Ecuador2016 1/6

It's been a long time since I last posted anything, but I am back to blog about my trip to the Andes in Ecuador last summer. Our tour was hosted by Mindo Bird Tour, and along with several other excellent site-specific guides. Since I took so many photos of so many species, I can only pick a few from every location.

Aug. 27, 2017, Quito

Before we started our birding trip, we stopped by old town in Quito to see some old buildings. Many of them in this area have concrete sculptures of different animals on the outside.

Tortoise decoration of a church.

Condor

Quito is almost 3000m above sea level so needless to say there are plenty of hills around. Wikipedia says that hill is called El Panecillo, and the statue is Virgin Mary.

A closer look at the statue.

Sep 29, 2016

Las Gralarias Lodge

We started west of Andes. Right on Mindo Bird Tour's own birding hot spot. The hummingbird feeders here attract a dozen species every day. The one that stood out to me the most is the Violet-tailed Sylph. They are quite abundant unique at the feeders.

Male Violet-tailed Sylph's tail is twice as long as the body.

Violet-tailed Sylph

Edit: Booted Raquettail

female

 Fawn-breasted Brilliant

Orange-bellied Euphonia

male

 female

 Blue-capped Tanager

 White-sided Flowerpiercer

 White-tailed Tyrannulet

 Masked Trogon

these are heard everyday too

male

 female

 Powerful Woodpecker

 Squirrel-tailed Cuckoo

Typo Edit: Moustached Antpitta

interestingly called Grallaria alleni and it was seen at Las Gralarias

Edit: forgot to include pictures of tanagers so here are 2.

Golden Tanager

 Flame-faced Tanager

Mountane Treecreeper

Honestly, I haven't studied treecreepers enough to tell them all apart, just put down the names I heard during some part of the trip.

a few non-birds

Tayra

The exciting adventure doesn't end when the sun goes down. At night, the surrounding environment is a whole new world. For me, the most exciting finds we had at Las Gralarias are these frogs.

Thanks to the resident guide Segundo Imba for working over time to help me find my first South American frogs.

Golden-fleckled Glass-Frog

Centrolene ballux

Doesn't look like it's having a great day after a rainless day. And that's probably why it didn't move very much.

 Pinochio Rain Frog

cool looking snout

 And some other frogs. Feel free to tell me what they are.

 I was also very lucky to find this cicada molting. The colors would probably change after a few hours, but I had to go get some sleep before more lifers show up in the morning.

I will slowly post more pictures in future posts about day 3 and so forth, but can't say when.

Thanks for watching. Enjoy your exotic trips :)