Ecuador: Colorful Tandayapa
ByNorthwest Ecuador is teeming with birds of subtle charm: Brown-backed Chat-Tyrant, for example, was my first lifer this time around, and Yellow-bellied Chat-Tyrant my last; both are absolutely beautiful flycatchers, but perhaps not what most people think of when they imagine birding the tropics.
Tandayapa Bird Lodge is ideal for getting to see many of those more colorful birds. The couple of days I had there were great for such birds as Red-billed Parrots in fast-flying flocks and tanagers in the treetops.
Blue-winged Mountain-Tanagers were among my favorites: big, bright, and conspicuous, even visiting feeders over breakfast (theirs and mine) for great views.
A common sound in the cloud forest was the hawk-like keening of Golden-headed Quetzals. We didn’t actually see many of these rather reclusive birds, but this one sat for its portrait, nicely showing off the fringed upper-tail coverts that nearly conceal the black rectrices.
And Tandayapa was a wonderful place for watching Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan, to my mind the Choco endemic: beautiful, big, and classic in its tropical beauty.
Now that’s the cloud forest: fog, epiphytes, and toucans!
1 Comments
May 24th, 2010 at 11:37 am
My name is Srdjan, I’m 36 years old, I live in Serbia (ex Yugoslavia). I adore wild animals, especially birds, and lots of my free time, I spend in the nature watching and learning about them. I don’t have proper place for keeping them, so instead of that I have another obsession, I keep the birds’ feathers. I have collected about 1000 different kinds of feathers so far. All of them are classified according to Latin terms, the place and the date when I found them. Europe is poor with these species, so in my opinion it is a success. I didn’t harm any individual in any way. I turn to you in this way, hoping that you can help me to enlarge my collection. I have a lot of literature about birds, so if you do have any promotion material you can send me. I would like to have it in my library collection, or you can send me anything as a cherished souvenir.
I send my greetings to you, and I hope that at least you will send me the answer back.
Nice website !
Sincerely yours,
Srdjan Cuturilov
My address: Cuturilov Srdjan
Zarka Zrenjanina Street No 120
21235 Temerin
Serbia