Help with location choices - february trip (2 Viewers)

[nicolas1970i]

Hi,

Just wanted to give a quick feedback after my return from Ecuador.

First of all, I wasn't able to rent the car I had booked (with Hertz) : as I had chosen the option with the most basic insurance cover, at the airport office they wanted to pre-charge $5000 on my card, which my bank didn't allow. I had the option of lowering that amount to $1200 for a better cover, at an extra daily cost of $15 (on top of the $540 for the basic package). I figured it wasn't really worth it - I only really needed the car to visit Antisana and Papallacta (and possibly Guacayamos Ridge) - so I had to give up on those, unfortunately.

So in the end I traveled by bus and the occasional taxi, didn't really waste too much time (except the first day, which was the friday before carnival), and spent $150 in total, instead of ~$800 had I rented the car.

Of all the species of bird I saw, I managed to identify by myself 44 at Guango (where it rained most of the time), 69 at Bigal River, 82 at Wildsumaco and 53 at San Isidro, so ~200 in total, not double-counting those that I saw at several of those locations.

I was a bit disappointed, I expected more (say 300+), but towards the end birding fatigue was starting to set in : I found the choice between craning my neck to look at tiny passerines up the trees 50 yards away, or walking the forest trails without hearing or seeing anything, less appealing by the day!
The owner at Wildsumaco told me birding here was "as hard as it got" in Ecuador, and a guide I met also opined that it was easier on the western side, due to the different vegetation type (he was from Mindo). Something I might consider for next time.

That said, I had a lot of fun, which is what I wanted. :t:

Thanks again to all those who took time to give me tips here, that was most helpful.

Nick

 

[ptickner]

That said, I had a lot of fun, which is what I wanted. :t:

That's the most important part of any trip. I've found that on some birding trips, especially in a place like Ecuador, it is all too easy to get hung up on numbers and forget about having fun. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself!

 

[gdhunter]

Of all the species of bird I saw, I managed to identify by myself 44 at Guango (where it rained most of the time), 69 at Bigal River, 82 at Wildsumaco and 53 at San Isidro, so ~200 in total, not double-counting those that I saw at several of those locations.

Thanks for the informative update. The wording of your report leads me to one question, however. You cited the number of species you managed to identify on your own (which will probably exceed the self-identified species for me later this year at some of the same places). However, I'm also planning on a fair amount of guided birding, and wonder if you availed yourself of similar expertise (and if so how that influenced the total species count for the trip).

Gary H

 

[nicolas1970i]

Hi Gary,

No, I did it all by myself
I did meet some guided groups in some of the places I stayed (Wildsumaco and San Isidro) : for some reason I'm not attracted at all to that type of birding.

The way I see it, a guide would have made a difference in two ways :

. my ID count would have been higher, sometimes removing a doubt I had (is that a western or an eastern wood peewee?), or simply putting a name to a bird I barely saw flying by.

. the guide would have shown me more birds that I would have neglected on my own : often, you look up a far away tree and you see lots of roughly same-sized passerines, so you point your binoculars at them, and then you find out that most of them are species you've already seen, so you then stop looking. When you're watching a mixed flock feeding, there's a lot of movement going on and it's not easy to keep track of birds, you get distracted when one leaves your field of vision and another enters it, so it can get very confusing. A guide here helps a lot because he can recognize the vocalizations and point you towards a bird of interest (for example, a black-billed peppershrike in a flock of otherwise very common birds). That said, one of the guys I met at Wildsumaco that was part of a group (of 8) told me that on Guacayamos Ridge they stared for an hour at a bush where an Ocellated Tapaculo was calling, and yet only one person in the group managed to see it!
Also, some birds are very localized : a guy that was working at Wildsumaco took me to the main road (~6km form the lodge) when I left, and as we were driving down the access road, I remember him saying, pointing at specific places, "and here lives a Collared Forrest Falcon... and there there's a such-and-such crake or rail (can't remember the exact species)", which means that you could be walking miles looking for those birds and having no chance at all to see them, since they seem to be found in a very specific territory.

To me, the first point carries no "added value" : what I'm interested is being able to get a good enough view of the birds - I treat the whole thing more like a game - so if someone gives me the name of a bird that I haven't seen, or that is indistinguishable from another, that makes no difference to me.

The second aspect is more relevant, but not to the point where I would relinquish the pleasure I take in trying to discover the birds by myself.

 

[temmie]

How was Bigal in general, and for birding in particular?

 

[nicolas1970i]

Considering how difficult I found birding in the forest in general, my opinion is probably not the best informed.

Bigal has very basic infrastructures - there's a main wooden building with a kitchen and rest area on the groundfloor (separate dry pit toilets and rain water showers - there's no electricity) and tents on the first floor with "proper" mattresses.

I kinda misinterpreted what I read before going, I was under the impression that the reserve was lower - down to 400m - but in fact as far as I know there is no acces to that elevation (if it is at all encompassed within the reserve), the trails are all at ~900m. So it is in fact a foothill habitat, and I found more or less the same birds at Wildsumaco.

From what Thierry (the owner/manager of the reserve) told me, most birders visit to see the Pink-Throated Brilliant - Bigal is supposedly one of the best places for that. I didn't spot it myself - I don't think that it is straightforward.

There are a few forest trails, of which a loop that can take a 4-5 hours to walk, and also a "road" that skirts the forest for about 3km, which is were I obviously saw most birds. Before you get to the reserve you walk along some fields where you can find disturbed habitat birds.

Here are a few of the more "interesting" birds I saw :

White Hawk, Mealy Amazon, White-Throated Toucan, Blackish and Spot-Backed Antbirds, Short-Tailed Antthrush, Plain Backed Antpitta, White-Crowned Manakin along the forest trails

Maroon-Tailed Parakeet, Blackish Nightjar (one pair with chick was roosting just off the campground), Collared, Blue-Crowned and Green-Backed Trogon, Rufous-Breasted Piculet, Black-Colored and Black-Faced Antbirds, Fasciated and Plain-Winged Antshrikes, Blackish Peewee, Amazonian Umbrellabird, Cerulean Warbler, and a bunch of Tanagers along the forest road

Common Piping-Guan, Military Macaw, Chestnut-Eared Aracari, a few Woodpecker and Oropendola species in the more open areas.

 

[gdhunter]

I did meet some guided groups in some of the places I stayed (Wildsumaco and San Isidro) : for some reason I'm not attracted at all to that type of birding.

When it comes to large groups I share your aversion. However, when three or four friends pool resources to retain a local guide in an exclusive capacity it has proven for me at least reasonably unobtrusive and decidedly more productive not just in terms of species count (which isn't unimportant to all of us) but also in terms of observing & understanding behavioral & vocal nuances. And though our motives are by no means altruistic, we find some consolation in promoting the financial well-being of locals who are pursuing livelihoods other than resource exploitation & extraction.

Having said that, I still enjoy healthy doses of solitary birding without guides as a way to test just how much I've learned from those opportunities.

Gary H

 

[njlarsen]

I am similar to Gary: I like to be with a guide early in a visit to a new place but doing the rest of my birding on my own/together with my wife.

Niels

 

[temmie]

Blackish Pewee is a very good bird! There are some other interesting birds on your list, too... It seems you didn't see the big numbers, but you saw some great birds and probably missed some of the common species (flycatchers, tapaculos, woodcreepers, tanagers...) that are sometimes hard to ID.

 

[nicolas1970i]

The Blackish Peewee was relatively easy to see and to ID (by deduction) - it was resting on a branch over the forest road, I saw it on several occasions.
The Nightjar was also ID-able, in the end, because it was resting on the road during the day (with chick), I had all the time in the world to make sure I had seen all its plumage marks.

I ID'd 15 Honeycreepers/Tanagers/Bush-Tanagers - these were realtively easy, but none of them that I would define as "sought-after" species.

I must have seen plenty of woodcreepers and flycatchers, but these I found a lot more difficult to ID. The only ones I was sure about were Rufous-Rumped Foliage-gleaner and Wedge-billed Woodcreeper (possibly also Plain-brown), and the most common flycatchers : Long-tailed Tyrant (open areas), Western or Eastern Wood-Peewee, Ornate and Tawny-breasted Flycatchers.

I didn't see ONE Tapaculo in the whole trip - they stayed well out of sight (although I could hear them very close)!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that a Nocturnal Curassow comes to call very close to camp at night