Birding and Bird Photography

We figured out the hummingbirds that we saw on the way to Tena that I posted a few posts back. Turns out we saw three different species. A Glittering-throated Emerald, a Long-billed Starthroat, and a Black-throated Mango. Sweet!

Back to Tena. We just spent one night, which was perfect because there wasn't all that much to do. The next morning my mom and I went on a little walk, but mostly stayed in the hotel courtyard because it was so green and there were tons of birds around!

Striated Heron by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Blue-necked Tanager by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Barbets are super weird!

Gilded Barbet by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Got a Manakin!
Golden-headed Manakin by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

My favorite from Tena:
Mottle-backed Elaenia by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

From Tena we drove up to a little town near the airport outside of Quito so we would be close to Antisana to get an early start to go see Condors the next day. On the way we saw these really impressive Cacique nests!

Cacique Nest by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

And then there were Andean Condors.

Andean Condor by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Andean Condor by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Andean Condor by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

We saw a good five or six condors just at those cliffs. Really cool!

While there we saw a few other typical high-altitude species, too.

Black Flowerpiercer by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Shining Sunbeam by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Giant Hummingbird by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Carunculated Caracara by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Andean Lapwing by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Carunculated Caracara by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

One of the rarer birds of the Paramo:
Black-faced Ibis by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

We stopped at Laguna de la Mica for some waterfowl and found a few bonuses, as well.

Tawny Antpitta by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Plumbeous Sierra-Finch by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Yellow-billed Pintail by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Silvery Grebe by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Chestnut-winged Cinclodes by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Another new hummingbird for me!
Ecuadorian Hillstar by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Black-tailed Trainbearer by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Got back to the hotel near the airport to find this flycatcher trying to swallow a giant beetle!
Streak-throated Bush-Tyrant by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

To give you an idea of the habitat...

The cliffs for the Condors:
Andean Condor Cliffs by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

High-altitude grasslands called Páramo:
Páramo in Antisana Ecological Reserve by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

The Laguna:
Laguna de la Mica by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

That was the day we found out that the volcano that my girlfriend had been living near was exploding, sending columns of ash 4km into the air. Scary stuff! It's still exploding, too... We moved farther away about a week ago, so we're fine.

Anywho, after Antisana we headed down to Mindo and spent the next three nights there before my parents had to return to the States.
We didn't do much upon arrival other than relax a bit after our early morning at Antisana, but the next day we toured around town and stopped by a hotel with many hummingbird feeders and hundreds of hummingbirds!

Lemon-rumped Tanager by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

House Wren by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Brown Violetear by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Andean Emerald by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Green-crowned Brilliant by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

White-whiskered Hermit by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Green Thorntail by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Black-throated Mango by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

They also had bananas up for tanagers and we saw a couple woodpeckers!
Lineated Woodpecker by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

White-necked Jacobin by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Masked Water-Tyrant by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Sharing "flowers"
Busy Feeders by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

There are a few more on Flickr, too, if you want to check them out.

 

The next day we left early and headed out to the reserve that I worked on last year, Reserva Las Tangaras. The entry trail was incredibly birdy, as usual!

Beryl-spangled Tanager by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Flame-faced Tanager by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

One of the bigger woodcreepers:
Strong-billed Woodcreeper by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Down at the lodge the hummingbird feeders were incredibly busy!

Green-crowned Woodnymph by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Empress Brilliant by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Brown Violetear by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Tropical Parula by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Purple-bibbed Whitetip by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

We did a hike around the preserve for most of the day. We went upstream for a ways and found a really pretty swimming hole where we ate lunch, then headed up the hill to get up to the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock lek area. We didn't get into the blind because we didn't have a guide and the lek was reportedly shifting, potentially due to disturbance from the blind, but we did get some great views regardless! After that we headed back down to the lodge, checked out some other swimming holes (too chilly and cloudy to swim, unfortunately), and then headed back out to some delicious pizza in town!

We saw a few banded birds in the area, too!

Banded Ornate Flycatcher by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

White-tailed Hillstar by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Got some great views of a Quetzal, but this was the best photo I got.
Golden-headed Quetzal by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Banded Andean Cock-of-the-rock by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Orange-bellied Euphonia by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

White-capped Dipper by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Habitat along the entry trail. Pretty dense!
Reserva Las Tangaras by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

On the last day of our trip we went to Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve on the way to Quito. Really amazing place for hummingbirds, tanagers, and all sorts of other cloud forest species!

Buff-tailed Coronet by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Masked Flowerpiercer by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

New flowerpiercer species for me:
White-sided Flowerpiercer by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

My 400mm lens was a little too big for these guys, and I left the 70-300 with my other stuff in Latacunga, so I ended up using my kit 18-55 lens and got nice and up close and personal.

Booted Racket-tail by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Fawn-breasted Brilliant by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Buff-tailed Coronet by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Gorgeted Sunangel by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Purple-throated Woodstar by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

Moar!

Purple-throated Woodstar by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Golden-crowned Flycatcher by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Montane Woodcreeper by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Got some really phenomenal views of Masked Trogons. They're really weird because they sit and move their head around suuuuper sloooowwwlllyyy while looking for insects, and then they fly surprisingly quickly to catch their prey.

Masked Trogon by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Masked Trogon by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Masked Trogon by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

Lots of other good species in there, too. Some of them were new for me!

Slate-throated Whitestart by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Russet-crowned Warbler by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

White-winged Brush-Finch by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Blue-winged Mountain-Tanager by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Red-headed Barbet by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

One of my favorite hummingbirds:
Collared Inca by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

And that was the trip!

Now back to you guys

 

Perfect!

 

Haha, I've tripped many times looking for them while walking! There were some trails where if you fell downhill you wouldn't stop until you hit the river after a good 75-100 foot drop, so it was a little more important to ignore the birds and watch the trail. Most places we were just sitting and watching the birds go by, though.

It was crazy! I nearly got hit in the head by an errant bird a few times. That particular photo was kinda unusual that they were sharing so well. I wasn't able to capture it, but right before I took the picture they had both beaks in the flower at the same time! I think the other spots had been taken when they landed, which explains the open spots.

 

I'm new to video posting, but the flickr videos are terrible at loading while youtube has terrible quality... any suggestions?

Edit: figured it out. I just ran the videos through the gopro software and exported them in a better format and youtube likes it more. Look in higher quality and it's better!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P9Ezt6-_k0

 

Back in January, I mentioned they'd found a bunch of birds fouled by some mysterious substance. Today, they identified the stuff-"a vegetable oil like substance"...no idea where it came from either.

 

Huh, interesting and very sad. I was wondering about that a few weeks ago. Thanks for the update!

 

I'll be interested to see what they decide. I did a bit of work related to them in a lab in Davis and know of a few other people in different labs that all worked with them.