Ecuador Birding Trip

Tuesday, January 27

Barbara’s Notes

Today we were tromping through the mud on the Tiputini Trail. After our usual 5am wake up “Good Morning” at our door, we prepared for the hike and went to the lodge for breakfast. By 6:15am we were off in a canoe headed for the trail. Marcello was our guide and he had an assistant/scope and macheté bearer.

The past three days of outings have been rain free. This is very unusual. Imagine the mud to tromp through if it were raining...

The hike was from 6:30am-1:00pm, 6.5 hours, three kilometers in and three out with lots of side trips for bird searches. Sometimes Marcello created a path with a macheté. We had a pleasant break mid-way, sitting on logs covered with palm fronds and rain ponchos for a drink and a snack.

I was hot, but I was pretty comfortable wearing Bill’s all mesh bug jacket – he used repellent. And I appreciated my new wide binocular harness.

A challenge was avoiding ants. We were on the outlook for ant birds and, of course, they like to hang around their favorite food source. Bill and I both got some bites as ants crawled up and into our boots and seemed to be able to bite through socks.

We forded several streams on logs. Marcello kept reminding us to use railings and not to grab trees for support: “No touch – fire ants”.

Dot-backed Antbird	White-fronted Nunbird

Marcello has an uncanny ability to spot birds. A very quick eye. As well, he took a few digiscope photos for us and we are extremely pleased with the quality. He is very excited when he spots something and is particular that we all see it: “Come here. Stand back of me. See dot (laser pointer). Everybody see?” He chastised Tony for wearing a “too bright” shirt (dark turquoise blue).

Great Jacamar	Black-faced Antbird

Black-necked Red-Cotinga	Black-necked Red-Cotinga

	White-chested Puffbird

Purplish Jacamar

	Poison Dart Frog

Lesser Kiskadee	Snowy Egret

Back to our cabin at 1:15pm for a quick wash of all our clothes (sweaty) and our boots (muddy top to bottom).
After lunch we had a break until 3:45pm when we watched a short presentation about Ecuador by Andrés.

	Smooth-billed Ani

Yellow-browed Sparrow	Silver-beaked Tanager female

We then divided into two groups for an afternoon/early evening hike. We selected to go to the canopy tower again. A beautiful sunset view. We tried to call in owls on the way back, but our only sighting was a Common Potoo-very cute at the top of a dead post and a pair of Marbled Wood-quail perched for the night.

	Snail Kite

Scale-breasted Woodpecker	Cinnamon-throated Woodcreeper

Cinnamon-throated Woodcreeper	Marbled Wood-quail