Our guide Juan is Kichwa, and grew up in these forests. An expert tracker and hunter, he's incredibly knowledge about all kinds of flora and fauna, and bird watching is one of his hobbies. He's fluent in several languages, so talking with him is incredibly easy. I wish I had more vocabulary and confidence, but still. And maybe because the day before hadn't been my day, with the headache, this particular morning was beyond everyone's expectations.
Truthfully. Juan said it was one of the best birding mornings he'd ever had. We saw more types of birds, and more gatherings of birds, than is normal. We saw birds he almost never sees. And best of all, the most amazing thing possible, we saw a quetzal.
Sadly, I don't have many photos. Birds, as you can imagine, aren't easy to photograph. However, we had good luck this day, but my SLR camera was not easy to use with the birding telescope. Hannele has most of the images, and she promised to send them. However, she's still traveling, and hasn't even posted them to her Facebook page yet. But when I get them, I'll add them back.
We started the day by canoe, transferring to bus for about 1.5 hours. Then we hiked through the forest for three hours. Back to the bus to get back to the canoe.... But here's a photo essay of the experience. Enjoy!
On the river. Juan and our professors.
Yes, the vehicle on the right is our bus. Yes, it has seats built onto the top. Yes, that's where we sat for birding. The photo below gives you a sense of how high up we were and how great the view. Yes, those are plantains on top of the bus.
Just a sense of the view, the ever-present green canopy.
I've no idea, but it was on one of the seats on the bus and was really pretty.
Yes, a toucan! We saw a number of them this morning. I think this is the channel-billed....
Actually, here's a partial list of what we saw that morning, and I think these are all the English names...
black vulture, red-headed woodpecker, chachalaca, silver-beaked tanager, yellow-bellied flycatcher, speckled chachalaca (it sounds like a duck), undulated tinamou, chestnut-eared arisari (toucanette), russet-backed oropendula (it's sound is like water, really fascinating), blue-headed parrot, spotted-breasted woodpecker, smooth-billed cuckoo, white-throated toucan, channel-billed toucan, lettered arisari, swallow-tailed kites, orange-backed troophill, white-eared jacamar, masked tityra, kingfisher, another flycatcher, blue-throated tanager, violaceous jay, roadside hawk, great pitoo, numerous humingbirds, golden-headed manaqui, plain-winged anshrike, resplendent quetzal, yellow-headed vulture, screaming pitona, grand pintaroo, amazonian trogon, short-tailed swift, common swift
Yes, it was amazing. We also saw blue morpho butterflies, small black mantle tamarin monkeys, damselflies, footprints of a guanta (a large rodent of the forest), all kinds of plants, etc. I used Juan's books also to figure out what I had seen in Mitad del Mundo -- it was like a hummingbird but had a tail about 2 feet long! Turns out, it was a violet tailed sylph. Beautiful.
The jacamar and the quetzal were the highlights. The jacamar was just sitting on a wire as we drove by. Juan was really surprised. Then we went into the forest....
Right away, we're surrounded by incredible plants. This is a protected area, one of the most important places on the planet because of species biodiversity and ecosystem value. Ecuador has less that 2% of the Amazon rainforest, yet the forest makes up more than 51% of the territory of Ecuador.
This looks like a ceiba, but actually is a parquía, of the leguminosa family. Then we saw this nest. OK, Juan saw it, and pointed it out so that we could all say we saw it.
Juan led us through. There weren't trails, but he knew where he was. When necessary, he used his machete to hack a path. He also used his machete to carve me a bastón, a walking stick, to help me with the descents. Climbs were fine, but descents, not always. However, it was so much fun!!
Canopy. So lush and green. Hard to believe how fast it's disappearing! :(
Somewhere in here is where we saw the quetzal. Juan had been calling them. He often hears them, he told me, but seldom sees them. They are very special in his culture, so this was really beyond hoping for.
This image is from the Cornell collection. While we all got a chance to see it, no one got a photo. The one we saw was a brilliant blue, not at all teal like in this image. So incredibly special.
Sorry, I don't have specifics here. Some type of a liana (vine) and some caterpillar.
Sharpening the machete on a river stone. Fruit of the cork tree! Not cork like the wine bottle cork, but a different cork. Yes, I brought it back. But I froze it when I returned, so all should be well.
Poison dart frog!
Paper ant nest.
Back to the canoe. Back to the village and lodge.
And a good thing too -- they were making a special traditional lunch for us this day, which we were supposed to help cook. And we were late!!
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