It was hard to believe that the Conference was over, but I still had a few days to look forward to at Tandayapa Lodge. So fond farewells over dinner, a short night’s sleep, and up again early to meet Tim and Debbie for a day’s birding with Nick.
The plan was to visit the blind at [...]

Every autumn there is that day when you wake up and the season has changed. Here in southeast Arizona, the humidity of the monsoon vanishes overnight, returning us to the bright skies and clear horizons we enjoy most of the year, and suddenly the heat no longer oppresses. And birders wake up and open their [...]

After Milpe I was ready for just about anything; but the feeders at the Mirador Rio Blanco were a shock all the same. This small restaurant has a very pleasant dining room with large windows and a fine deck overlooking (as the name suggests) the Rio Blanco (as the name suggests!). There are also small, [...]

 
It was an accident, but a happy one: my field trips at the ABA Conference started out at relatively “easy” sites with few species (by Ecuadorian standards, that is!) and ended with the riotous diversity of the Milpe area. I’d had to listen to returning groups every evening as they bragged over supper about how [...]

On the fourth day of the ABA Conference, I rose early, early to join The Lapwings on their exploration of the upper Tandayapa Valley, a fantastically beautiful (and birdy) stretch of cloud forest not far at all from Quito. I was especially looking forward to the day as a foretaste of the long weekend I [...]