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 Tandayapa for the early-morning show, then head back to the diverse wonders of Milpe, ending up at Tandayapa again to check in and get a night’s sleep.

I hadn’t managed to visit the blind on our quick visit during the conference, so it was a thrill to walk out the short path in the pre-dawn darkness. The set-up is perfect: a large, comfortable wooden blind with benches and a derelict chair, big viewing windows, and two neatly framed compost piles illuminated by a yellow light of the sort we use to light up our front sidewalk. Though it was still dark, a pair of Immaculate Antbirds was already coming in for the moths and other insects; they were beautiful birds but none too friendly, beating up on a Chestnut-capped Brushfinch that presumed to share the bounty. Russet-capped Warblers hopped around the light, snagging the smaller insects, while White-tipped Doves moved quietly through the undergrowth in the background. A magical place, and I immediately forged plans to light up our compost heap here at home (plans I had to give up once I remembered that our compost is in a big, covered plastic bin!).

One species that eluded us during our short stay in the blind was White-throated Quail-Dove; we took it as a good sign that one was walking quietly along the trail beside us when we left!

Milpe was amazing once again. A Squirrel Cuckoo met us when we stepped out of the van at the preserve; he was relatively bold and brash until he saw the camera, then started slipping squirrel-like through the leafy branches.

The hummingbird party was going full-steam, too, with White-whiskered Hermits zipping in and out and those crazy little Green Thorntails doing their insect imitations. A Purple-crowned Fairy, the only one for me of the trip, flashed past, too. Collared Trogons, a species we had somehow missed on the conference field trip, added to the color and to the noise, but neither Choco Toucan nor Pale-billed Aracari dropped in while we were there.

Back to Tandayapa, this time with a target in mind. I’d had great looks at Turquoise Jay at Guango during the week, and this species would turn out to be fairly common and fairly conspicuous during my stay at Tandayapa. Not so the other jay of the Ecuadorian cloud forest; but Nick knew a spot…. And it didn’t take long before we were enjoying great and close-up views of 4 Beautiful Jays, deep blue-black creatures wearing sky-blue crowns and shouting at the tops of their corvid lungs at us as they moved through the roadside brush.

The evening featured great birds like Andean Pygmy-Owl and Band-winged Nightjar (I was looking the other way when the Swallow-tailed Nightjar fluttered past); but for me, the whole day belonged to the jay that deserves its name.

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, neat ”tourist cabin” rooms in the courtyard, and I think next time I’m in Ecuador I will try to stay a night or a month there.

The feeders were, simply put, incredible. Green Thorntails and half a dozen other hummingbird species were perching on birders’ fingers in their frenzy (the hummingbirds’ frenzy, though we birders were getting pretty out of control by then too!). Tanager flocks dropped in to lay waste to the fruit feeders.

And when we arrived, we heard, and quickly dismissed, the rumor that a White-throated Quail-Dove was feeding on grain beneath one of the trays. It was no rumor: the wily and elusive quail-dove fed quietly on the edge of the vegetation, three feet under the picture window, the entire time we were there! And three or four Pallid Doves, reputed to be equally reclusive, were in sight almost constantly as they toddled up and down a bare path out the front door.

A spectacular place worth visiting if you ever get a chance–one of the really wonderful surprises of a wonderful week.

 

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 many birds they’d seen and how well they’d seen them, but now, September 6, the last day of the conference (already!!), it was my turn to be delighted and overwhelmed.

Hardly had we stepped into the parking lot at the Milpe Preserve when we were assaulted by new birds from all sides. My very first bird on stumbling off the bus with the rest of The Manakins was a male Green Thorntail, perched nonchalantly at the tip of a bush, soaking in the warmth of the morning air and our admiration.

This species, another one of those tiny hummingbirds with outlandish tails, turned out to be even weirder in life than in the field guides; the little females, with their oddly pied plumage, were very bee-like, while the males’ long pointed rectrices resemble the abdomen of a dragonfly in flight.

We did our best to get into the woods, but such feeder-wonders as Green Honeycreepers and Silver-throated Tanagers slowed us down; a Broad-billed Motmot brought us from a birding crawl to a complete stop as it posed above the trail for us.

“Most-wanteds” just kept popping up as we went along Two Choco Toucans flew across the road, landing in sight for outstanding scope views. A blur of color resolved itself into a Pale-mandibled Aracari; I was so taken aback by the beauty of this creature that I didn’t even participate in the ensuing debate on the use of the cedilla in English (imagine that).

It’s funny how toucans can still take your breath away, all those years of cereal commercials notwithstanding.

So many, many birds! Impossible to choose a favorite, but here’s a strong candidate: my ‘lifer’ Snowy-throated Kingbird, an austral migrant enjoying its stay on the wintering grounds in Ecuador.

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 would be spending at Tandayapa Lodge after the conference ended.

The views alone would be enough for most people, but we were excited to discover that those lovely trees and thickets were full of birds, too. A family of Plain-tailed Wrens played a noisy game of hide-and-seek with the guide’s iPod, finally emerging into clear view in a hole in their bamboo fastness. As we moved up and down the road through the upper valley, Slate-throated Whitestarts overlapped with Spectacled Whitestarts, Tropical Parulas with Three-striped Warblers, and even that most musical of all New World warblers, Russet-crowned Warbler, deigned to let itself be glimpsed in between snatches of melody.

Naturally, the tanager show was excellent, and I experienced more than one of those classic neotropical moments of indecision: to stay on the bird that is showing well, or to try for glimpses of its sneakier flockmates darting through the foliage? I no doubt made the wrong decision a time or two, but what can you do when your eyes land on a bird as beautiful and bizarre as a Grass-green Tanager?

Watching the sky paid off well that morning, too. With the warming of the day, a pair of Hook-billed Kites came up to soar not far over us, and a Short-tailed Hawk, long one of my favorite buteos, lifted off from the trees to start a day of hunting canopy habitats we couldn’t even see from the ground.

Our own lunch was taken at the Lodge, where there was no shortage of distractions out on the deck. I’ll no doubt have more to say about the hummingbirds, but for now will simply note that Bananaquits really like a good gulp of sugarwater too!