we went was about as sure thing as could be, a large patch of Chuquiraga flowers that most birders see the hillstar in within minutes of arrival. But we had no chance in the awful weather. We stuck it out until about 2 pm hoping for a break in the weather, but it wasn't to be. Of all the target species on the trip to miss, this was a tough one for me. But considering how few targets we missed on this trip, there's nothing to be sad about. The bird will still be there for next time. As I always say when something like this happens - if it was easy, we wouldn't do it.
Coming off the mountain we drove down a spectacular canyon and ended in a very dry "desert" valley. Nestor had a spot for Burrowing Owl and we found several birds there. Very cool to see a bird from home so far away.
Burrowing Owl
This location set us up for the next day's visit to 370 acre Yunguilla Reserve, our last of the Jocotoco Reserve system. This reserve is especially created to protect one of the rarest birds on earth - Pale-headed Brush-Finch. This species total world population lives on this reserve and is estimated to be less than 250 individuals. The bird is every bit as endangered as Spoon-billed Sandpiper, or many other highly publicized endangered species, but you've probably never heard of it. Maybe it's just not cute enough. With only such a tiny range in a dry forest, it is just one wildfire away from extinction...
For birders the trick to seeing this species is patience and a lot of luck. It's a real skulker in a very dense bushy habitat. We walked the trail with a local ranger who knew where the best territories were. And we were fortunate that it was relatively wet in this dry forest, and the birds were breeding. Breeding males can sometimes, if you are really lucky, be seen singing. As we walked along the trail the ranger heard a bird and we searched. This is the habitat of the brush-finch.
But with persistence, a good guide and lots of luck, we got some glimpes.
Pale-headed Brush-Fnch
And then fortune smiled on us and we got a better look.
Pale-headed Brush-Finch
Shortly after we hit the birders lottery and a male popped up on a bush, and then sang. Wow.
Pale-headed Brush-Finch
Pale-headed Brush-Finch
The ranger told me that our views and my photos were as good as possible for this species. You can imagine we were all pretty happy.
Hiking the trail at Yunguilla Reserve
This crazy thing is a moth catepillar!
The happy crew at Yunguilla Reserve
After our visit to the reserve we continued on to the city of Cuenca. The valley we drove through showed evidence of the substantial rain that had fallen recently. But little did we know how lucky we were. It the town below the Yunguilla Reserve on the afternoon after we left, this happened (not my video, posted to YouTube):
We got out just in the nick of time. The road we traveled on to Cuenca was closed for a good long time. With only one birding day left on our trip, and the highlight visit to El Cajas National Park still to come, we'd have been really screwed. Especially since our route back to Guayaquil and our flight home was washed away. Sometimes you just get lucky.
Our final day at El Cajas National Park was spectacular. This park is also in the Paramo habitat, in a valley that's reminiscent of Yosemite National Park if Yosemite was volcanic rock instead of granite. It's a series of mountain valleys carved by glaciers many eons ago and especially beautiful. We were here to see a number of Paramo specialty birds, many lifers, and one in particular had my attention. In this mountain range lives the cousin to our missed hillstar - the Ecuadorian Hillstar. While nowhere near as rare as the Blue-throated, the Ecuadorian Hillstar is a real looker and would be a nice consolation prize after missing the other one. We spent the morning there, found tons of great birds, and searched several patches of Chuquiraga flowers looking for the hillstar. And just when we thought we'd be skunked again, the magic happened. We found an adult male holding territory over one patch of flowers. Spectacular.
This wraps up our trip to Southern Ecuador. As always, a special thanks to Bird Ecuador for another great trip. To our driver Nestor, awesome bird finder and really great guy, thanks for keeping us safe. And to our guide Andres De la Torre, thanks as always for your friendship and outstanding bird finding skills. We hope to see you again real soon.
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