Tsai's Nature Blog: Ecuador2016 4/6

Sept 3,4
San Isidro
This lodge, like the other places we'd stayed at, has a very good reputation for diversity of species, but our trip coincided with a quiet week here. The hummingbird and fruit feeders being empty quite some time before our arrival also did not help. The area around San Isidro became quite repetitive, so we spared a morning and an afternoon away from the street lights for going to other birdier spots that are not too far away. On our way to one such place, Mauricio was able to spot two nightjars on the side of the road.

Band-winged Nightjar

Spot #1
The destination is a restaurant, I think it is called Hollin, where we saw some new species of the trip and some of them are not to be seen by us again. So this drive was agreeably rewarding.
We are greeted by two species of tame parrots which I thought were pets, so we actually only looked at the Red Howler across the street. One of the parrots flew away before I realized that they are not pets.

Dusky-headed Parakeet

Red Howler

Russet-backed Oropendola

Golden-tailed Sapphire

White-bellied Woodstar

Callicore tolima

Diaethria clymena

Member of family Hesperiidae

Dragonfly

Spot #2

I have no idea what this area is called, but it was not easy to see the birds in the canopy here so the name is not too important. We walked about 2 km and photographed 2 birds.

Scarlet-bellied Mountain-Tanager

second bird of the trip

Green-and-Black Fruiteater

This guy is actually a Cotinga, which means it is related to the Cock-of-the-Rock and Umbrellabird to the family level.

a female beetle

Spot #3

River in the village by San Isidro.

This is supposed to be a good place to see the Torrent ducks so we came over more than 5 times in 2 days, after failing to find the ducks at Guango as well. So many tries finally yielded 3 ducks! The ducks my field guide labeled ''fairly common''

Torrent Duck

The one with white face on the right is a male, and the one on the left with the brown belly is a female.