Cinammon Fly Catcher

Ecuador: Birds of the High Andes 7

 ... continued from yesterday....

If you've been following my journal over the course of this trip, it will come as no surprise to you that we were up before dawn once again, although as we were leaving breakfast till later, it was a more leisurely 5:30am start.  

It rained pretty constantly last night (but then this is the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest so that rather comes with the territory.  We didn't have far to walk through the wet this morning however, as the Guango lodge had a hide purposed for viewing early morning birds. Having become a bit of an aficionado of these things now(!), I wouldn't say that it was one of the best, and certainly not that great for photography as they had placed a large moth trap in the middle of the viewing area, with the result that for nearly everyone a good 35% of the viewing area was obscured by the trap.  Also, as the moon is just about full now, there were fewer moths in the trap which meant correspondingly fewer birds visiting.  Even so, there were a number of new species visiting which kept me busy.

After breakfast we headed out uphill on the reserve's trails.  We are still around 2500m high, so we took things slowly on the muddy trail.  There were lots of calls from the Guide  to "watch out, slippy here" but no one fell or hurt themselves so all was good.  As we climbed we were able to look over the valley, seeing Toucans amongst other the various Tanagers etc.  On our way back down the hill we detoured to the nearby river, which is a fast flowing mountain torrent.  In the event there were no Torrent ducks or Dippers to see - but a Black and Chestnut Eagle was visible on the far side of the valley. Sadly too far away for a decent photograph, but fascinating to see.  

Around noon we headed off to the San Isidoro reserve and lodge for lunch and further birds.  That is where I managed to grab the shot of the Cinammon Fly Catcher which features as the main image.  It was also here that I managed to spot the Summer Tanager - the very red bird which is one of the extras.  We really don't have birds this colour in the UK.

On the way back we stopped in at El Quetzal - another privately owned nature reserve.  Although it was raining at this stage, there were some marvellous Purple Throated Woodstars dashing around the flowers (a humming bird which is about the size of a large bumble bee).

With the light going, we headed back to the Lodge for our last supper together - most of the group are  flying back to the UK tomorrow evening.  We won't be leaving until after lunch, so there is still time for a little more birding in the morning.

So with the rain pattering on the roof (yet again) we headed to bed.